Voice through time

Wednesday, 21 December 2016 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Through a grainy audio recording the voice of slain The Sunday Leader editor Lasantha Wickrematunge once again echoes through Sri Lanka. Leaked yesterday through an online platform, the recording is of a telephone conversation between Lasantha and then President Mahinda Rajapaksa, whose corrupt regime The Sunday Leader heavily reported on. But with a new regime in power, justice is still far out on the horizon.

Much ink has been spilt on the murder of Lasantha Wickrematunge. Despite a long list of media personnel slain in the line of duty over the course of Sri Lanka’s bloody insurrections and civil war, Lasantha’s murder, more than others, galvanised both the domestic and internationally community. Yet despite promises from then Opposition UNP members during the last elections, little progress has been made in investigations into Lasantha’s murder.

Photographs from Lasantha’s burial depict protestors and then Opposition UNP bigwigs like Ranil Wickremesinghe, Ravi Karunanayake, Karu Jayasuriya and Rauff Hakeem taking centre stage. These men, who comprised some of Lasantha’s closest allies and contacts during the Rajapaksa regime, now sit in power. Some are even accused of the kinds of gross corruption that Lasantha and his colleagues painstakingly reported on in The Sunday Leader. They have thus failed to offer anything other than a few words and more questions regarding the murder of Lasantha.

It is easy to think of the slain journo in grand terms, embedding him into narratives that herald the supremacy of the fourth estate or the virtues of free speech and democracy. But to those who actually knew him, Lasantha was not a symbol but a man of flesh and blood - a beloved father, husband, friend, mentor and colleague. These people remember his warmth and humour, and his company through some of their best and worst times. Worst of all, they remember his absence, and the failure of any relevant authority to avenge his loss.

Indeed, it is the feeling of this profound human loss that is missing from the cold-hearted analysis and realpolitik that follows any mention of the name Lasantha Wickrematunge in contemporary Sri Lankan society. It is not the gaudy editorials or journalistic bravado that made the man, but his positive relation to a network of people which is now forever scarred by his assassination.

Come January it will be eight years since his assassination. Witnesses have come, gone and come again; suspects have been remanded, re-remanded, re-re-remanded and died. Worst of all, Lasantha’s own corpse has been exhumed with seemingly nothing gained from it thus far. This Christmas, while the UNP drinks and makes merry, celebrating a year in power, Lasantha’s closest friends and family will pause for a bitter and painful moment, recalling a laugh they’ll never hear again until the next big leak.