Bodhi Dhanapala

A group of avowed Islamic exrimists carried out the Easter bombing where several prominent Christian Churches and devotees attending them were killed. The assassins also died in the blasts, or were captured by the police. All the pesidential commissions and investigations picked Zahran as possibly the lead individual. Several people closely connected with the present NPP government were close family members of these Islamic Zealots. There is evidence that one aspect of the attack was to revange the attack in New Zealand against Islamists.

Warnings that there would be an attack had been issued to the top security officials of Maithreepala Sirisena but they did not take the warnings serious. The Catholic MP Mr. Harin Fdo had got the warning from his father, a devout Catholic. So, in all likelihood, the Harin’s father would have also informed the Catholic clergy that he personally knows.

When questioned by the Presidential Commission of Inquiry as to why he did not directly warn the public or church authorities after receiving the warning from his father, Harin Fernando testified that he relied on his father to pass the message to the church. He stated that his father, Malcom Fernando (a devout Catholic and former diplomat), was better connected to the church hierarchy than he was. Fernando explicitly told the commission that he asked his father to inform the church. authorities about the threat. Following the attacks, Harin Fernando posted on his Twitter account (now X): “Some intelligence officers knew of this attack. I told them and I told the church. What more could I have done?” This public claim that he “told the church” is the primary piece of evidence he offered to the public. 

So, in all probability, some Catholic clergy would have been informed. And, in all probaility, they too may have regarded the threat as being far fetched and done nothing. It is this fact that Malcom ranjith, the Cardinal, finds so difficult to digest. So, in order to put a different spin on it, he has denied that any church offical or clergy was aware of a threat. Instead he has tried to move the responsibility onto Sinhal-Buddhist leaders as having cooked up a plot to create termoil in the country, so that Gotabhaya (then known as a man for law and order) could get votes on that score! Surely, what a whimsical hypotesis? How can any one with even an iota of intelligence present such a claim?

And yet, that is the story that the Cardinal has been pushing! He claims that there is “an invisible hand” and an as yet undiscoverd “Maha-molakaaraya” who plotted an dplanned the violence against the Catholics to bring a “sinhala-Buddhist” leader into power. This pathetically empty story has been picked up by channel-4 and other purveyors of sensational information and, backed by various NGOs, got converted into a “serious theory”.

Instead, we should ask how the church ignored the warnings of Malcolm Fdo, a devoute Catholic and experience diplomat who would surely have known his rfesponsibility to God and to Ceaser.

Sri Lanka is a country where we don’t dare to ask the right questions or do the right thing. Instead we are ready to appease the Tamil-Tiger terrorist on the one hand, and kiss the Pope’s ring without hesitation, when it was the Pope’s predecessors who sent the Portuguese to destroy our temples and our land in the name of God.

By not questioning Malcolm Fdo before his death in 2021, the PCoI allowed a crucial piece of the puzzle regarding the “prior warning” timeline to die with him. The decision by the PCoI not to summons Malcolm Fernando to testify under oath remains one of the most criticized omissions by legal analysts and the Sri Lankan public.

I believe that the PCol did not question Malcolm Fdo because PCol did not wish to tangle with the Church was was the “Victim” of the attack, given the already adversarial attitude of the church. During the hearings, there were stark public clashes. At one point, PCoI Chairman Janak de Silva publicly criticized Cardinal Ranjith for making political statements regarding the attacks, telling the media that the Cardinal should “not act like a politician.” The Church viewed the PCoI as hostile to its interests. There is no direct evidence that the Catholic Church influenced the PCoI to avoid questioning Malcolm Fernando, primarily because there were no influential Catholic members on the Commission, but yet, it is clear that the PCol stood intimidated by the church and spared Malcolm Fernando who should have been immediately questioned.

So, the big question regarding the Easter attacks is “Why wasn’t Malcolm Fernando” questioned by the police investigations that immediately follwed the Easter attacks? Were they protecting the persons who spoke to Malcolm Fernando?

Bodhi