Sri Lankan Navy launched retaliatory attacks on the innocent Tamil Civilians inhabiting the coastal areas along Peasalai, Mannar, following clashes with the LTTE. The attacks were directed at the fishermen and their villages both on sea and land, and at ordinary civilians who had sought refuge in a church. In this merciless attack seven persons died and more than fifty injured.

They became victims of a grenade lobbed inside the church through a window allegedly by some persons in blue civvies. Bloodstains in the church remained to bear witness to the aftermath of the carnage.

Rayappu Joseph, the Bishop of Mannar V.V.Visvalingam, the Government Agent, Stanley de Mel, Assistant Government Agent and the members of the SLMM, visited the scene of violence. The Additional Magistrate, Mannar was there to hold inquiries.

To add to the man-made misery, charred remains of 110 fishing Wadiyas holding gear, forty trawlers and more than fifty damaged vehicles bore testimony to the fury leashed on civilian Tamils.

It is indeed a misfortune for the island that these heart-wrenching incidents of violence on innocent civilians particularly in a place of religious worship did not catch the eyes of the media in the South. The Bishop of Mannar, Government agent, members of the SLMM and the Additional Magistrate who visited the scene of disaster were out and loud in their statements. But the media in the south did not carry them. Or were they pretending to be unaware? Failure to do fair reporting by responsible media can be also attributed as a cause for the escalation of the ethnic conflict for decades.

It is strange that the Colombo media that gave prominence to the News Release by the Defence Ministry on the LTTE losses in the LTTE-Navy clashes, could overlook details of violence unleashed on innocent civilians.

Media in the South had already committed the mistake of misreporting the gruesome murder of five innocent students by security forces in Trincomalee and tarnishing its image. It needs to mend its ways. Media silence and misrepresentation will tend to protect the perpetrators of violence. People should neither be denied truth nor be misguided. Continuance of this policy will precipitate chaos.

Unless the media straightens itself, there will be no redemption from the clutches of communalism.

An English translation of the Editorial in Sudar Oli, a Tamil National daily, based in Colombo

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