Print journalist as scammer
Print journalist as scammer
S. Dias
An example of Dayan Jayatilleka's self-promotion:
...Having my essay on Ché’s 40th death anniversary featured in the Cuban CP Central Committee’s Granma and praised for “having seen deeply into the mind of Ché” by two who knew him up close (Prof Emeritus Miguel Alfonso Martinez who was at Ché’s side during his historic New York trip and interviewed by Benecio de Toro for the Soderbergh movie, and Prof Jean Ziegler, Ché’s designated companion during his 12 day Geneva visit to address UNCTAD), I find this an unconvincing canonization. (dated October 10, 2009)
Dayan Jayatilleka was taken at age 7 to Egypt. Foreign tours are not customary for that age and Dayan is best understood through his father Mervyn de Silva who took him out there from Sri Lanka. More, the conference that journalist Mervyn de Silva was asked to cover for his newspaper was one of grown-ups.
Mervyn de Silva had missed Law College entry exams and had to pursue higher education elsewhere. He was known at school and afterwards as Aanndaya (Sinhalese for "sharper" or "vagabond") and he ended up at a newspaper that served served the family of timber mill Don Philip Wijewardena.
Son Don Richard Wijewardena (all his brothers too were registered at birth with the Portuguese-era prefix) was dispatched for education to the UK. He qualified in law but was tasked to serve as Press Baron by the family. In the fullness of time Mervyn de Silva entered these press portals seeking sustenance.
Gaining writing skills through serving the Press Baron in yellow journalism, Mervyn de Silva finally set up as cross-border vagabond. He would write articles against Germany, for instance, and then send in his passport for a German visa. The German Embassy would offer the media man an expenses paid trip in the hope that they would not be kept reporting a bad press to Germany.
Once in Germany, Mervyn would have the Foreign Office schedule him an appointment with the secret service. Here he knew he could get another monthly salary without signing a pay-slip.
As a cross-border vagabond, Mervyn would not gain the acclaim of a son who was brought up in normal circumstances. So he had to make sure that son Dayan accepted his life-style.
Mervyn had to do this while the child was malleable. Dayan's trip at age 7 illustrates his father's efforts to make him walk sideways just as the crab expects of its young.
So Dayan went into cross-border events with an inheritance. His events have included (1) mouthing Ché Gevara-type phrases to fight competing student leaders and icons such as Richard de Zoysa. (2) He went on to gain US largesse by infiltrating Cuban Embassy functions.
(3) Dayan also entered the Premadasa government in Sri Lanka as a Presidential consultant (!) at a time when that government was arming anti-government militants with army weaponry, vehicles and Rs 75 million of taxpayer money. The vouchers for release of this money to Anton Balasingham and Lawrence Thillagar were signed by Treasury Secretary Paskaralingam. Dr P B Jayasundera left the Central Bank to cut his teeth in the service of Premadasa, Paskarlingam and Prabhakaran (dubbed the 3 P’s in control of Sri Lanka) and so did Dr Lloyd Fernando who bluff-talked his way to scholarships that took him from bank clerk to National Planning Director.
From service here, (4) Dayan went cross border once more to serve as a Cabinet minister with the Varatharaja Perumal government that had unilaterally declared independence in Sri Lanka's north. That government fell and after smaller duties (5) he was appointed the Popular Alliance government’s ambassador to Geneva. Dayan there tried to talk his way into the confidence of the Russian mission but that was fatal. Their security check would disclose that Dayan had served as a US asset. The US itself was not taken aback by their own-sun-of-a-gun’s 180 degree turn against the militants that he had seen armed when he was Premadasa’s advisor.
However, Dayan’s raised the hackles of the Israeli mission. His assaults earned a name unprecedented in Geneva, "Rotweiler Diplomacy".
(5) Dayan had been writing profusely in Geneva to convey the brilliance he had gathered through his father’s collection of complementary hardcover books. Dayan circulated his self-promotional work at the expense of the Sri Lankan taxpayer (a gross violation of regulations) in the hope of winning favour and crossing over to one of UN bodies in Geneva or elsewhere. An invitation from such a body did not arrive; he had had his intelligence cover blown by the Russia-China group.
Nor was Dayan's term extended by the Sri Lankan government. Thus the vagabond came home.
Expect that Dayan will try pot-shot jpournalism once more putting the names of Guevara, Gramsci, Marx and Nietzsche out until someone starts to give him the cash he needs to continue amicably accommodating his wife Sara and mistress Tissaranee. These are the smallest concerns of a consuming megalomania that you would expect to see in a mercenary and confidence trickster of our times.
Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/journalism-articles/print-journalist-as-scammer-1594656.html
