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EDIT: I'd like to thank Twistedmosaic for an excellent topic, I was unable to find this article even though I really wanted to read it.
I heard about this journalist from my Sri-lankan friend.
He(my friend) is a Tamil who left the country to work small jobs in the US and Europe, leaving his family there (in the "safe" area) and sending them money. He can't read or write English, so I help him get news from Sri-Lanka from the internet. He often talks about the politics there, how Tamils are treated(they basically have no rights), where the army is, the battles against the LTTE..
Since he can't write, I often have trouble understanding what is going on, and why it's going on, even though he narrates the news and translates it a bit for me. The little that I do grasp is bewildering, though, especially since there are hardly any articles in the international press, even the BBC, about these injustices.
Essentially, however, everyone should know this: there are huge differences in how the different ethnicities are treated in Sri-Lanka, the government and the police are corrupt, and if you're born Tamil there you're out of luck. There is a full scale war going on there, with the government clashing against a terrorist organization known as the Tamil Tigers, whose wish is to rule over a portion of territory at the north of Sri-Lanka.
And although there's often people questioning whether human rights are respected, the truth is the majority of people in the world are not aware of the situation in Sri-Lanka, especially in the US.
This man quoted in the OP, from what I understand, is one of the last great journalists of the country, who puts his profession above anything else. He's been killed for almost a week now, I'm certain the government has never launched an investigation and doesn't intend to.
Any voice of dissent is just bombed to rubble or shot to pieces there.
Let's hope people still have the balls to continue doing this profession the right way, as Lasantha Wickrematunge did.
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