Lasantha and the leaked tape

With last week’s release of a taped conversation between Editor of The Sunday Leader Lasantha Wickrematunge and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, there has been a buzz of speculation as to who released the tape and why the tape was released at this particular time. 

The contents of the tape, the tone and manner of the conversation and the relationship between the two has been dissected and analysed by media pundits and the public alike but all questions are yet unanswered and the emergence of the tape remains a mystery.

Then, as if that wasn’t mystery enough, this week a second tape emerged of a conversation between the two and it mainly centred around a ‘journo hit list’ sent to foreign embassies in Colombo.

As someone who closely associated with the assassinated journalist and thus privy to many things that went on at the time surrounding his life and work, I can say that the conversation which has been dated at 8 May 2008, was in fact the ‘mending fences’ or burying-the-hatchet conversation. To explain what this means, I need to go back a little in time and put things in perspective as well as reveal what Lasantha himself felt about his friendship with Mahinda.

Lasantha’s friendship with Mahinda

The Editor and the former President had known each other since the late eighties. During the presidency of Chandrika Kumaratunga, Mahinda, who was a Minister of that Government, was certainly not one of her blue-eyed boys. In fact the two clashed quite a bit and Kumaratunga referred to Rajapaksa as the ‘Reporter,’ hinting that he leaked many Government and Cabinet secrets to the media, in particular Lasantha Wickrematunge. 

The friendship spanned many years and indeed Mahinda did provide a great deal of grist to Wickrematunge’s journalistic mill. When Rajapaksa became Prime Minister in 2004, The Sunday Leader warmly congratulated him in its editorial. However, the friendship was doomed for disaster after Wickrematunge broke the ‘Helping Hambantota’ scandal in January 2005 and continued with weekly follow-ups. At the heart of the scandal was Prime Minister Rajapaksa, who was enraged as a result, and the one-time buddies turned enemies.

After Rajapaksa was elected President in November of that year, the animosity between the two boiled over to a now infamous screaming match on the telephone after the President was wrongly informed by a diplomat that The Leader was most likely to be the newspaper that would carry a story regarding a visit by the President and his wife to a hallowed temple in India.

The two were from then on sworn enemies and The Leader continued to week after week splash investigative stories on corruption in government.

Change of heart

Towards 2008, however, the President seemed to have had a change of heart. For whatever reason, he was keen to mend fences with Wickrematunge and directed his physician Linday Eliyantha White to do the needful. 

White was introduced to Wickrematunge by a businessman relative of White who was known to Wickrematunge. The Editor however steadfastly refused to meet the President. What the motivations of the President to mend fences or to be seen to be mending fences can only be conjectured but Wickrematunge seems to have had some idea.

In an e-mail to his ex-wife Raine in Australia, Wickrematunge wrote in February 2008: “I have refused to meet Mahinda because he can always kill me thereafter and say we were once again friends and that I had even met him.”

He said in that email: “There is a doctor who is also a faith healer. He is part British and part Sinhala. He is Mahinda’s doctor. He is the man whom Mahinda sent to meet me through another friend saying he wants to get friendly, etc. He is the one who attends to all his medical needs, etc. He keeps a low profile and not many people know him or about him. He cures cancers, etc.

“Anyway I am taking some treatment from him for my pressure. He said some of my nerves on the right side of the brain was damaged leading to the pressure. The medicine involves applying some oil for three days and some kasaya and stuff. My friend *****, whose relation he is, is the person that brought him to me. I of course refused to meet Mahinda. Because he can always kill me thereafter and say we were once again friends and that I had even met him…”

However, at some point, Wickrematunge gave in to the pressure by his businessman friend and Lindsay White to talk with the President. The telephone conversation on the tape in question is that ‘mending fences’ conversation. That is the reason why there is a great deal of awkward laughter at the beginning of that call initiated by the President.

Feeling the heat

Wickrematunge was known to tape important telephone conversations but my guess is that this one was taped by Mahinda. Why it was leaked at this point is unknown, however it seems that with the CID team covering a great deal of ground in recent times in the Wickrematunge murder case, people are feeling the heat and keen to show the world that he and the slain Editor were good friends.

The Wickrematunge family are adamant the tape was not released from their quarter and there is no rhyme or reason as to why anyone from his camp would release this tape which on the contrary has only caused confusion in the minds of people with regard to this outstanding journalist and fine human being. 

L. Pieris