Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
No flash photography, please
The Ministry Of Defense has issued a curious statement attempting to protect its high officers from any criticism while telling common soldiers to shut up. It’s wrapped in language about treason and patriotism, but a turd wrapped in silk is still a turd. The high officials of the military want no discussion of themselves, their promotions, their procurement processes or of the war in general. Knowing ‘high officials’ in this country, we’d be wise to not give them the benefit of the doubt – for the health of our nation and of our common soldiers. It is precisely for the people of Sri Lanka and the people on the frontlines that we need civilian oversight on the military. I think the Ministry of Defense is deeply confused about the purpose of this whole exercise. The point is to win the war, not to look like we’re winning. This isn’t a war on perceptions. This is a war. We need to see both our enemy and ourselves clearly.
The statement is here on the MinDef site. In short, the military is saying that everyone must support the war, only military officers can handle information related to the war, the promotion of said military officers cannot be questioned, procurement by said military officers cannot be discussed, and grunt soldiers are not allowed to talk. This doesn’t sound like the military defending the nation to me. This sounds like corrupt military officers defending themselves.
Herein I’ll go through their statement bit by bit.
Spades Are Spades
There has been much controversy among the media and political circles over the stance taken by the Ministry of Defence on the media freedom in this country. Some have even called it a government’s war on media; some call it an anti democratic stance taken by the government. Whatever it is, the Ministry stands affirm on its stance over the irresponsible defence reportage and will assure to take all necessary measures to stop this journalistic treachery against the country.
I’ll call it the government’s war on media, or the government’s anti-democratic stance. Glad the MinDef is OK with that. Can I say that?
You Are Not Free To Oppose The War
1. Sri Lanka is at a war… Thus, whoever attempts to reduce the public support to the military by making false allegations and directing baseless criticism at armed forces personnel is supporting the terrorist organization that continuously murder citizens of Sri Lanka.
WTF? This is the first time I’ve heard it officially said that anyone that opposes the war is a traitor and supports the LTTE. Presumably all criticism is baseless in their eyes. Guess what, millions of Sri Lankans oppose the war. I oppose the war. We are not traitors and the statement above is a great disservice to the people of Sri Lanka. In civilized countries it is possible to oppose your government, especially on issues of war. Seeing as the Government of Sri Lanka has alternately pursued negotiated peace it does seem possible to advocate that path without being LTTE.
Only The Military Can Analyze The War
The Ministry is in the view, that it is no one other than the military officers who are qualified to plan, conduct, and analyse military operations.
Again, did they really say that. The people of Sri Lanka no longer have any civilian oversight over the military. Can we still think about it, or is that analysis?
Criticism on internal promotions does the same damage to the armed forces as mentioned above by embarrassing those officers who run the actual battle. They are being introduced to the public as those who are not qualified to hold their appointments and therefore they may not be able to carryout their duties in a happy environment. Also, public may look at the military as an organization run by incompetent people.
Um, maybe it is? Nothing in this statement even acknowledges that the military promotion process may actually be imperfect (like every other promotion process on earth). The system isn’t perfect, no human resource system is. The way we improve it is by criticizing and improving it, not simply erasing the perception that there’s a problem at all. That is just incompetent.
Don’t Talk To The Help
A large amount of public money is being spent on the training, education, salaries, and other benefits on military personnel not because the public want them to be informants to the media agencies but to stay loyal to the nation, to fight for her and to safeguard the good order and the military discipline.
So, basically, the military officers have bought our soldiers and they can’t speak out about anything. Military discipline is what it is and this part actually makes the most sense, though the vitriol and quickness to call the media LTTE is incompetent and silly. If the military wants to maintain discipline among its soldiers then it needs to do that, can’t really blame the media.
We Need Them To Hide Behind
The Ministry does not find any other word better than a “Traitor” to call whoever attempts to show the soldiers as thieves or fools by making false allegations and raising baseless criticism against them.
OK. But nothing much in this statement applies to soldiers. The Ministry Of Defence seems far more interested in protecting high officers than grunts. Everything in the statement is about protecting those managing authorities from any criticism of using the soldiers as they see fit – without any oversight on officer promotions, procurement, or anything even. They even go so far in covering their own asses as to insinuate that every Sri Lankan must support the war or be a traitor. From any angle this is patent bullshit and entirely shameless. It’s be funny if it didn’t put the lives and freedom of so many innocent Sri Lankans in danger and weaken our war effort by keeping any sense of objective reality out.
Why is this reminding me more and more of the Burmese “government”…..???
Insane. It is about safeguarding the idiots higher up. Everyone supports grunts, regardless of whether the war is being won or not. If the war is not being won, support for the tops is lost, not the support for the grunts.
Incompetence – they can’t even disguise this statement to look like it’s some democratic-lets-save-our-nation bullshit.
It is pathetic, Only thing I can say is, I felt like you were talking about a Bush speech! ;)
I don’t think it’s as evil as you’re making it out, Indi. It just sounds worse than it is. Most of the above MoD statement says what most western governments try to do — suppress criticism of the military at war. They just don’t come out with policy statements on the matter.
As for civilian oversight of the military, remember the GoSL is civilian, and so is the MoD, and they have oversight of the military, as do the governments in the west. If you mean non-governmental oversight of the military, that’s absurd, impractical, and isn’t done anywhere. If you’d suggested parliamentary oversight of the military, via select committees, etc, it’s at least practicable, but still not necessarily practical, given the quality of our ministers and MPs.
I’m not sure what they mean by “analyse military operations,” if “analyse” means “discuss”, but having seen some of the half-arsed analysis done in the media of past military ops, I can’t see any real capability in the civilian media, even among the defence correspondents, online or off. As for “no one other than the military officers who are qualified to plan, conduct… military operations,” I don’t see a prob in that. Most of our past military disasters have been caused by unqualified civilian interference, usually by defence ministers and/or presidents.
Telling soldiers not to talk to the press is pretty common too, worldwide, and in Britain all UKSF troops now have to sign the Official Secrets Act which prevents them publishing their memoirs or biographies even after they leave the Army. So no more Andy McNabs.
Yeah, calling journalists traitors is bad, but hey, that’s nothing new in the west either. It’s just being officially sanctioned here, as is the statement on opposing the war.
Taken in isolation this amy not seem to bad, but in the context of everything else that is going on its pretty disastrous.
Journo’s classified as supporting terror can presumably be locked up under emergency laws. Given that parliament can be bought, the judiciary is neutered (and will be more so after Sarath Silva’s retirement next year) the only opposition the GoSL faces is the press.
Once they get that under control (the attacks have succeeded in cowing them already – the Nation has been bought by supporters of the regime, Iqbal Athas is no longer writiting anything much and everyone else seems to be treading very carefully) they will have virtually untrammeled power which will then lead us to only god-knows-where.
David,
You’re engaging in semantics. You know what Indi means. Most western govts may have official acts that prevent soldiers from talking to media and they may also prevent military information leaking out but you don’t see this kind of blatant intimidation taking place. The GOSL and MoD being non-military doesn’t count as ‘civilian’ oversight, having a bi-partisan parliamentary committee does. Unfortunately, the Executive Presidency makes any such committee moot (We need to have a French style system where MPs resign from Parliament when they’re made ministers. Parliament would thus be less susceptible to the machinations of dictatorial types).
Being blase about the whole thing ‘because they do it in the West’ isn’t really logical because the West has independent institutions in place where people, civilians and military alike, can seek redress. The West also doesn’t have the culture of impunity and apathy that we have.
Simon & BD, your comments on the present administration’s attitude to the media, constitutional failures to guarantee oversight, etc, are perfectly correct, and in fact I agree with you. My point was (and is) that none of that’s very new, and this latest MoD statement isn’t exactly groundbreaking news. The GoSL has been eroding our rights for awhile, and the contents of this statement have already been said elsewhere, or in fact carried out already in practice. Many of these policies are the policies of western governments too, albeit taken to extremes.
Aadhavan, after you hop off your hobby horse and pull your panties out of your arse crack, perhaps you can look up the word ‘context’. ;)
That’s just one of the more daft comments you’ve ever posted Blacker, and it’s not for a want of competition. You seem to display a willing blindness to the curtialment of media freedom on a scale not even imaginable in the “western democracies” you so glibly draw analogies to Sri Lank with. In Western democracies, governments do at the worst of times attempt to sell their own propoganda to naiive public, hide dirty secrets etc. Despite all of these attempts, the nature of restrictions on the press are quantitatively and qualitatively so fundamentally different to what goes on here, a person who tries the equivalence argument must only be deemed a hack or a fool. The Emergency Regulations shackling the press are not seen anywhere in a civilised democracy. Official Secrets Act? Try going through the provisions and compare it with the ER’s here. (ask an adult to help you with the compare/contrast analysis) Most importantly though, the chilling effect that countless murders, threats, assaults and detentions of journos have had on the willingness of the media to fulfil their responsibility as the 4th estate hasn’t really been seen in many other countries in the world, let alone democracies. Sri Lanka just is one of the, if not the, most dangerous country in the world for a media worker. That’s just fact, and these policy guidelines(which you admit are hardly issued in other countries) help only to confirm to media workers their fear that any dissent places them at a high risk of being tortured, killed, assaulted, detained etc. Keith Olbermann types or the Guardian journos are never going to be killed or detained by the govt in those countries. Hopefully, you see the little problem with your comparison.
The freedom of speech and of the free press is always susceptible to this “chilling effect”. Get your head round this elementary idea most of learnt in the O’level grades and you’ll probably have a different take on the issue.
America is, admittedly, not setting a good example, but even an administration that authorized torture hasn’t gone this far.
They’re saying anyone that opposes the war is working for the LTTE, who they are fighting a pretty violent war with. Hence the implication is that all those people (re: us) are now in the line of fire. And they are. Sri Lanka has plummeted in the press freedom index, putting us in the same neighborhood as Iraq, Libya and Syria.
More to the point, people I know get death threats and the fact that the people tasked to protect them consider them terrorists based on political views (for peace, ironically) is pretty fucking evil. Journalists here actually do get shot, killed, beaten and disappeared. So I think things are actually worse than it sounds.
i suggest everybody should reply with sentences taken form the pc game “stronghold crusader”, like “yes my Liege”, “why, you’re spoiling us my Lord”, etc. and like little robots we can build our fortress on half rations or no rations at all. [mmm... if you haven't/don't play the game, you might not understand this lol] as you say indi, unfortunately it’s real lives, not a videogame….
A timely reminder on the erosion of democracy.
I wonder what the department’s view is on the attack on KN. He seems to have committed many of the offenses listed above. I believe an inquiry into this incident was ordered by his excellency the president. Any update on how things have progressed there?
Let us start from the basics. What are the functions of Ministry of Defence?
This is what its website says:
RESPONSIBILITIES AND FUNCTIONS
MINISTRY of Defence is responsible for the formulation, co-ordination and the execution of policies in relation to the security of the country.
OBJECTIVES
* Maintenance of internal security and defence of Sri Lanka.
* Implementation and maintenance of the Prevention of terrorism Act No. 48 of 1979 as amended by the Act No. 10 of 1982.
* Maintenance of the Commonwealth war Memorials and the war Graves.
* Supervision and maintenance of the establishment matters of the three services and the Kotalawala Defence Academy.
* Supervision and maintenance of the establishment matters of the National Cadets Corps.
KEY FUNCTIONS
* Maintenance of the defence in Sri Lanka.
* Maintenance of General Sir John Kothalawala Defence Academy.
* Administration of the Directorate of Foreign Intelligence & the Directorate of Internal Intelligence.
* Administration of the Language Training Institute at Kotmale.
* Administration of the Sri Lanka Institute of Strategic Studies.
* Administration of the National Cadet Corps.
* Administration of the Home Guard Service.
So what is the bottomline?
Issuing guidelines to media is NOT a function of Ministry of Defence. (Unless it is covered under PTA, which I doubt)
So it is better for all if Ministry of Defence-wallas attend functions like maintenance of the Commonwealth war Memorials and the war Graves, which are within their mandate than trying to do things which are NOT within their mandate.
Gota, take a shovel and clean around graves man, that is what you are being paid for!
There is a straight line connecting Keith Noyhar to the MOD statement and anybody who tries to argue otherwise is wasting time proving that space is curved.
Note to DB: Yes, Zimbabe is West of Paradise. So you’re right… “we’re not so different from the West”
It’s this sort of absurd comparisons of SL to places like Iraq, Burma, and Zimbabwe which makes any sort of middle ground impossible to achieve in most discussions. Has anyone here been to those three countries recently? Get a grip. SL maybe sliding towards many unconstitutional dangers, but at least make some realistic observations. If someone said SL is becoming like Pakistan, I can empathise with that view — but Burma? Zimbabwe?? You guys are as dumb as the Sittingnuts who think everything’s above board, democratic aand generally hunky dory. You’re not doing your corner any favours.
I M P U N I T Y
I’m not defending the MoD’s position, but don’t they say it is only wrong to make “false allegations” and direct “baseless criticism”?
This is an erosion of rights and press freedom, absolutely true, but at the same time, there have been a number of media reports which have little or no evidence backing it up, other than hearsay and conjecture. Sources are not cited, evidence is not produced, just allegations and rumours. Admittedly evidence is hard to come by, witnesses and sources are scared to come forward, but it is imperative to have evidence in order to make any sort of statement against the competence of the Armed Forces.
It is wrong to muzzle the media yes, but the law should also ensure that the media does not print false/unsubstantiated garbage, which only creates more confusion in the populace. I think the Govt were harsh to shut down ABC Radio, but they did report falsely, creating panic and fear without checking their facts.
I should be clear that my view is that the media’s accuracy should be controlled by the laws of the country, and not dictated and decided by the MoD. If the press makes a mistake, the Govt (or anyone else) should be able to take action against them in a court of law, and a penalty should be imposed, preferably financial. Not call them to Temple Trees and tell them that if they continue to report against the Govt, that the Govt cannot be responsible for their safety and security in the future…
The laws of libel should suffice, if accuracy is what the government is interested in.
Reporting would be more accurate if the government allowed free access to the North & East. News reports that are consistently seen to be inaccurate will be shown up – since many parts of the media electronic, print, etc will be reporting from the scene and it will be fairly easy to pick out inaccuracies.
With fewer reporters on the ground reporting becomes more vague. This in itself does not make it inaccurate, it is just harder to verify things.
When it comes to allegations, rumours and falsehoods, nobody is spreading more of them than the government itself.