New Delhi: Prominent US newspaper The New York Times said Tuesday that a Sri Lanka-based publication incorrectly identified its source for a 2018 investigation it had carried out into the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka.
The previous government of Sri Lanka had leased Hambantota port to a Chinese venture for 99 years in 2017, but new President Gotabaya Rajapaksa wants to undo the move, citing national interest.
In a column titled ‘Colombo-gate: Disinformation, fake news come in different ways’, Sri Lanka’s Sunday Times newspaper said senior superintendent of police Shani Abeysekera admitted that it was he, as director of the Criminal Investigation Department, who had given the facsimiles of two cheques issued by a Chinese company to the NYT reporter “to convince her of his claims”.
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‘Troubled by attempts to publicly disclose sources’
In response to the column, NYT’s communications handle @NYTimesPR put out a series of tweets, saying that the Sri Lankan paper had “incorrectly” claimed to have identified its source.
An article in Sri Lanka’s Sunday Times incorrectly claimed to have identified a source for our reporting on Chinese links to a Sri Lanka port.
— NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) January 13, 2020
“We are always troubled by attempts to publicly disclose sources; they invariably intimidate people from speaking to the press and ultimately deprive citizens of information that they should know,” it said in a tweet.
We are always troubled by attempts to publicly disclose sources; they invariably intimidate people from speaking to the press and ultimately deprive citizens of information that they should know.
— NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) January 13, 2020
It further said that the NYT investigation was based on months of interviews with Sri Lankan, Indian, Chinese and Western officials, as well as analysis of documents and agreements from the port project, which illustrated how China and the companies under its control ensured their interests in Sri Lanka.
Our investigation was based on months of interviews with Sri Lankan, Indian, Chinese and Western officials and analysis of documents and agreements from the port project that illustrated how China and the companies under its control ensured their interests in Sri Lanka.
— NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) January 13, 2020
“The transfer gave China control of territory just a few hundred miles off the shores of a rival, India, and a strategic foothold along a critical commercial and military waterway,” the NYT report had said, adding that this case was an example of “China’s ambitious use of loans and aid to gain influence around the world — and of its willingness to play hardball to collect”.
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