journalism

Apart from all the above, there are some difficult problems reporting Sri Lanka.

Lots of the worst things that happen go on well away from the eyes of independent journalists.

In these circumstances, when we can't be sure for ourselves who has done what, all we can do is report what people say has happened.

In Sri Lanka that often means this: A group of people are killed, quite possibly civilians. The government and the Tigers accuse each other of the killings.

To complicate matters further, "shadowy paramilitary groups" may have been involved.

IT was a desperate last phone call but it did not sound like a man who would be dead within hours. Balasingham Nadesan, political leader of the Tamil Tigers, had nowhere to turn, it seemed.

“We are putting down our arms,” he told me late last Sunday night by satellite phone from the tiny slip of jungle and beach on the northeast coast of Sri Lanka where the Tigers had been making their last stand.

When Israeli forces killed women and children in their assault on Gaza in January, there were was a public outcry in Britain, the liberal left and anti-Zionist movements staged protests, and Israeli writers too registered their public disgust.

But when allegations of civilians being killed in a so-called ‘no fire zone’ by the Sri Lankan army surfaced last month, the response of the world’s public was considerably more muted.

Magistrate Gihan Pilapitiya ordered the release of the Tamil-language Sudar Oli newspaper editor after police investigations found no evidence to charge him, the journalist's attorney K.V. Thavarasha said.

Police arrested Nadesapillai Vidyadaran on Feb. 26, six days after Tamil Tiger rebels sent a pair of light aircraft packed with explosives on a suicide mission to attack two air force bases in the Colombo area. The planes were shot down before reaching their targets and four people were killed, including the two pilots and two civilians who were hit by anti-aircraft fire.

The past few months have been one of the most challenging times to report from Sri Lanka, but this has never been a particularly easy war to cover.

The Tamil Tigers have now been pushed into a tiny corner of the country. But they have always ruled any areas under their control with an iron hand.

Dissent has never been accepted - and many Tamil critics of the LTTE have been murdered over the years.

"It is a disgrace that this war is being waged without independent journalists present," Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said.

"With a major humanitarian crisis and war crimes clearly taking place, the government must heed the international community's calls for a ceasefire and for better access for humanitarian workers and journalists."

Mr. Nadesapillai said the suspicions were the result of a police mistake. He said on the night of the rebel air raid, a friend was scheduled to arrive from France. When the Colombo airport closed due to the attack, Vithyatharan had called Paris to find out where the friend's flight had been diverted.

Police listening in on Vithyatharan's phone misread the discussion and suspected he was helping the rebel planes, he said. "They thought that they were talking in code words," Mr. Nadesapillai said.