Thank you for your Friday’s editorial on Lasantha Wickramatunge which I think reflects exactly the person he was.

I did not know Lasantha.

But I voted for him at the General Election in 1989. In fact I had to vote for the SLFP (against my usual voting preference) so that I could give him my ‘manape’.

Of course he did not win - which was probably a good thing as we may not have had the pleasure of reading what flowed from his pen in the last 20 years if he had.

I still don’t know why I voted for him - possibly because I am 49 years old and went to the same school as he and believed that he would bring dignity and honesty to a profession that was fast losing such kind. I am sure he as a politician would have been completely different from the kind Sri Lanka has had to tolerate over this period.

I have read his editorials in the The Sunday Leader every week - first in print and then on Internet sinceI left Sri Lanka. I have been educated in addition to being fascinated by his style of writing. It has been only on a handful of occasions that I felt he went over the top. Mostly he was able to capture the mood of the country very accurately in his writing. Not surprisingly he trod on the toes of those in power by exposing their corrupt activities - andwas targeted several times due to this.

His assassination (as well as the attack on MTV a few days earlier) signifies a dangerous trend in Sri Lanka. Politicians do not like what journalists write in ALL countries - but journalists get killed as punishment only in a handful of them. Sri Lanka is now a serious contender for the top spot among them.

Lasantha’s assassination has come at a time when Sri Lanka has been ‘celebrating’ many military victories against the LTTE. The people are constantly reminded of the importance of ‘finishing’ the war and the sacrifices that are necessary to make.

I fear that the end of the war will aggravate the present trend of liquidating those who hold dissenting views. Sri Lanka will be left with more citizens with military training available to carry out such acts - and they will become cheaper to recruit as we are discovering now.

The time may be appropriate to study what lessons can be learnt from what happened in other countries at the end of protracted civil conflicts (such as Nigeria).

Goodbye Lasantha!

I hope your colleagues will carry on the good work at the Leader Publications. His friend Jyoti Thottam said it all in the Time magazine. I cannot think of a more fitting tribute.