Dear Mr President (Remembering All Your Crime)

Mr President is not just one man but a timeless ghost that possesses a new body every Sri Lankan election. 

The Sri Lankan Media is sick of your bullshit - sick is an understatement. We are tired. And we are angry.

The Media is not an exclusive group if you ask me, but it is the People ourselves. If one wants to speak one's mind and be heard, he or she has the freedom of doing so in the papers, on the radio, on TV, of conversing with the entire nation, and eliciting a response. The Media is a powerful, and many say the most powerful, vehicle of modern humanity's expression and democracy.

And so, Mr President, when you and your people (yes, your people, who are an exclusive and elite tightly-knit self-serving band who live on the other side of us over here) suppress the Media -- when you killed Lasantha Wickrematunge, when you abducted and set on fire Nadesapillai Vidyarthan, when you abducted and severely assaulted Keith Noyahr, when you imprisoned Jayaprakash Sittampalam, when you hacked to death Paranirupasingham Devakumar, when you shot: Selvarajah Rajivarnam, Relangi Selvarajah and her husband, Dharmeratnam Sivaram, Aiyathurai (Nellai) Nadesan, Rohana Kumara, Richard de Zoysa, K. Navaratnam, Wimal Surendra, Sathasivam Sivashanmugamoorthy -- and this is only a small fraction of the list and not even counting the massive exodus of journalists out of the country -- you are not only assaulting, humiliating, and butchering the Media - you are butchering your People. When you violate the Media, when you confiscate their liberty - you are doing the same to your People. 

Even if you deny everything, against all the fingers pointed at you, because you are the Maharajah of this New Monarchist nation and you can say 'I didn't do it' and get away with it -- even if that is your only defense, why then has your Government not had the decency to even address these murders beyond your standard transparent lie 'my best team is on the case' (I mean you managed to end a 25 year civil war, you would think finding a journalist's murderer would be a cake walk)? Just as though these countless murders of human beings can be swatted away like insignificant bothersome little flies by your mighty hands.

Do you remember those names of the journalists who have 'disappeared' or whose bodies have been left to float in the river? Does it ring a little bell in your head when you see one of their names printed somewhere? Of course I don't expect that you killed or abducted any of them yourself, of course not, such vulgarities are beneath the glory of any true King living in the lap of power and affluence. You have the men of your Court to do all that, the henchman who detect threats to your Autocratic Rule, and 'fix the problem' without you having to deal with any of the nitty gritties. But still, one has to wonder if the King ever spares a moment to think of the hundreds of beheadings that would not have been possible if not for his rule.

I don't know why I am even bothering with these questions, because you are not an idiot, you already know exactly what's what and why. So the point of this is not to scream at you and demand a semblance of humanity from 'Your Honourable Excellency' -- because that would be futile -- but my point is to ask you, do you really, truly believe you can some day overpower the Media by simply going on in this way?

That some day, every one, every single Sri Lankan, will say 'The President is always right, and anyone who thinks he is not, is a traitor'? That one day, not one single Sri Lankan will even mentally contemplate the idea of protest? That you can some day root out all rebellion, all forms of dissent, all modes of individual thought that is opposing to yours? Are you really that deluded?

I just want to tell you that you can kill and kill and kill, and it will be horrible and people will mourn and you may as usual be untouchable on your Red Throne in the White Palace -- but you can never, ever stop the People from dissenting. You can never stop people from speaking their minds. It is never going to happen. You can murder thousands, you can send hundreds fleeing out of the country -- but there will always, always be more, to voice the truth in newspapers, on radios, on television, on the internet - the truth, that will many a time call you out for the things you do, time and time again. So I ask of you to prepare yourself. Your kingdom who is now like a dog that has been beaten for far too long is one day going to turn around and bite, because as with every tyrannical King of the Dark Ages of history, your regime, your oppression against the Media, that is the People, will inevitably come to an end -- either by nature - or by force.