Death in Sri Lanka, and the man who wrote his own obituary

The motorbikes weaved in and out of the traffic to surround the dark blue sedan making its fitful way through Colombo’s rush-hour traffic. One rider drew up alongside the right-hand side of the sedan, reached across and smashed the car’s window with the butt of his revolver, He then fired two rapid shots into the head and body of Lasantha Wickrematunge—who would die within hours at one of Colombo’s clean, well-equipped hospitals.

Summary executions, assassinations and torture are an increasing part of daily life in Sri Lanka. Lasantha knew that he was going to die. As the outspoken editor of one the country’s leading weekly broadsheets, The Sunday Leader, he was at the forefront of criticism of the government. A government that has supported and promoted a range of human rights abuses including torture, suppression of the media and the judiciary; random detention of citizens from the Tamil ethnic minority, and the recruitment of child soldiers to fight in Sri Lanka’s dismal, dirty little war. A government, led by a former human rights activist, that has done more in just four years to suppress opposition and unwind state protections than any other in the country’s short and tawdry post-colonial history.

Before Lasantha was assassinated on 8th January he drafted an editorial. It was published three days after his death. As a piece of journalism, it is an extraordinary, powerful and poignant piece of writing. It lays bare the pressure that people are under in Sri Lanka, especially the media; the way in which the powerful trample unfettered over the powerless, and the aching tragedy of this country. But above all, it is tremendously sad that another courageous man has been killed and, as he says, there will be one less voice to speak out when they come for me. Read it here.