Rohana Kumara

The Sri Lankan government's fragile cease-fire with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), reached in February 2002 after 20 years of fighting, held throughout 2003 and brought a measure of stability to the media. But political tensions reached a crisis point on November 4, when President Chandrika Kumaratunga suspended Parliament and deployed troops in the capital, Colombo, while her political rival, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, was out of the country on an official visit to the United States.

Her Excellency Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga
President, Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
Presidential Secretariat
Colombo-1
Sri Lanka

VIA FAX: 011-94-1-333-703

Your Excellency:

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the December 31 murder of Vasthian Anthony Mariyadas, a free-lance radio reporter who was on assignment for the state-run Sri Lankan Broadcasting Corporation when he was shot dead in the northern town of Vavuniya.

September 9, 1999

Her Excellency Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga
President, Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
Presidential Secretariat
Colombo-1
Sri Lanka


Your Excellency,

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) strongly condemns the murder of Rohana Kumara, chief editor of the Sinhala-language newspaper Satana.

At around 10 p.m. on September 7, unidentified assailants shot and killed Kumara on the road leading to his home in the Colombo suburb of Mirihana. The assailants reportedly fled the scene in a silver Toyota 300 car. Kumara had received a phone call earlier that night notifying him that a group of men had entered his home and threatened to harm his wife if she did not reveal her husband's whereabouts.