The Sri Lankan Ministry of Defence has just issued a rather unusual Press Release consisting of a tirade against a
(Sri Lanka) journalist, Iqbal Athas. In one part Athas is described as a "dung writer".
5/9/2008 11:55:28
Iqbal Athas - Haunted by his own disturbed mind --Defence Ministry responds to Sunday Times columnist Mr. Iqbal Athas, the defence columnist of Sunday Times, seems to be disturbed by our exposure of his role in the pro-terrorist propaganda machine. In response he has made several serious allegations against the defence authorities in his column titled from a military acronym SITREP or Situation Report published on the Sunday Times on the 4th May. While acknowledging his freedom to publish any fiction or whatever personal grievances he has in a newspaper, we would like to clarify the following issues since they are subtly but implicitly aimed at attacking the integrity of the defence authorities.
Firstly, Mr. Athas alludes that the defence authorities have embarked on an "official mission" to trace him and intimidate him about his work. Like in all his unsubstantiated "situation reports", here too he fails to give any details but writes a few fictitious sentences that best suits a cheap detective novel than a serious defence analysis. He says he is being hunted by some "suspicious characters wielding pistols or grenades, stalking outside his home," "motorbike riders" following him and other scary stuff. He creates a ridiculous image of intelligence officials in this country having no other work than go behind the stooges of terror stooges in the media, at a time when the war against terrorism is at its fullest.
Dear Mr. Athas, do you seriously believe that the defence authorities in this country are silly enough to deploy intelligence officers to follow a dung writers like you? It is time for you to understand that the game has been up for sometime for all stooges of terror in this country who operates under the most righteous facades such as free media, civil rights, human rights, peace building, etc. The public are increasingly aware about these sociopaths, despite their extravagant ballyhoos carried on through the media and other forums. Every member of the armed forces in this country have embarked on the noble mission - of ridding the country of terrorism and have no time or resources to play the fool with people like you. The moment of truth is approaching for this nation and time will place the scum of the earth at the right place in the country's history.
Secondly, in his article Mr. Athas charges the defence authorities of curbing press freedom. He calls Sri Lanka is "a country where media freedom is violated with impunity". We would like to ask Mr. Athas, if Sri Lanka has no press freedom, how a person like him got so rich by publishing fiction on defence on a widely circulated newspaper. Has anybody hindered your work other than exposing your motives using the same medium you use - namely the media? As a senior journalist you must be aware of the fact that the "right to respond" is equally recognized in press freedom as the "right to inform". It is possible that in your case seniority in years does not give you wisdom.
We would request all who think that defence.lk has been too harsh on Mr. Athas, to analyse his work during past two and half years. His work is freely available in the archives of the Sunday Times website (
www.sundaytimes.lk). All his work if carefully analysed revolving around several themes out of which the followings are the most prominent: *
That the security forces are inferior to his "Guerrillas", so the soldiers would never win this battle - (Ex: Scepticism on security forces' victories - particularly in the east) *
Security Forces commanders are incompetent and have no integrity (Ex: false stories on Extravagant personal lives, back-stabbings, frauds, etc ) *
Defence Ministry officials are engaged in mass frauds (Ex: Mig 27 fallacy) *
Security Forces have lesser morale (Ex: Military "debacles") *
Government has no genuine need to end this war (Ex: alleged Politicising of military operations) *
Security Forces members lack discipline and are disloyal to command (Ex: pretending to have lot of informants among security forces' members, ) *
Government is lying to the public on the battlefield realities (Ex: hyperbolic statements on damages to security forces)
The themes themselves give away the sinister motives behind them, such as building the terrorists' image, damaging public support and their faith in the security forces, damaging discipline, loyalty and morale of the security forces members, creating clashes among the senior ranks, etc. So, we would ask our viewers who else other than Mr. Athas they would identify with these aims? He has been acting as the doomsayer for all past operations wowing that the soldiers are going to fail; he has been the forerunner in propagating false stories such as Mig 27 fraud; he has been the best inflator of security forces damages like what he did at Anuradhapura airbase attack and Muhamalai "debacle". So, in our view Mr. Athas deserves a kind of a response that we have given.
Fourthly, Mr. Athas charges the government for declaring "war on - the media". He says that those who do not toe the line with the government "become victims of vicious campaigns orchestrated by those who are embarrassed by nothing but the truth". In our view, it is Mr. Athas himself, and not us who has been embarrassed by the truth. He should not find fault with the defence authorities for failure of his doomsday predictions, false allegations and all the other wired defence analysis given in his Situation Reports. Also, we stand by with good grounds, in our recognition of Mr. Athas' association with LTTE's propaganda work or the psychological operations in the strict military sense.
Psychological operation or PSYOP are operations planned to convey selected information and indicators to influence the emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behaviour of the receivers or the target audience. These types of operations are employed to undermine the opponent's will to wage war, boost morale of own forces, gather vital information and etc. Simply, it is an activity of informing and influencing the target audience to behave in a way favourable to the originator's objectives. Those who engaged in PSYOP have well defined missions and direct their operations on carefully selected themes called PSYOP themes. Thus, Mr. Athas, you may understand that it is nothing personal or any embarrassment caused by any of your "Exposures" that made us to call you a "terror propagandist".
On the other hand, if one argues that Mr. Athas is a strict reporter who has been engaged in an "arduous" task of keeping the public informed on the recent development in battle, we will show how he is not.
In professional journalism it is a norm to declare sources, particularly when reporting the deaths and casualties. In his first article on the 27th April, Mr. Athas citing the controversial NGO - Free Media Movement - said that soldiers numbering "hundreds" were killed. According to our little knowledge of the foreign language, when you say "hundreds" it means any number above 200 given in units of hundred. Then, in his most recent article, Mr. Athas says "...more than a hundred soldiers were killed and 355 (now confirmed) were wounded making the incident the worst since the Government launched its own "war on terror". Here he gives no source but shamelessly turns the blame towards the government for fighting "its own war on terror" against his own guerrillas.
Here we would like to make an open invitation to any recognized organization that takes Mr. Athas' service as a defence correspondent to verify the casualty figures with us. As a well-established military, all the details of deaths and casualties are properly documented by the Administration Department of Sri Lanka Army. In this incident, the number of soldiers killed in action (KIA) is 91, number of missing in action (MIA) is 3 and all the number of casualties including Priority Categories 1, 2 and 3 is 352. All these details were published a week before that Mr. Athas published his latest article.
It is indeed a great loss of lives, but inflating it to any number above 200, is certainly an abominable journalistic treachery against the public. If such an organization is keen enough to know how we obtained the terror deaths and casualties that Mr. Athas is so keen to conceal, that too can be done with solid proof. This is one reason that we say that we are not worried about Mr. Athas' work as he claims. We know well that if he had such large number of "independent and reliable sources" in the battlefront he would surely avoid being hoisted with his own petard. By the way, Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake speaking at the Emergency Debate in Parliament today (May 6), declared the total number of security forces personnel (including Army, Navy, Air Force, Police, STF, and Civil Defence Force) killed in action for the month of April as 120.
Fifthly, if Mr. Athas' version of battle is correct, our soldiers had fallen to a trap of his "clever guerrillas" and died in "hundreds" while running for their lives. This is probably why he is calling this battle as a great "debacle", and also the "worst" one that happened under this government. So, if Mr. Athas is correct, the army is still at their original positions worrying over the mistake they had made. We would like to invite those interested parties to visit the Muhamalai line and to see whether the soldiers had advanced or not. A loss of soldiers, whether it is one or in "hundreds" is a painful experience to the service. There was an incident, not so long ago, when the terrorists had murdered equal number of unarmed navy sailors who were going home, in a cowardly suicide blast. It is a great shame if anyone enrapture on the deaths of soldiers who fell whilst fighting fearlessly with enemy at the battlefront.
Finally, we would like our viewers to remember that the LTTE is the most brutal terror organization known to the mankind. No other organization has burnt babies alive, chopped children into pieces, ripped pregnant mothers, massacred tens and thousands of innocent civilians in ethnic cleansing raids, bus bombings, claymore bombings, train bombings, suicide blasts, etc.
However, in this country there are a limited number of people who thrive on this common menace. For them fighting against terrorism is just the government's "own war on terror"; those who murder their fellow brethren are just "clever guerrillas" ; and the armed forces' members are just numbers whose deaths they can thrive on for good news copy or twisted columns. Interestingly, these people can not only carryout their treachery without any social pressure but also show themselves as some sort of crusaders among the public. So, it is for the discernible people of this country to decide whether any other country has a media freedom as Sri Lanka has.
On the other hand, Mr. Athas complains that he has not received any flowers for the "arduous" task that he has been doing by informing the public about his own "Elam War IV". In our view, Mr. Athas should seek flowers from the terrorists and not anybody else for his great propaganda contribution to the Eelam cause and the terrorist outfit as well. One should not forget that there are a number of defence reporters in this country who do a thankless job in reporting the Sri Lanka 's "war on terror", or "Eelam War 4" as Mr. Athas likes to term it. Unlike Mr. Athas who analyses the battlefront from his armchair in the home front, these reporters regularly visit the battlefront; talk to the soldiers and sometimes share the risks of the battle with them. If Mr. Athas is correct, all these media personnel are just government stooges whose work is not as serious as his.
It may be possible for a person with a disturbed consciousness to see crocodiles in his teacup. However, as the official website of the Ministry of Defence, we consider it our duty to expose the true motives behind all propaganda attempts supportive of the LTTE terrorists.
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