Colombo, Sri Lanka: The country is experiencing a war situation despite the Ceasefire Agreement.the media also has to be accountable to this sorry plight. The media from the south highlights the setbacks suffered by the LTTE more than the sufferings of the Tamils or the violence unleashed on the innocent Tamil civilians .If one goes by the statistic provided by the media , the LTTE ought to be extinct by now, but the truth is just the opposite.

Even while the war was on, the southern media collaborated with the government and carried out a propaganda that really did not reflect the real ground situation.

Today although there are conflicts and clashes between the government and the LTTE, both have not abrogated the ceasefire Agreement But the media in the South continue to report in the same vein as they did prior to the signing of the Ceasefire Agreement. Their reports and statistics about the LTTE, the deaths of their cadre, the quantum and quality of their armory acquired by the security forces are nothing but an elaboration of their fiction.

In regard to the killing of the five students in Trincomalee,the atrocities at Vankalai and so on, the media of the south reported either as though the victims were terrorists or they refrained from reporting the incidents at all.

Recently a Sinhala civilian with social care called the Virakesari Editorial Board and discussed reportings on terrorist activities but sadly, he was unaware of civilian killings and violence in the North-East.

Even while there is some degree of consensus among the Sinhala people for sharing power and a negotiated settlement, the propaganda machinery of the media in the south is geared to mar the emergence of such views.

Do the media in the south want to reflect the reality and steer towards peace or do they want to continue their present trend of reporting falsehood and distortions to prolong the problems and the agony of the people? The response lies on the Media.

An English translation of the Editorial in Virakesari, a Tamil National daily, based in Colombo 02, July 2006

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