David dead, Goliath hanged

On January 8, the editor of a Sri Lankan newspaper was gunned down by two motorcycle-borne assailants in one of Colombo's suburbs. They smashed his car window and shot him in the head at point-blank range. Three hours later, the brave editor, Lasantha Wickramatunga, paid the ultimate price for his continued rantings against the government's excesses in the name of war against the LTTE.

However, 3 days later, Lasantha was back to haunt Mahinda Rajapakse, accusing the country's president of having had him killed. On January 11, an editorial was published in The Sunday Leader, the newspaper that Lasantha used to publish, with the headline "And then they came for me".

The headline is from a poem that Lasantha quotes in the editorial, saying it was etched into his memory from the time he read it. The lines of the poem, by Martin Niemoller, a German who supported Hitler until he saw the horror of his doings, go:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

The editorial was probably written by Lasantha as he always had an intuition that his old-time friend Mahinda--in the naked pursuit of power--would one day turn on him and have his men come gunning for him (Lasantha). The editorial--published later in several journals worldwide, including the Indian Express--is so powerful that it finds the mighty Rajapakse guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt. To quote from the editorial would be to dilute its effect. Please read it here:
http://www.thesundayleader.lk/20090111/editorial-.htm