Slain Batticaloa journalist remembered in Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 August 2004, 00:12 GMT]
The Listners' Circle of Canadian Tamil Radio based in Toronto Saturday presented three hundred and fifty thousand rupees to the family of slain Batticaloa journalist Mr. Aiyathurai Nadesan at a function held at the Vavuniya Urban Council hall Saturday. Mr. Nadesan, a senior Tamil journalist and the Batticaloa correspondent for the Tamil daily Virakesari and several local and foreign electronic media was shot dead on 31 May by gunmen believed to be associates of renegade LTTE commander 'Karuna'.

''States that want to oppress a people do so by breaking their political will to resist injustice. To do this, oppressing states kill a society's intellectuals and journalists who speak for the rights of their people. This is is why they killed Nadesan. They want the Tamils to be intellectually rudderless. It is easier to enslave a people who have lost their ability to understand the nature of their oppression'', said Mr. D. Sivaram, columnist for Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka) and Virakesari (Tamil Daily) who gave the memorial speech at the meeting.

''Nadesan was a great journalist because he was an intellectual. In this information age when hundreds of news stories flash by one in the course of a few minutes, it is very important that a journalist has the intellectual capability to enhance the meaning and universal value of what may otherwise be 'unconnected data'," he said.

Mr. S. Gnanaprakasam, a senior literary and social activist of Vavuniya presided. Mr. Kanaka Ravi, Vavuniya crrespondent fot the IBC Tamil Radio delivered the vote of thanks.