By KRISHAN FRANCIS | Associated Press | Courtesy Stars and Stripes

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka  — Sri Lanka’s army chief said Thursday that other groups of Islamic militants could be operating in the country independent of the one that carried out Easter Sunday bomb attacks.

“There could be other groups, definitely,” Lt. Gen. Mahesh Senanayake said.

“To what extent are they offensive, what is the equipment they carry, what is the time frame, who are their handlers, these are all matters under discussion,” he said.

More than 250 people were killed in coordinated suicide bomb attacks at three churches and three tourist hotels on Easter Sunday that were claimed by the Islamic State group and carried out by a local radicalized Muslim group.

Seven suicide bombers blew themselves up at their targets and another killed himself and two guests at a motel after his device failed to explode at a fourth tourist hotel. A ninth suicide bomber killed herself and her children as police surrounded her home.

Senanayake said the military is developing a two-year plan to eliminate the new terrorist threat.

The attacks took place a month before the 10th anniversary of the end of Sri Lanka’s 26-year civil war between government forces and separatist ethnic Tamil rebels.

Senanayake said the army has organized a series of events to mark the anniversary. People have been asked to light an oil lamp in their homes and offices in honor the fallen soldiers.

Senanayake said the military will not interfere with Tamil civilians remembering their dead relatives in areas where the final battle took place in 2009.

Sri Lanka’s military has been accused of deliberately targeting civilians and using disproportionate force that killed thousands of civilians in the final months of fighting.

Courtesy Reuters

COLOMBO (Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund said on Thursday it was holding its forecast for Sri Lanka’s 2019 economic growth at 3.5% in spite of devastating Easter bombings, saying it was too early to assess financial damage.FILE PHOTO: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) logo is seen outside the headquarters building in Washington, U.S., as IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde meets with Argentine Treasury Minister Nicolas Dujovne September 4, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

The April 21 bombings, which killed more than 250 people in churches and hotels and were claimed by Islamic State, have scared tourists away and soured business sentiment on the island.

Sri Lanka’s economy, which depends on tourism, garment manufacturing, tea exports and remittances, was already at a low point before the bombings.

The economy grew 3.2% last year, the weakest in 17 years, as a weeks-long political crisis and monetary policy tightening sapped business confidence and cooled investment.

A Reuters poll of 10 analysts predicted last week that growth could slide to just 2.5% this year following the attacks.

But the IMF said it was maintaining its growth projection due a lack of new official data and clear information to assess the impact on growth of the Easter bombings.

It will be speculative for us to revise our growth projection at this juncture,” Manuela Goretti, the IMF’s mission chief for Sri Lanka, said in a teleconference with journalists in the capital Colombo.

So we maintain our growth projection for 2019 at 3.5% with the gradual improvement in the medium term at 5%.”

Still, the fund said Sri Lanka’s budget and current account deficits could widen more than expected because of the bombings.

Previously, the IMF said it expected that this year’s fiscal deficit would fall to 4.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) from last year’s 5.3%, and the current account deficit to 2.8% from 3.2% in 2018.

The lender did not provide fresh estimates, but said normalcy had largely returned to the island, thanks to government measures including the implementation of an emergency law.

Authorities expect to get through this incident expeditiously, putting the country back on track to benefit from improving economic fundamentals,” the IMF said in a report earlier on Thursday.

In March, the Fund agreed to extend a $1.5 billion (£1.2 billion) loan facility to Sri Lanka for an extra year, following the country’s seven-week political crisis last year.

On Tuesday, the lender approved disbursal of a $164 million tranche, bringing the total disbursed to more than $1.16 billion.

The loan is crucial for Sri Lanka to secure more attractive borrowing terms.

Reporting by Shihar Aneez; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Richard Borsuk and Frances KerryOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

By BHARATHA MALLAWARACHI Courtesy fox business

In this Friday, May 10, 2019, photo, the 17th century built Dutch fort, which was a popular tourist site, stands empty in Galle, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka was the Lonely Planet guide’s top travel destination for 2019, but since the Easter Sunday attacks on churches and luxury hotels, foreign tourists have fled. More than 250 people, including 45 foreigners mainly from China, India, the U.S. and the U.K., died in the Islamic State group-claimed blasts. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/sri-lankas-hotels-beaches-eateries-now-empty-of-tourists

Sipping fresh coconut water while sunbathing on deserted Hikkaduwa beach, Alexi Konchayenko, a sports trainer from Ukraine, struck a stoical note.

Bomb blasts can happen “anywhere, anytime,” he said, adding that he was not afraid. “Sri Lanka is an amazing country. This is my first visit and I will tell my friends also to come.”

His is a lone voice — and a lone presence. Sri Lanka was the Lonely Planet guide’s top travel destination for 2019, but since the Easter Sunday attacks on churches and luxury hotels, foreign tourists have fled.

Many of those booked to come in the next few months have canceled. Hotel occupancy across the island has plummeted by 85% to 90%. The tropical beaches, restaurants and shops are empty.

The coordinated suicide bombings on April 21 not only destroyed lives but also wiped out the livelihoods of Sri Lankans who depend on tourism.

More than 250 people, including 45 foreigners mainly from China, India, the U.S. and the U.K., died in the Islamic State group-claimed blasts.

Tourists normally come to Hikkaduwa, in the southwest, for the strong waves that are perfect for surfing and sparkling clear waters made for snorkeling. Today, of the 27 hotels, very few are open. Most, along with the eateries that line the 6-kilometer (3.7-mile) stretch of palm-fringed beach, are closed.

Among the few hotels still open is Hikkaduwa Beach Hotel. On April 21, all 50 rooms were occupied; today, only a handful. “It’s a real disaster. We don’t know what to do right now,” said Sanjeewani Yogarajah, an executive with the hotel. She said the attack has cost the hotel 5.5 million Sri Lankan rupees ($31,000), forcing the hotel’s management to send half the staff home.

Some tourism officials say the damage to the industry after the bombings is worse than during the 26-year civil war between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the government which ended a decade ago. At least then, the violence was mostly contained to the north of Sri Lanka, they said. This time, no part of the island has remained untouched by the blasts.

Lankesha Ponnamperuma, general manager of hotel chain Hikka Tranz, is one of the luckier ones. While most hotels report wholesale cancellations, he is surviving thanks to business from local residents. Last Friday, two-thirds of the 150 rooms were booked, mostly by domestic tourists.

“I haven’t sacked anyone yet. Instead, we are training our people to adjust their expenditure and helping them restructure their bank loans,” Ponnamperuma said.

The president of Sri Lanka’s Hotels Association, Sanath Ukwatta, said hotels have offered 30-50% discounts to entice local residents.

Such a strategy won’t solve the problem, he said, but will “help at least to keep the hotels going.”

The manager of a clothing shop said the owner had shut the group’s other two shops and the factory too. “Business collapsed after April 21,” said Kumari, who declined to give her surname.

According to government figures, there has been an 80% drop in arrivals since the attack. Tourism accounts for 4.9% of Sri Lanka’s GDP. Last year, 2.3 million tourists visited the island, generating $4.4 billion in revenues, a nearly 12% jump from 2017. Around half a million Sri Lankans directly depend on tourism while 2 million depend on it indirectly.

One of them is Mohomed Musflick, the owner of a souvenir shop in Galle which is full of wood carvings, local paintings and postcards. “I have not sold one item. There are no tourists and we are in a huge crisis,” he said.

While life is gradually returning to normal on the island with offices and schools re-opening, the tourism industry is in a somber mood over the slump in foreign tourists. Tour operators from Russia, Norway and Britain have canceled bookings going right up to April 2020.

A travel ban issued by nearly a dozen countries is the greatest cause for concern. “The ban is our main worry. Until it is removed or softened, we can’t start our marketing to attract tourists. If it is lifted soon, we are hopeful we can bounce back this year or otherwise definitely next year for sure,” said Yogarajah.

In the meantime, Sri Lanka’s government should target “people and countries resilient to this kind of attacks and situations, such as Russia, Israel and India,” said Anusha Frydman, managing director of the Lavanga Resort and Spa.

The industry is clear about what else it wants from the authorities: Ensure that stringent security measures are in place to reassure potential visitors; persuade politicians to put their differences aside and adopt a bipartisan approach on national security; and work fast to get the travel ban lifted.

To help the industry cope, the government has put together a relief package comprising easy loans at special rates and reduced taxes. The government also plans to formulate a $100 million insurance fund for compensation to any tourist injured or killed while visiting the island.

“In the past we have had many serious crises and we have recovered. I am quite positive we can do it again,” said Jan van Twest, general manager of the Fortress Resort and Spa near Galle, where 750 room nights have been canceled from May to October.

“But we need to recover, recover very fast,” he said.

By Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha Courtesy Ceylon Today

It is not surprising that security scarcely figures in Maithripala Sirisena’s manifesto. He talks about food security and energy security, which are of course both most desirable, but their promotion by government must come after the provision of physical security, which is its first and foremost obligation. But we had obtained this, irreversibly it seemed, with the destruction in 2009 of the LTTE and the lifting of the terror that had shrouded us in darkness for a quarter of a century.

So when Sirisena talked of the total breakdown of the rule of law” he could dwell on fraud and corruption, not the threat of sudden death that the LTTE had held over us for so long. And one cannot blame him, for we were all complacent. But whereas a high proportion of citizens continued grateful to President Rajapaksa for what he had achieved, others forgot that. Sadly amongst these was Sirisena, even though in time he tried to take some credit for the achievement in recalling his role as Acting Minister of Defence when the war was almost over.

I need not have to say that I was amongst those who did not forget, even though I felt in 2014 that we needed a change. But this was not because of anything wrong Mahinda Rajapaksa and the country he led had done during his first term as President, which sadly became the theme song of many of those who supported Sirisena. My worries were the indulgence the President showed to many who were more interested in themselves than the country, as also the total neglect by those he had put in charge of international relations – principally the Peiris twins in their different fashions – of the post-terrorism threat hanging over us and the need to deal with that firmly. And it was because I did not feel he should be held personally responsible for what had gone wrong, that I kept arguing in 2015 for restorative justice, not retributive, which had also been the theme I stressed in the Reconciliation Policy I had drafted a couple of years previously, only to have it ignored by the President even though I was supposed to be his Adviser on Reconciliation.

Early in 2014, I tried to draw the President’s attention to the need to do more for Reconciliation and to get over the international criticism we were facing, with the support of the more civilized members of his government. The letter I drafted, signed by half a dozen government party Ministers and MPs, was delivered to him early in 2014 by Vasudeva Nanayakkara and Vasantha Senanayake. They had not wanted me to come because they thought the President had been filled with reasons to resent me by those around him I was critical about, and they were a bit nervous that he would react angrily. But in fact, he proved most understanding, and agreed that something needed to be done. Unfortunately, he then gave priority instead to electoral triumphs and, even though it became clear that year that the old magic was fading, he still went ahead with a premature Presidential Election.

Vasantha Senanayake

I was sad that only Vasantha and I of those who had identified the problems he was creating for himself supported Maithripala Sirisena initially, but in retrospect I can understand why the old left, which had deplored the chauvinist approach Mahinda Rajapaksa had adopted – which had early on been identified with Champika Ranawaka – stuck with him. They knew Maithripala Sirisena better than I did, and that he would prove weak, allowing himself to be dominated by Ranil.

So it proved. And though I had not worried too much about that, not for a moment thinking that Sirisena would continue for a few months with the obsequious attitude to Ranil that he had manifested on the day he declared his candidacy, it soon enough became clear to me that Ranil was infinitely worse in terms of corruption than Mahinda had been. That was why I welcomed Sirisena’s decision to accept Mahinda Rajapaksa’s candidacy at the General Election of August 2015. I had no doubt that Mahinda, working together with Sirisena as President would be much better for the country than Ranil and Sirisena, and I am only sorry that Sirisena took three long years more to recognize this – and I am also sorry that many of those around Mahinda did not accept Sirisena as the President, and issued threats on platforms which allowed those around Sirisena to put him into a panic, so that he virtually sabotaged the UPFA election campaign.

And in turn the extremists in the SLFP, now running the SLPP, sabotaged Sirisena’s plan to make amends last October, by turning away Muslim members of Parliament who had been willing to be sworn in as Ministers. The argument it seemed was that they were not enough in number – even though their swearing in ensured a majority – and they should come back with their leader, principally Rishad Bathiudeen, who had been pampered during Rajapaksa’s second term, but then crossed over to Sirisena, on condition that he was given the Ministry he had enjoyed previously.

Very modern Muslim lady

Interestingly, when I was congratulated on behalf of her community by a very modern Muslim lady after I had appeared with Sirisena when he declared his candidacy, and told her I hoped the Muslim political leaders would join us, she said forcefully that she hoped we would not accept those crooks. But they did join us, after what seemed the statutory trip abroad to seal the deal (and in Rauff Hakeem’s case a meeting after Christmas lunch with Ranil, who told me he was going to discuss the amount that was required).

Even more interestingly, Sirisena’s strategy last year was conclusively defeated when all the Muslim MPs went off to Saudi Arabia, and came back with what seemed a unified determination to support Ranil. What incentives they received, either abroad or here, I was not informed of this time, but we can guess at one, a significant pound of flesh. For we saw last month that Ranil, having importuned Sirisena to make Rishad Minister of Vocational Training and Skills Development, finally got his way albeit after some brief initial resistance.

Did Sirisena know what he was doing? There is some evidence in his manifesto that he was not entirely ignorant of what was going on. In the section on cultural and religious freedom and reconciliation, he notes that Religious disturbances are developing in the country due to the activities of extremist religious sects. In this situation, the extremist groups mutually nourish one another and are expanding their activities.” Though his primary intention here may have been to win over Muslims worried about the activities of the Bodu Bala Sena, he shows here that he understood there were also extremist Muslim sects.

He pledged then in his manifesto that: In order to control this situation, I will establish regional and national councils comprising religious leaders who will boldly work for religious coexistence and against extremism, without giving room for extreme elements of all religions. These Councils will be empowered to investigate into all problems associated with places of religious worship and arrive at final conclusions. Issues unresolved at regional level will be referred to the National Council.”

But far from doing anything of the sort, he seems to have exacerbated the situation, with unthinking promotion of his own favourite Muslim politician, Hizbullah, who was recently appointed Governor of the Eastern Province. The evidence that has now emerged about the connections of Hizbullah’s associates with extremism suggests the President really should remove him from that position, but it seems that nothing of the sort will happen.

Both Hizbullah and Rishad were given carte blanche by the last government, with virtual control of development activities in the various Divisions that were under their control. In those days of course there was less understanding of the spread of Islamic fundamentalism. Even though our capable intelligence agencies were doubtless aware of the content of the schools patronized by this pretty pair, they would not have thought it politic to raise too many objections.

‘University’

That will explain how what now is claimed to be a university was set up through an agreement with the then Minister of Vocational Training. Hizbullah seems to have been in charge then, and again seems to have been given a free hand, for I cannot recall the Ministry knowing anything about this when I chaired the Tertiary and Vocational Education Commission. Whether it has now passed from Hizbullah to Rishad is yet to be clarified, or whether indeed as a university it has been passed on to Rauff Hakeem. He one can hope will not be as indulgent to extreme perspectives, but one also must recognise that he too will be under pressure to conform.

Meanwhile, Sirisena has done nothing too about the pledge in his manifesto about secondary education, that international schools will come under full supervision of the Government. International schools will be included in the national education policy. Their curricula will have to conform to the national educational policy. Aesthetic education, Laws of Nature, principles of duties and obligations, general personal ethics etc. should be included in all subject streams.”

Though he may have meant this to apply to secular English medium schools, he must realise now the need to regulate religious schools of all denominations, and also to check carefully on the training and the perspectives of the staff they employ – and to disallow foreign teachers completely.

By Sumanasiri Liyanage Courtesy Ceylon Today

Political parties often times come to power making promises. As one of the TV advertisements says, politicians can avoid the blame by saying that they give promises” but not guarantees”. The so-called Yahapalana Government came to power on 8 January 2015. Parliamentary democracies seem to believe that a four or a five-year term is an adequate time to draw a balance sheet and to give once again a chance to the voters to revalidate their decision. A couple of weeks ago, the Annual Report of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka giving a portrait of the Sri Lankan economy in the year 2018 was out. Anyone who wishes to write a balance sheet has to depend to a great extent on the data and figures given in the report. However, the economy is not the sole factor measuring the success or the failure of the Government. In my opinion, what is key to evaluate the performance of a Government is how people, especially the lower rung of society think about the Government that they elected four or five years ago. So I thought my point of departure would be different.

A Small Survey

I conducted a small survey posing two simple questions. The first question is: (1) If, you prefer to disclose, could you tell me to whom did you vote in the last presidential election held in January 2015? The second question was posed only to the people who disclosed their decision and the question read like this: (2) Assume, you live in January 2015 and are given a second chance to vote once again. In that case, would you make the same decision? I posed this question to very small sample of 25 women and men. Hence, I do not claim that the results are generalisable. Out of the 25, seven were tuk tuk drivers, 10 were daily train commuters, two were pensioners, four were school teachers and two were university lecturers.

Seven people refused to give an answer to the first question so were dropped out from the survey. Among the 18 persons who disclosed their decision in 2015 were seven tuk tuk drivers, seven train commuters, three school teachers and one university lecturer. Out of these 18 women and men, 15 stated that they would not vote like they did in 2015. Although a generalisable claim is not warranted from this small sample, one can reach a tentative conclusion that the voter consciousness has gradually changed in the last four years and people believe the responsibility lies with the Government itself.

The Economy

The Yahapalana coalition envisioned a faster economic growth and to make Sri Lanka a Singapore. According to Vision 2025, Sri Lanka will be included in a rich country category in year 2025. However, since 2015, Sri Lanka has experienced a sluggish growth record with only a marginal increase in per capita income. The following Table from the Annual Report 2018 shows the downturn of economic growth after 2015.

Former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Dr. W A Wijewardena has the following to say about the pathetic situation of the Sri Lankan economy under Yahapalana government. However, an important line graph which has depicted the sad story of Sri Lanka’s economic performance during the last four-year period. Showing the annual real economic growth rate during the reign of the present Government, it has drawn a downward spiralling staircase with a growth of 5% in 2015 but falling continuously since then to reach the lowest stair of 3.2% in 2018. On average, the annual growth during this period has been at 4% and when it is adjusted for an annual population growth of about 1%, the real income per person, known as the Per Capita Income, has increased only by 3%, a rate much below the planned growth rate of 8% needed to become a rich country within a generation”. It was in this context he called the Yahapalana years of governance four wasted years which cannot be recovered by Sri Lanka now.”

The interesting point is that the growth record also demonstrates the bankruptcy of the IMF and World Bank Mullahs and their neoliberal fundamentalism. Future seems too bleak and the sluggish growth pattern will continue. As I have pointed out in my writings prior to the presidential election in 2015, the Yahapalana coalition did not have a plan based on proper analysis as far as economic development is concerned. It simply believed that saving money from eliminating corruption would pave the way for economic growth and development.

Waste and Corruption

The Government that came to power promising that it would eliminate corruption continued on the same path at increasing speed. It appears that the high priests of the Government were directly involved in the Bonds scam. The United National Party had shown in the past that it had a better record in economic management. However, the present Government may be named as the worst Government so far as economic management is concerned.

Defence and Security

Even a minimal State should provide defence and security to its citizens as its principal and key function. The event on Easter Sunday has proved that the present Government is incapable of performing this basic function. Terror attacks may come at unexpected times and places. However, in this instance it was a bolt from the blue for ordinary men and women but the same was not true for the high ranks of the Government. The clear lapse in the sphere of defence and security is part of the social ontology of the country.

Back to Survey Results

Let me go back to the survey results. The answer given by all seven tuk tuk drivers is interesting. They buy a three-wheeler on lease and so have to save some money to pay the finance. They all thought the decision they had made in 2015 was wrong. What led them to come to such a simple conclusion? My regular tuk tuk driver has informed me that business has become very bad after the Easter Sunday terror attack. He questioned the double standard of the Government. While it offers a concession package to tourist hotels and operators (he thought it was justified), the so-called price formula for petrol and diesel continues to be operative for three-wheeler drivers.

(The writer is a retired teacher of political economy.E-mail: sumane_l@yahoo.com)

NIRANJALA ARIYAWANSHA Courtesy Ceylon Today

Many top ranking Police officials have raised concerns over granting bail to nine suspects linked to the Easter Sunday bombings by Colombo Additional Magistrate, Priyantha Liyanage against opposition raised by the Wellampitiya Police and blaming the Officer-In-Charge of the Wellampitiya Police, Gamini Hewavithana for giving bail to suspects who were working at a copper factory belonging to one of the suicide bombers.

They claim that at a crucial juncture such as this, where the armed forces are striving to eliminate terrorism in the country, it is not correct for the Judiciary to act in a manner which would tarnish the image of the Police Department.

They further claim that the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) should conduct an investigation and release Hewavithana from false allegations made against him.

Hewavithana also lodged a complaint with the JSC in this regard.

According to sources, Hewavithana has requested the Court to remand the suspects according to Section 14 of the Bail Act, No. 30 of 1997. However, the request had been removed from Court reports, sources claim.

Two top Police officials told Ceylon Today that the Court has released nine suspects of the copper factory to fulfill somebody else’s agenda.

We don’t know what the objective is. It could be political or otherwise. However, we cannot allow other parties to level allegations at Police officers who have given their heart and soul to eliminate terrorism in the country, especially  after the Easter Sunday attack,” officials said.

When we contacted Hewavithana, he claimed that he has been accused for no wrong doing on his part.

I fear that I will suffer injustice and People look at me as if I am a traitor. But I have always abide by the law. I believe I will be released from this accusation,” he said.

He further said he had sent a file containing reports of the investigations carried out by the Police on the 10 suspects of the copper factory in Wellampitiya to Acting Inspector General of Police, Chandana Wickremeratna.

The owner Insaf Ahmed was the suicide bomber who blew himself up at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel on Easter Sunday.

After the incident, ten workers from the copper factory were arrested by Police on 22 April.

Colombo Additional Magistrate Liyanage granted bail to nine of them on 6 May. The 10^th suspect was remanded.

An extensive investigation was carried out by the Special Investigations Unit against Hewavithana and some other Police officers following the protest of the public against the granting of bail to terrorist suspects.

Courtesy Adaderana

President’s Counsel Ali Sabry says that the number of members in terrorist leader Zahran Hashim’s group grew significantly following the ethnic clashes in March last year and that this goes to show extremism feeds extremism.

He said Zahran’s terrorist group had only 20-25 members in the past, but after last year’s unfortunate clashes in Digana a large number of youths had joined them and this has been confirmed through statements.

What does this show? Extremism feeds extremism. Terrorism feeds terrorism,” he said.

He made these comments during a press conference held today (16) by representatives of the Muslim civil society of Sri Lanka. Minister Kabir Hashim, former Minister Ferial Ashraff, former Minister and attorney-at-law Imthiaz Bakeer Markar also attended the event.

Ali Sabry said that the people of this country should not be deceived by this hidden agenda every day. We have to identify this hidden agenda.” 

We have to strengthen the bonds between the people of the country,” he said.

He says as Muslims they have a big responsibility to fulfill and that some things need to be done within the Muslim community itself such as regulating Madrasas and reflecting on their culture.

He also said that there are some decisions which need to be taken with the entire Sri Lankan society coming together for a common purpose. 

The prominent civil lawyer also voiced his objection to the segregation of schools based on religions  

Mr Sabry said he believes that by dividing schools as Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim, Hindu and Catholic we are dividing the country’s children from the tender age of five. 

And once they start to live separately after the age of 18, we ask them to join together for national unity,” he said. 

He stated that the national anthem says we are all the children of one mother and that if so the children of one mother should not go to separate schools. 

This is a very important juncture in the history of this country,” he said, adding that everyone has an important role to play to bring longstanding peace and prosperity to the country.

Courtesy Adaderana

Courtesy Adaderana

Police curfew will not be imposed on any part of the country today (16) over the prevailing peaceful situation in the country, said Police Media Spokesperson.

Police Media Spokesperson SP Ruwan Gunasekera made mentioned this at a media briefing held today.

He further stated that no violent incidents have been reported in North Western Province and Gampaha police divisions as of yet.

The Police do expect to impose a curfew tonight as the security forces have consolidated the security in the island through security mission and no violent incidents have been reported yet, he said.

However, over the past few days, police curfews were imposed throughout the country, especially in the Gampaha Police Division and North Western Province.

Courtesy Adaderana

The Commander of Sri Lanka Army, Lieutenant General Mahesh Senanayake, states that Minister Rishad Bathiudeen had called him three times over an arrest of a suspect linked to the Dehiwala bombings on Easter Sunday.

The Army Commander revealed this today (16) at a press conference, answering a question raised by a journalist regarding a point in the non-confidence motion against Bathiudeen.

Referring to a statement made to a newspaper on May 5th that the Minister attempted to influence the Army Commander into releasing a suspect arrested over the Dehiwala bombing, the Commander that he would describe it as a request from the Minister rather than influencing.

Senanayake said that Minister Bathiudeen called him following the arrest of a certain suspect and that he gave the minister two answers.

According to the Commander, on the first two calls from Bathiudeen, he had told the Minister that he would inform him after checking on the suspect.

On the third call, he had informed the Minister that there is such a suspect among the arrested and asked Bathiudeen to make the same call in one and a half years, said the Army Commander.

When journalists queried the Commander on the relevant suspect, he responded saying that he cannot reveal anything about them except that they were arrested from Dehiwala.

The persons responsible for the Easter Sunday attacks had been running 17 safe houses and 07 training centers for the suicide bombers, Ruwan Gunasekera, the Police Media Spokesman, said on Wednesday.

Accordingly, training workshops for terrorist activities have been conducted in camps discovered in Wanathavilluwa, Hambantota, Nuwara Eliya, Kandy, Aruppola, Kattankudy, and Valaichenai areas.

The safety houses of the terrorists were located in Negombo, Katuwapitiya, Panadura, Sarkikamulla, St. Anthony’s Road in Kollupitiya, Tropos Road in Mount Lavinia, Wanathawilluwa, Wattala Enderamulla, Mayura Place in Wellawatte, Sainthamarudhu 09, Malwana, Thihariya, Kalagedihena, Kochchikade Daluwakotuwa, Valachchenai-Ridiyatenna, Sabarathipura in Kuliyapitiya, Hettipola , Katupotha, Ninthavur, and Samanthurai areas.

Information on these locations has been uncovered by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

Courtesy Adaderana

The No-Confidence motion against Minister Rishad Bathiudeen has been handed over to Speaker Karu Jayasuriya a short while ago, stated MP Udaya Gammanpila.

The Pivithuru Hela Urumaya (PHU) Leader stated that the motion has been signed by nearly sixty-six parliamentarians including the MPs of the Opposition.

MP Shehan Semasinghe stated that they will request the Speaker to immediately fix a date for the debate of the relevant motion.

The no-confidence motion against the Minister of Industry & Commerce, Resettlement of Protracted Displaced Persons, Co-operative Development and Vocational Training & Skills Development Rishad Bathiudeen is brought by the parliamentarians of the Opposition including MP Athuraliye Rathana Thero.

Is there proof beyond reasonable doubt that the attacks on 13/14 May 2019 in various parts of North Central/Western province was by Sinhalese? Were the attacks a form of collective guilt that Germans suffered after end of World War 2 when Allies treated all Germans as guilty as Hitler? But then why did ‘attackers’ come in bikes & busloads with SWORDS if they are supposed to be from the area? Who sent these bikes & buses of attackers? The narrative is usually written by the usual culprits whose paymasters expect them to tow the usual majority-minority slogan and occasions like this are super chances for them to beat the drums. However, if no revenge attack took place immediately after Easter Sunday, if no revenge attacks took place even after hundreds of swords, arms & ammunition began surfacing, how did an attack take place 3 weeks after Easter Sunday and after the Government stopped media showing what the police & armed forces were apprehending from homes & mosques?

21 April 2019 was Easter Sunday and Catholics prepared to go to church and hotels had arranged special meals for the occasion. 6 successive bombs exploded in 3 churches and 3 hotels killing over 250 worshippers and guests at the hotels along with hotel staff.

There was no bigger shock than this to a nation that bid goodbye to LTTE suicide bombings, assassinations in May 2009. The nation had just 10 years of peace and on 21 April 2019 what LTTE could never do in 30 years 9 rich educated Muslims indoctrinated by militant Islam did to end the lives of innocent people. As the number of dead got counted and shock turned to anger this would have been the best occasion for a revenge attack. But it did not happen not only because the army & police were on guard or because curfew was placed but because the people knew the culprits were not ordinary Muslims but militant Islam adhering Muslims. It was to everyone’s credit that people were quick to identify the root causes of this radicalization and the call to ban burka/nikab was even welcomed by the Muslim Council.

The 2^nd shock came when the people came to know that not only did the Government receive specific intel information from overseas since April 4^th April (4^th, 11^th, 16^th & 2hours before Easter Attacks) no one in the government had taken action except not to attend church themselves. The intel information not only had the venues of the suicide missions but even the names of the suicide bombers and specifically mentioned Easter Sunday as the chosen date of attack. The PM jumped to say he did not know but had to reverse that statement soon afterwards. A Minister unashamedly claimed his father told him not to go to church specifically mentioning St. Anthony’s Church would be attacked. This digital minister never informed the Cardinal or even thought of sending a twitter note to general public either. This was nothing but criminal negligence on the part of the government to which the President & Prime Minister must be held accountable. No country would have allowed deaths to happen after such precise intel information sent 17 days before an attack. The people were angry & the government needed to devise a plan to divert people’s anger away from them.

What are the options for a Government who was at the receiving end of wrath by all the communities in Sri Lanka including its own party supporters? This is a thought, readers must continuously keep in mind throughout this discussion.

The next shock came when police and army began rounding up suspects within 24hours of the attack. How could authorities round up suspects connected to the attacks so quickly? It later came to be known that the authorities had intel information since 2011. So we return to why the Government did not use the intel agencies to round up the suspects before Easter Sunday after the foreign intel was clear that a radical Islamic group was going to carry out the attack? Government was guilty by inaction for 2^nd time.

It became known later that there are 6 Thawheed groups operating in Sri Lanka with the National Thawheed Jamaat set up in 2011 aggressively promoting Shariah law. The then government had set up 2 intel units in Giritale & Kurunegala camps with 5000 intel officers proficient even in Arabic language to keep track of these extremist Muslims. In 2012, some 161 foreign Islamic missionaries were deported. The Directorate of Military Intelligence knew that locals were fighting in Syria in 2013. One Mohamed Muhsin Nilam left for Mecca in 2013 and died in 2015. Never have we seen entire families taking part in radical militant Islam. Nilam’s brother, Nilam’s wife, 6 children, wife’s parents, two of wife’s brothers including 36 from 3 families went to Syria and this was the 3 families that Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakse referred to in 2016 while adding that foreign extremist teachers were teaching at Muslim International schools in Beruwela, Kalmunai, Kala Eliya, Kurunegala. A H M Azeer denied this as did Rauff Hakeem. It was the refusal to accept radical Islam spreading or being indirect beneficiaries of the handouts given by these well-monied groups that resulted in not only NTJ but the setting up of Jamiyathul Millana Ibrahim Fi Sellani (JMI) in 2015 by one Umair from Colombo 10 – the DMI was aware of this too. The state intelligence even in 2015 knew of Aadhil Ameez from Aluthgama, a computer wizard who used various alias on social media to draw people to support ISIS. Aadhil was recently arrested in India. When we know ISIS is a ‘made in USA’ just as Al Qaeda we seriously have to wonder if radical Islam was planned to facilitate the pivot to Sri Lanka by West?

So we return to ask, was the Government complicit in allowing radical Islam to evolve to facilitate the pivot to Sri Lanka plan?

Even Muslims opposed the radicalism being nurtured among the Muslim community. They called for action by the government we fear that these activities if left unchecked by the authorities would create a situation in which the majority of Muslims in Sri Lanka may have to face the wrath of other religions”.

It was aspects of this extremism that was left undealt with that resulted in what took place in Aluthgama given a political twist, months before a crucial regime change election. People have to be wiser to realize that the radicalism was a factor that was a grievance to non-Muslims of the area coupled with the manner authorities were getting influenced to do nothing and this was a super time to plan a riot that would result in denying a bloc vote to the then government. It worked superbly because during that period the narrative was written in such away that there was no radical Islam in Sri Lanka and everyone speaking against burka, halal, proliferation of mosques etc were simply Buddhist extremists and the media went to town tagging them all sorts of names while nicely camouflaged the festering extremism taking place. Media has much to answer in equal measure as the Government for giving space/columns to only one side to always vilifying the majority of Sri Lanka.

The next shock to the people came when police & army began search operations across the country.

What did they find & where?

• Mannar – Digital tape to launch laser attack & an unregistered drone
• Pulmoddai – 89 detonators, water gels in a house
• Hingurana Sugar factory stores – 300 large knives gone missing
• Mosque near PM’s residence – 20 camouflage military uniforms,
• Inside house of the President & Treasurer of mosque in Moragoda, Galle – 797 cds of scenes inciting violence
• Kadil Jumma mosque near Defense College in Slave Island – suicide vest and 300 unused swords
• Under bed of Moulavi of Kadil Jumma mosque – 46 swords,
• Maskeliya Jumma mosque – unused swords
• Mannar coast – large stocks of explosives smuggled. Several influential persons in Mannar ensured police did not make arrests! (hint hint hint)
• War Items – detonators and explosives,   gelignite , petrol bombs, safety fuses (each about 12.5ft in length) grenades and weapons such as axes, daggers, guns,  swords, knives, pistols and  ammunition. Suicide vests, walkie–talkies, hi-tech equipment, army uniforms, camouflage uniforms, bogus degree certificates,  bogus IDs, bogus passports,  savings books of Bank of Ceylon. CDs and DVDs containing extremist propaganda.

Radical Islamic cells

Central Province (10)

Kandy district – Udunuwara, Akurana, Gampola, Daulagala, Katugastota, Nawalapitiya, Peradeniya,

Nuwara Eliya district – Maskeliya

Matale district – Matale, Ukuwela

Western Province (24)

Colombo district – Battaramulla, Koswatte, Dehiwela, Dematagoda, Slave Island, Wellawatte, Ratmalana, Moratuwa, Raddolugama

Kalutara district – Kalutara, Aluthgama, Bandaragama, Beruwela, Welipenna

Gampaha district – Ja-Ela, Kadawata, Mabole, Negombo, Nittambuwa, Ragama, Tihariya, Veyangoda, Welisara, Enderamulla,  (where Faizer Mustapher was trying to rename ‘Akhbar Town’)

North Central Province (7)

Anuradhapura district – Anuradhapura, Galkiriyagama, Kahatagasdiliya, Kebethigollewa, Kekirawa, Nacchaduwa

Polonnaruwa district – Welikanda

North Western Province (12)

Kurunegala district – Kurunegala, Dummalasuriya, Kuliyapitiya, Moragollagama, Nikaveratiya, Telwatte

Puttalam district – Puttalam, Kalpitiya, Madampe, Mandalkuda, Marawila, Mundalama

Uva Province (7)

Badulla District – Badulla, Bandarawela, Ettampitiya, Welimada

Moneragala district – Moneragala, Bibile, Wellawaya

Southern Province (9)

Matara District – Matara, Dickwella, Hakmana, Weligama

Galle district – Galle, Balapitiya, Poddala

Hambantota district – Hambantota, Tangalle

Sabaragamauwa Province (6)

Kegalle district – Kegalle, Bulathkohupitiya, Kotiyakumbura, Mawanella, Yatiyantota

Ratnapura district – Kiriella

Eastern Province (12)

Trincomalee district – Trincomalee, Erakkandi, Kantale, Kinniya, Pulmoddai, Serunuwara

Ampara District – Kalmunai, Nintavur, Pothuvil, Samanthurai

Batticoloa district – Eravur, Panama

Northern Province (2)

Mannar District – Mannar

Vavuniya

Let us completely negate the efforts to claim 13/14 May 2019 attack as being retaliatory because revenge attacks are spontaneous attacks. Any attack happening 3 weeks after has to be a well- coordinated and planned attack often aligned to a political agenda.

Why did police arrest only youth of the area? Why did PM insist the police charge these Sinhala youth with ICCPR when all Muslims arrested with swords are released after being handed over by the army?

The Chilaw incident was a precursor – a Muslim facebook post which was taken to the police to file complaint was not entertained by police that led to attack on that shop. Again we return to question why the Chilaw police did not entertain the complaint and take action against the Muslim which would have averted any chaos that ensued in Chilaw?

If Muslims in the areas affected, say police and army just watched – the only reason why police & army would ‘just watch’ is if they were given orders to do so! Isn’t that why some army personnel are also in hospital with injuries!

When PM and Bathurdeen with his personal TV channel crew run to the scene and take photos of the mayhem isn’t this part of the political plan to stoke communal tensions. A tactic used by ISIS in Middle East was to project images of Western forces harassing Muslim women to anger them into joining their ‘cause’ – probably this is why there is frequent reference by Muslim Ministers to ‘innocent women’! Flogging discrimination against Muslims is one of the best methods to get chunks from the $87billion Wahhabi kitty.

The incident brought to mind 1983 when attackers had voter lists in hand and knew exactly which houses were Tamil. We do not need to be reminded of the role UNP played in the 1983 riots! Sinhalese were blamed completely ignoring that they sheltered families in their homes. The same Sinhalese families kept the Muslim staff & owners of the shops under attack in May 2019 in their homes too. But this is not sensational enough and media prefer to only vilify the Sinhalese and only that gets relayed across international media.

NOT ONLY MUSLIM SHOPS – SINHALA SHOPS WERE ALSO DESTROYED

Why has there been no media attention to the fact that Sinhala shops were also attacked. EKKO the largest textile shop in Minuwangoda town was also attacked damaging stocks. Another Sinhalese glass shop owner in Burulapitiya was also attacked by people arriving in 20 motorcycles. If he shouted ‘I am Sinhalese’ and still the shop was attacked are we to presume the attackers were not Sinhalese?

Let’s not forget that the UNP goons that attacked in 1983 comprised thugs that were Sinhalese, Muslims and Tamils they cared little about being Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Islamic or Christians – so long as they were given some payment for their arson and the ability to loot!

Let’s also not forget the recent Digana attacks were also led by busload of mobs and many believe UNP had a hand in this too.

This is what the then UNP President JR Jayawardena said two weeks before 1983 riots

…I am not worried about the opinion of the Jaffna people now …if I starve the Tamils, Sinhala people will be happy…”

It took 35 years for the PM to admit UNP role in the burning of Jaffna Library in 1981.

Hypocrisies and government bias stand out

People putting facebook posts are arrested and denied bail while the 9 suspects (paid Rs.30,000 each, using multiple SIM cards, names not included in attendance registry) working at the Wellampitiya copper factory owned by one of the suicide bombers are released immediately after arrest.

Are we going to allow the narrative to dictate to us? 250 plus lives sadly became a silver lining for the entire country to realize that a jihad war was being planned with cells, arms, swords and safehouses being set up in mosques and homes. No amount of vilification against the majority Sinhala Buddhists can hide this fact.

If it was a retaliation attack – it should be Catholics attacking the Muslims. Why place blame on Sinhala Buddhists?

Are we to forget all of these terrorist acts, terror preparations & a jihad war against Buddhists, Hindus & Catholics/Christians by carrying out a vilification campaign against Sinhala Buddhist to hide the bigger danger?   

  

Shenali D Waduge

In a disillusioned world where false flags and fake news gains momentum daily, it’s not surprising that distortions are taking place. Iraq was destroyed based on a false weapons of mass destruction propaganda, Libya, from the most developed country in North Africa, is in ruins today after promising ‘liberation’ from a dictator but not getting it, hired mercenaries and trained rebels have ruined Syria and we can give enough & more examples of how lies have been promoted and accepted and it is in this same context we must highlight the newest lie to claim Sri Lanka is not a Buddhist country. For 514 years now a systematic, well-coordinated and well-funded attempts are taking place to remove the 2600 year Buddhist civilizational history.

Firstly, let us put to right that Sri Lanka is an island nation where its populace comprises Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and Burghers in terms of ethnicity while in terms of religions Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Catholic, Islam constitute the main faiths.

While, undeniably Sri Lanka belongs to all citizens belonging to the above mentioned ethnic groups, the island civilization developed by a Sinhala Buddhist-Cultural heritage aligned on the dasa raja dhamma (10 principles of Buddhist governance) which even the South Indian invader rulers adhered to including King Elara.

The Sinhala Buddhist kings that ruled Sri Lanka on the basis of the Laws of Manu and customary Buddhist laws upheld the Buddhist precepts that all living beings are to be protected with reverence for life. The governing rules of law were clearly articulated. The place of Buddhism in the country’s landscape was inviolable and that place was also guaranteed in the Kandyan Convention of 1815 the religion of the Buddha professed by the chief and inhabitants of these provinces is declared inviolable and its rites, ministers (monks), and places of worship are to be maintained and protected”. This is why any government after independence are bound to maintain the sacred place held by Buddhism for over 2500 years. Later day arrived people or faiths cannot seek to have on par status except to have the rights to practice their faiths without discrimination and have the country law applied equally to all. So long as the law is equal to all – no one is a second class citizen.

So undeniably, the island nation’s civilization was built upon the tenets of Buddhist philosophy and principles which the King and all in the kingdom island followed.

While there is no doubt that man originated in Africa and spread to all corners of the world from where mixed groups of people emerged, Sinhalese people remain the only group of people who evolved in Sri Lanka with its own language & culture. Sinhalese are not found in any part of the world whereas Tamils & Muslims are.

Though Tamils claim a separate land, they are yet to prove that they are not linked to Tamils in Tamil Nadu because the Tamil language and cultures originated in Tamil Nadu. This is why 72m Tamils live in Tamil Nadu as against just 2m Tamils in Sri Lanka. Tamil Nadu & Sri Lanka was never linked at any point of time and after the arrival of the 3 colonial invaders they transported scores of Tamils to Sri Lanka to work on their plantations and these Tamil Nadu Tamils continued to stay on though some returned after the Srima-Shastri Pact. Statistics by the colonials prove that there were more Tamils in Sri Lanka brought after 1505 then there were before which nullifies claims that Tamils ran a kingdom of their own because to date they have not produced names of kings who are not linked to India/South India and colonial records are clear that there were no independent or separate kingdoms except kinglets that are no different to the present semi-autonomous provincial council system we have.

The artificial ethnic group ‘Ceylon Tamils’ entered census in 1911 by a Tamil.

Queyroz book ‘Conquest of Ceylon’ records 15 ‘kinglets’ in Sinhale in 1505 when Portuguese arrived and the head of the kinglets was the emperor’ and there was only one Emperor in Sinhale. Queyroz’s book:

‘As long as Rajapure (Anuradhapura) was the capital of Ceylon, the whole island was subject to one King”

The writings of Queroyz, Baldeuz and many other historians clearly establish this while at all times the Eastern Province had remained under the Kandyan kingdom/King.

It was the Kandyan King Senarath who dispatched his trusted commander Mudaliyar Attapattu with some 10,000 Sinhala army to save the Tamils from Portuguese attack in 1619. Now shouldn’t we ask why the Sinhala Buddhist king Senarath would dispatch an army to save Tamils in North Sri Lanka from Portuguese if the area did not belong to him? Just as the Sinhala king sent his troops in 1619, the Senadhinayake 387 years later, dispatched his army to save close to 300,000 Tamils, held hostage by LTTE and eliminated LTTE ground force in May 2009.

The defeat of King Senarath’s troops in 1619 led to a Portuguese inquisition that resulted in death and conversions of Tamil Hindus in contrast the Buddhist Sinhalese looked after the minority Tamils in areas where Buddhist Sinhales were in majority with full respect for the religious rights of the Tamil Hindus.

Tamils did not originate in Sri Lanka and neither did the Tamil language but both Sinhalese people & language originated in Sri Lanka (how mixed that was is irrelevant because a new people with new language and culture originated and evolved in Sri Lanka). Tamils never evolved in Sri Lanka. They came as migrants and after invasions first with the Chola invasions during the 13th century till the Aryacakravarti rule.

Can migrants seek homelands in countries they migrate to?

If Tamils were the original inhabitants in Sri Lanka how can there be millions more Tamils in South India? The same ethnic group cannot evolve from 2 different countries? Let’s not forget that Tamil Nadu has been claiming the self-determination rights before the Tamils in Sri Lanka. There cannot be 2 homelands for the same ethnic people.

Up until 1505 there were only Sinhala Buddhists and a small number of Tamils. All Tamils were Hindus and all Sinhalese were Buddhists. It was after mass conversions by Catholic/Christian colonial invaders that Sinhala Christians/Catholics and Tamil Christian/Catholics and Burgher Christian/Catholics emerged.

Jaffna peninsula and Nagadipa is mentioned when Buddha first visited Sri Lanka. Yapane derives from Sinhalese Yapapatuna. Nagas who were related to the ruling royal family in Kelaniya who were the ancient inhabitants of Jaffna. Paul E Pieris claims that Nagadipa was the name given to entire Jaffna peninsula and its islands.

King Devanampiyatissa’s envoys set off to India from Jambukola port the same port that Sanghamitta theraniya came with the sacred Bodhi tree. Here too a temple was built and a sapling planted by King Devanampiyatissa.

We must also not fall prey to Sinhalese originating from Prince Vijaya. This is another myth fed into our system. There were 4 tribes known as Sivu-hela and this in time came to be Sinhale and they were living in the island far before Vijaya and his men landed.

Sinhale denoted the Island and the Sinhalese with people living in Sinhale as Sinhale Tamils etc – though this was replaced with Sri Lankan in 1972 so the Sri Lankan identity is only 47 years old whereas Sinhale identity is thousands of years old. It was with the Sinhale nation that the British signed the Kandyan Convention.

The same king Senarath and his son saved scores of Muslims from being killed by Portuguese/Dutch too and gave them refuge in his kingdom to live and work on his lands but Muslims were not given land ownership.

It is also to be reminded that the Muslims had no land rights in Sri Lanka until 1832 (Muslims have enjoyed land rights for only 187 years).

Robert Knox writes

there are Moors, who are like Strangers and hold no land, but live by carrying goods to the sea-ports”.

It was the Sinhalese patriots and the Buddhist kings who protected the nation from enemies (except for Don Juan Dharmapala who betrayed the nation, the Sinhalese and Buddhism). Anyone who disagrees please produce evidence.

That minorities enjoy more than enough religious freedoms can be proved by the increasing mosques, churches, kovils, madrassas, prayer/faith healing centres mushrooming throughout the island. If Sinhala Buddhists were marginalizing minorities how can Muslims have a parallel quasi-law, religious food labeling, religious banking system, Muslim daycare/international schools/ Arabic schools etc??? With existence of such all others are secondary citizens in reality because the State has given into the rights of only this minority unfairly.

Politicians & NGOs funded by external parties are striving to change the history of Sri Lanka, many are openly floating false notions and trying to dilute the Buddhist influence in Sri Lanka completely ignoring that there is 1000 year’s difference in Buddhism and birth of Abrahamic religions! Much has happened between this period before Christianity/Islam was even birthed. The architectural marvels, manmade irrigational marvels of Anuradhapura were built long before Islam originated.

It was Arabs who came to Sri Lanka first as traders and not Muslims. Arabs were not originally Muslims nor did they follow Islam. Arabs and Persians converted to Islam only after Islamic conquests using the sword. All Arabs were not Muslim – there were Christian Arabs too. The Islamized Arabs that went to South India began learning Tamil and since they were only males they married South Indian women & travelled later to Sri Lanka which explains the dark-colour of their skin. Majority Muslims speak Tamil and even the Koran was in Tamil.

Most Muslims refer to Yonas during King Pandukabaya’s time but these Yonas were not Muslim because there was no Islam during that period. Islam came 350 after Christ. Christianity as a religion emerged in 4^th century 200 years after birth of Christ.

Reverence given to Buddhism was such that all Kings prohibited animal slaughter and everyone had to adjust to the prevailing Buddhist ethos & Governing law. King Kirti Sri Nissankamalla prohibited killing of all living beings. King Elara punished his own son with death for running over a calf. No Muslim living even as aliens indulged in ritual animal slaughter under Sinhala Buddhist rule. John Doyly also notes that the Sinhala law prohibited hunting but British killed thousands of elephants as a sport.

Recently, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith declared that this is a Sinhala Buddhist nation and foremost place must be given to Buddhism, he went on to say that even Catholics can follow the teachings of Buddha while being Catholic as it has nothing but good. Buddhism does not define non-Buddhists, nor defines how to treat non-Buddhists. Non-Buddhists are not called non-believers, kafirs, infidels or zimmis. Nowhere in Buddhas teachings tell its followers that it is not a sin to deceive non Buddhists, to lie to them in the name of Buddhism or to show two faces to others. There is no ‘out of context’ arguments either.

There are no inducements in Buddhism other than to gather good merit or karma. Buddhists do not have rich lobby groups or spend on promoting to convert. Buddhism spread from Persia to Indonesia without a sword or forced conversion whereas others spread brutally & with much bloodshed and explains why their numbers have increased.

For 514 years systematic, well-coordinated and well-funded attempts are taking place to remove the 2600 year Buddhist civilizational history and it is being craftily done through politicians who have no morals, no value for Sri Lanka’s historical past, who will barter Sri Lanka for any personal or political gain and have no qualms about the injustices they are doing. For cheap publicity they will say anything stupid like the former foreign and present finance minister is doing claiming Sri Lanka is not a Buddhist country.

Sadly, since history Sinhala Buddhists have shed blood protecting the nation & minorities against enemies that set foot in Sri Lanka. We did so throughout colonial rule, we did so during LTTE terrorism (helped by a handful of patriotic minorities) and now we are doing so again in the light of another radical element surfacing. Again it is the DNA of the traitors who are responsible for the present peril.

Sadly, majority in the minorities greatly influenced by external forces are shy to openly shower gratitude to the Sinhala Buddhist majority though a minority amongst the minorities do so & against much pressures by their own.

While many may try to gain cheap publicity by claiming Sri Lanka is not a Buddhist country the Catholics know that they are safe amongst the Sinhala Buddhists, the Tamils know they too are safe amongst the Sinhala Buddhists. Muslims lived following their faith & respecting the Sinhala culture until radical Islam got the better of some of them and before long they too will realize living among Sinhala Buddhists is better than falling prey to radical Islam.

Shenali D Waduge

Something is not right. While 57 of the 68 foreign terrorist groups banned by US are Islamic and all having some link or the other to each other as well as an underlying link to Western governments & their intelligence. According to the Global Terrorism Index 2018 compiled by the Institute for Economics & Peace the majority of the 169 terrorist groups are Islamic. Of the 68 foreign terrorist organizations banned by US – 57 are Islamic. Ironically or coincidentally, the West declares ‘war on terror’ in every country these Islamic terrorists wage terror in. However, the terrorists are never negated, territory is captured by terrorists eventually the West, civilians end up dead & the West’s soldiers end up fighting the very terrorists its governments & intel agencies have created & West stays grounded claiming it is yet to finish off the ‘terrorists’. Is there something bigger than we are not been told?

None of the Islamic terrorist groups come from countries that manufacture arms. So where do they buy arms – legally or illegally or who gives them arms covertly?

Terrorism today is undoubtedly a business. It is not just an ordinary business it is a very lucrative business. If there was no terror, arms manufacturers will not be making the profits it does. Its lucrative to many other players too including the human rights, NGO circles.

Arms manufacturers can sell to both parties (govts & terrorists both purchase arms to attack & defend, then there is the counter terrorism equipment which is also a lucrative business – cameras, scanners, all sort of sophisticated equipment) Quite a lot of money laundering activities are also taking place plugged to this is the illegal narcotic business.

Cost of terrorism in 2017 was said to be $52billion (Institute for Economics & Peace)

Terrorism is part of foreign policy – Islamic terrorists in Africa / US troops in Africa

American foreign policy makers claim to oppose Muslim extremism, but they foment it as a weapon of foreign policy. Is this the reason why wherever countries wish to politically pivot or politically pressurize governments or cause destability, suddenly some form of rebel group emerges with a ‘cause’  or ‘terror’ that almost always demands ‘territory’ – geopolitical expansionism that the countries that wish to pivot are eyeing.

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was originally Al Qaeda in Iraq which rebranded when US pivoted from Iraq to Syria. Syria is today a theatre for 3 wars – Syrian govt & western government backed-rebels, Iran & Saudi Arabia & US vs Russia.

US uses ISIS not merely as an instrument of terror to topple the Syrian government; it is also used to put pressure on Iran.

Just to put things in proper perspective. Last time Iran invaded another nation was in 1738 but the US has been engaged in over 53 illegal military invasions since 1776.

US uses ISIS in 3 ways – to attack West’s enemies in Middle East, to justify US military interventions abroad & create fear psychosis at home of a manufactured threat to its soil to require unprecedented domestic surveillance & need for US taxpayers to fund US military interventions overseas.

US interventions are very lucrative opportunities for US companies. More than 70 American companies and individuals have won up to $27 billion in contracts for work in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan. The West bomb countries and awards its companies contracts to rebuild the countries & who foots the bill?

The US is not at war with any country in Africa but there are 7500 US military personnel, 1000 contractors deployed in Africa an increase of 1500 from 2017. US has 100 missions in 20 African countries conducting 3500 military exercise operations (Strategic Cultural Foundation)

There are 200,000 US troops stationed in 177 countries!

In the African continent alone US is in 53 countries – that virtually means US is in every country in the African continent! In the tiny Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti – US has 4000 troops, a critical strategic base because of its port and its proximity to the Middle East. This camp controls drone attacks to target ‘insurgents’ in Yemen, Nigeria, and Somalia.

There are at least 33 Islamic terrorist groups operating in African continent.

Ethiopia an ally of the US, a majority-Christian nation, invaded Somalia in December 2006. It was a ‘made in Washington’ invasion. It resulted in 20,000 deaths and left up to 2 million Somalis homeless.

U.S. conducted 45 air strikes in Somalia against al Shabab and Islamic State targets in 2018. Just to kill one Somali warlord – Moh Farrah Aidid the US Special Forces ended up killing more than 1000 Somalis.

Who are these terrorists?

CIA gave birth to Al Qaeda & Osama bin Laden & Saudi funded it in 1980s. When Osama was no longer needed he was removed and Al Qaeda was rebranded under several names. Al Qaeda is said to operate in 17 countries & having 30,000 fighters

Boku Haram started operations in Nigeria in 2002 & operates in Chad, Cameroon & Niger too. It is famous for hostage taking & extensive use of children & women as suicide bombers copying LTTE.

Al Shabaab began in 2006 and strikes terror in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya & Uganda

Daesh, ISIS, ISIL, Islamic State are the other oft quoted names.

Creating the terrorists is one thing but how in control of these monsters are the countries that created them?

Fulani in Nigeria killed 321 people and carried out 72 attacks in 2017.

Al Nusra previously known as Hayat al-Tahrir al-Sham were responsible for 176 deaths in 2017.

In Pakistan, Lahkar-e-Jhangvi & the Khorasan Chapter of the Islamic State is active across the border in Afghanistan.

In Jammu Kashmir at least 5 different groups operate – Lashkar-e-Taliba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Hizbul Mujahideen who were responsible for 102 deaths.

Yemen crisis surrounds Houthi rebels Al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and Adan-Abyan Province of Islamic State while Abu Sayyaf, Maute Group operate in Philippines.

According to Watson Institute 228,942 Muslims have died engaged with US-NATO forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan from 2001 to 2018 – how many of them are civilians or West-trained militants, we will never know.

But the figure 114,471 Opposition fighters is a good indication of the Islamic terrorists that the West created & eventually killed.

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2018/Human%20Costs%2C%20Nov%208%202018%20CoW.pdf

Islamic terrorists & arms

All these Islamic groups have sophisticated arms – where are they getting them from. Are they gifted from arms manufacturing countries? Do they buy them from arms manufacturing countries (legally or illegally) if so how are they raising funds? Since 99% terrorists are Islamic and no Islamic country manufactures arms how are they sourcing these arms?

US is the world’s largest arms exporter – 36% of worlds arms exports is by US of which 28% goes to Saudi Arabia & UAE. Saudi is America’s largest customer. The 2016 and 2017 shipments from the United States include: 142 helicopters, eight anti-submarine aircraft, 153 tanks, and over 20,000 guided missiles. These weapons provide air support for the war in Yemen (SIPRI). More than 17,000 Yemeni civilians have died since Saudi began bombing Yemen with arms bought from US. (why are Muslims buying arms to kill fellow Muslims?)

US arms exports are 75% higher than Russia’s.

Islamic terrorists & funding

According to a February 2018 CNN investigation money given by UN ended up with Al-Shabaab. Al-Shabaab also follows the LTTE model of taxing people using the Islamic ‘zaqat’ (tax)

ISIL is the world’s wealthiest terrorist group with an annual revenue of US$2billion in 2015 (Global Terrorism Index) half of its funds were sourced from oil smuggling generating revenues of US$1.3 million per day.

According to UN data out of the 43 Foreign Terror Organizations 60% are linked to drug trafficking business. Trajan Evans of the University of Utah calls the link with Terror groups & drug trafficking a ‘marriage of convenience’. Terrorists receive cash, drug traffickers benefit from military skills, weapons supply & access to other clandestine organizations. Some terrorists are drug traffickers themselves like LTTE and most Islamic terror groups. https://www.law.utah.edu/the-link-between-terrorism-and-drug-trafficking/

Who are arming & training the terrorists?

Former British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, told the House of Commons that Al Qaeda was unquestionably a product of Western intelligence agencies.

Pentagon spent $500 million training Syrian rebels (Timber Sycamore was a classified weapons supply and training program run by the United President Barack Obama secretly authorized the CIA to begin arming Syria’s embattled rebels in 2013)

According to General Valery Gerasimov, Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia, US has trained over 1000 ISIS in Syria.

US openly supported Sarekat Islam against Sukarno in Indonesia

US supported the Jamaat-e-Islami terror group against Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in Pakistan

American policy in Iraq was to flog sectarian divisions and create a fertile breeding ground for Sunni discontent & lure radicalized Sunni’s against Shiiates.

ISIS thugs, are openly brandishing American-made M16 Assault rifles.

So the question is why are Muslims willing cannon-fodder for West’s geopolitical expansionisms?

The presence of American forces in the Middle East, for example, has motivated many to join terrorist groups in order to fight the American invasion.” Little do these Muslims realize that the organizations they join are very much in Western control.

West has mastered the art of using political Islam not only to recruit volunteer terrorists but inspire historical Islamic expansionist goals to transfer into West’s neocolonial expansionist goals. So political Islam via hired, trained terrorists are made to believe they are expanding the territory of Islam, safeguarding Islam while West enters with their military equipment, drones etc & says ‘thank you for giving us this territory’ and permanently kills the men they trained. 

According to CFR/UN/CTC as of August 2018, over 45,000 Al Qaeda affiliate fighters have died. These are the very men created, armed & financed by West for their various geopolitical pivots and foreign policy agendas.

This conflicts with the figure 114,471 ‘Opposition fighters’ killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan from 2001 to October 2018.

So exactly how many Islamic terrorists have been killed since the war on terror was launched in 2001? Obviously no one seems to even be able to give an estimate. The irony is that the West is happily recruiting Muslims and the Muslims are killing fellow Muslims as well as non-Muslims and West is thereafter killing these Muslims while incurring losses themselves. 4523 US troops have been killed since 2003 by the very men their governments birthed.

So our questions are:

• Who controls the arms trade?
• Who buys arms
• Where are the conflicts round the world & why?
• Who are these terrorists & how are they linked to Western Govts
• How are they getting trained?
• How many civilians have terrorists killed
• How many terrorists have died
• What is the net worth of these terrorists & where do the income they generate eventually go to & who really controls them?

Shenali D Waduge

CARTOONS ARE BEST TO CAPTURE PEOPLE’S SENTIMENTS

By Rohana R. Wasala

(Please bear with me, Readers. In the following sentence from Part I: Most of the observations these reputed intellectuals make through this statement about the failures of governance that facilitated the recent attacks on some mosques and hotels (in Negambo, Colombo and Baticaloa) are generally correct;….”, the word ‘mosques’ is a slip of the pen. The word I intended was ‘churches’. Readers are sure to have understood this from the context. I sincerely regret the error. Thank you)

Apparently pious, but really insincere proposal

FF’s apparently pious, but really insincere, proposal that We ourselves must resolve that this experience should not justify harassment of any community, or erosion of peoples’ rights on grounds of national security. We must, for the peace and stability of our country, reject ethnic and religious extremism in all our diverse communities” implies an uncritical, unpatriotic acceptance of the false picture that obtains in the world at large due to false propaganda regarding communal relations in Sri Lanka. It has now become clear that anti-Buddhist NGOs,  misguided young ‘radicals’, promoters of the separatist ideology, and the prostituted media are doing what they can do to propagate the lie that Sinhalese Buddhist extremists  are behind the violence. They do not talk about the hundreds of young men and women, obviously the vast majority of them Sinhalese Buddhists, who queued up near hospitals soon after the blasts to donate blood without being asked. Many of them were turned away later because no more blood was needed. Body organ donation is a meritorious act in Buddhism; there is no religious taboo on it. The very nature of the Buddhist teaching does not allow any extremist ideology to develop that inflicts violence of any form on the followers of other religious persuasions. Violence on a targeted religious community for a religious reason is unknown among Sinhalalese Buddhists. In the recent past, certain incidents were reported where some Buddhists including young monk activists were allegedly involved in violent acts. But those stories were mostly fabrications or exaggerations of some minor incidents involving a few impatient young activists reacting to acts of provocation from non-Buddhist religious zealots. The root cause of occasional communal unrest like that has always been the failure of opportunistic Sinhalese politicians in power in the past as well as now to grasp the nettle when aggrieved Sinhalese peacefully present their genuine grievances for redress. These politicians avoid taking action for fear of displeasing the minorities and losing their support at elections. Some racist minority politicians alternately align themselves with the winning party at every election and manage to remain kingmakers. The problem caused by this unaddressed anomaly further compounded by destabilizing outside forces could lead to a worsening of trouble that will be extremely damaging to the Sinhalese themselves this time unless they are extra patient and help the security forces to deal with the terrorists by desisting from taking the law into their own hands under provocation.

FF’s delusions about  what the country needs at this critical hour

These individuals of the FF living in cloud-cuckoo-land seem to harbor delusions about what the country needs at this critical hour:  We must also understand the lessons of history, especially Hitler’s rise to power, and reject absolutely the idea that the need of the hour is a strong, authoritarian and dictatorial leader. Leaders of the former government are arguing that they handed over to the new government a secure and peaceful country so that there would be no threats to national security. They must be reminded that they created the nightmare of disappearances, abductions and killings that left people in fear of their personal security. No political party should be permitted to exploit this horrific experience to promote a divisive and authoritarian political agenda. Our nation’s commitment to parliamentary democracy must be strengthened and not undermined, recognizing that some important and positive changes have been made in the last few years.”

We all know who they are alluding to, here. They identify  Gotabhaya Rajapaksa with Hitler the Nazi leader who figured in World War II (1939-45). Gotabaya Rajapaksa was not a politician until recently. He was only a former army colonel, a decorated soldier, turned government functionary under his brother the then president. Equipped with his previous experience and discipline as a military man, he proved himself to be an efficient administrator. The firmness that he exhibited in that capacity should not be interpreted as authoritarianism. A well meaning Buddhist monk, perhaps a bit overzealous, appealed to him, during a sermon at an almsgiving in his house, to assume the role of a Hitler if necessary, to lead the country at these desperate times back to normal. He made this metaphorical reference to Hitler because Gotabaya’s name had by then been mentioned as a likely candidate at the next presidential election. Those in fear of a return of the popular Rajapaksas exploited the monk’s ingenuous use of the word ‘Hitler’ in that context to sling mud at them. A little research into Gota’s past would have helped the FF worthies to become more worthy of the subject of their criticism. As retired academics  they ought to have looked for more firm factual evidence than mere social media gossip before condemning him and the pre-2015 government by implication. Why can’t these defenders of democracy see  the powerful Hitler clones  much in evidence to the casual observer these days, some with military credentials?

Contrast between the 2009-15 and 1986-90 periods

It is wrong to say that in the period 2009-2015 the people of the country were left ‘in fear of their personal security’ because of alleged ‘nightmare disappearances, abductions and killings’. The truth is that, during those few years, the law abiding general public enjoyed the safest, most terror free, most peaceful period they had experienced over the previous quarter century. It was probably the case that although the separatist terrorism that had ravaged the country was eliminated, the underworld that had flourished in parallel with it had yet to be dealt with; and destabilizing agents, in the pay of vested interests, had not stopped their activities. A responsible government could not look the other way while these elements carried on as usual. There could have been isolated lapses in the performance of their difficult tasks due to stress or personality disorders that had afflicted certain law enforcement officers. The ones detected did not go unpunished. Unauthorized ‘disappearances, abductions and killings’ were not part of the government policy. But that kind of thing was the order of the day during the second JVP uprising in the UNP-ruled 1986-1990 period where some 60,000 patriotic young men and women of the south, who, true to their internalized Buddhist cultural values, were  ideally free from racism or religious extremism, were slaughtered by the security forces.

The country that was handed to Yahapalanaya in January 2015 had established a strong national security system and had laid a sound foundation for rapid economic growth

These forgetful retired academics of the FF must be reminded that  the former government did  hand over ‘to the new government a secure and peaceful country so that there would be no threats to national security’. What was more, it was an economically rapidly developing Sri Lanka, where the average growth rate was between 6-7%, that raised it from a low income to a middle income country, and foreign investments flowed in, and tourism increased three-fold. They cannot be unaware of the abysmally poor performance of the current regime in both of these domains (national security and economy).

No one would dispute their observation that ‘Our nation’s commitment to parliamentary democracy must be strengthened and not undermined….’, but not everyone will be able to agree without reservations ‘that some important and positive changes have been made in the last few years’. Be that as it may, their argument that the alleged weaknesses of the presidential system that, according to them, have come out in the context of the recent terrorist attacks, strengthens the longstanding demand for its dismantling, is spurious, to say the least. They blame the presidential system for creating two centres of power, the president and the prime minister, without accountability to each other or to the people, a defect that jeopardizes public security and can cause the kind of destruction of life and property that we witnessed recently, with its attendant impact on individual livelihoods and the overall economy. But are these negative points inherent weaknesses of the presidential system? No, they are not. The drawbacks touched on are actually not those of the presidential system itself, but the natural consequences of the malfunctioning of the system caused by the faulty alliance as much as the equally faulty subsequent discord between the two incompatible personalities that are currently occupying the positions of president and prime minister. The FF statement rhetorically asks: ‘What hope is there for a country that is trapped in the personal ambitions of its leaders?’ No hope. True. But, who  set  that trap and how? The dishonest Yahapalana champions whom the likes of these FF worthies promoted did so through the aberrant 19^th amendment.

The situation has been worsened by an element of external interference allowed or solicited by one Yahapalana partner with the thoughtless acquiescence of the other. There can hardly any conflict of opinion when the president and the prime minister are from the same political party.  In the past, when they were from two rival parties, it was natural for disagreements  to arise between the legislative and the executive branches, but harmfully prolonged disagreements were not possible, because the president had the prerogative of dissolving parliament after the lapse of one year following the swearing in of a government. The prime minister could rule without consulting the president, but he or she could not do this for an  indefinitely long period of time because of the above presidential power. On the other hand the president would not interfere with a well performing government, for fear of public opprobrium.  So, the present sort of disastrous impasse between the president and the prime minister was not possible before 19A was promulgated. Thus it is not the presidential system itself that is to blame for allowing the Islamic terror strike to happen despite prior warnings from local and foreign intelligence sources, but the whittling away of the presidential powers through 19A assisted by the specific behavior of the squabbling duo at the helm, while the country is burning. The existential truth is that what is still saving the day for the nation at this most critical moment is this much maligned executive presidential system.

Non-elitist common people’s opinion about FF intellectuals’ credibility

One could determine how much credibility to attach to FF’s purported love for justice for their own beleaguered fellow citizens, if one cares to recall the general trend of their previous statements or press releases. Let’s go back two years, for an example: The Friday Forum article/statement/public appeal published in the Colombo Telegraph of August 23, 2017 under the title ‘New Constitution A Must: Friday Forum’, jointly written by one Priyantha Gamage and Bishop Duleep de Chickera, embodied a similarly insistent demand for a new constitution, which is synonymous with the abolition of the presidential system of government. It drew the following comment from a reader who signed ‘Pandu’, among many other negative ones:

Who in, all heaven’s name, is ‘Priyantha Gamage’?? Never heard of the chap.

Are anonymous characters also linking themselves to the FF? Seems to be a ‘has beens’ group which appears to do nothing else but go around issuing statements in the vain belief that someone listening to them!”

Another much nastier remark on the FF in the same context was by a person writing under the penname ‘Estate Labourer’: You have about as much brains as an African Dung Beetle!”

I felt sorry for the distinguished signatories of that 2017 August write-up, though I did not find anything in the contents of the article that would justify a rejection of those sentiments (expressed in the two reader comments quoted).

The central argument of FF’s 2017 public ‘petition’ as I saw it then was that the ‘verdict’ given at the presidential and parliamentary elections of 2015 was a mandate for a new constitution designed to remedy the alleged undemocratic trends that had set in with the promulgation of the existing presidential constitution in 1978. The article charged that 

In the meantime some political parties and prominent Buddhist clergy have publicly taken the position that a new constitution is unnecessary. It is extremely disheartening  that these groups seek to override the will of the people.”

(Who represents the ‘will of the people’ more authentically, the FF pundits or the Buddhist monks?) The political parties of the Joint Opposition, and those members of the ‘prominent Buddhist clergy’ are not seeking to ‘override the will of the people’; they represent the true will of the people. Their activism has taken some of them to jail. Aliens in their own motherland like FF members will not understand the true situation; they are willfully blind to the truth. No one can cure that kind of blindness.

The writers, on behalf of the FF, urged the prime minister and members of the Steering Committee

to ensure that the draft constitutional proposals are put before the Constitutional Assembly within the next three months at least, and are also made available to the public.”

Fortunately, nothing that the FF demanded has been done. The Joint Opposition has seen to that. They succeeded in getting the ill conceived constitution making process postponed indefinitely. The Yahapalanaya regime has no clear legitimacy to bring in such changes at the end of its ruinous rule. Few ordinary Sri Lankans believe today that the regime change of 2015 was what it was purported to be (the democratic ouster of an alleged kleptocracy and the ushering in of good governance). The corruption allegations they raised against the previous rulers have been revealed to be false. At the same time, the UNP itself is facing serious allegations of corruption including the repeated Central Bank robberies of 2015 and 2016.

I am sorry for Professor Fonseka for having unnecessarily recanted his earlier position regarding 18A as allegedly ‘an unpardonable act of political immorality’, and for adding his ‘failing voice to the Friday Forum’s demand for dismantling the presidential system of governance forthwith’.  Actually, FF’s call for the abolition of the presidential system at this hour of national crisis and potential national calamity could be counted an act of political immorality. The plain truth is that it is the presidential system that enables beleaguered Sri Lankans to maintain their hold on undisputed and undivided sovereignty over the whole of their island homeland. The due exercise of the sovereign power of the people has enabled the government to meet the  Islamic terror that recently struck the country out of the blue, as it were, with might and main. This is despite the fact that the powers of the president have already been substantially weakened by the 19A, in addition to having been undermined in other ways as well. Imagine how chaotic, and ungovernable the situation today would be if there were no executive president at the centre to mobilize the security forces across the country without having to coordinate with nine provincial governments following different or even conflicting agendas (which will definitely result from the intended passage of the proposed new federalist constitution).

FF’s apparent mission

It has long been clear to people who genuinely care for Sri Lanka that the Friday Forum members are trying to promote the 2015 regime change agenda, which has completely reversed the hard won achievements of the 2009 victory over Tamil separatist terrorism. Their statements are addressed to the coterie behind that agenda, perhaps for the sake of moral support, not to the ordinary people of the country that they are visiting frustration on in the process unbeknown to them, who hardly have heard about them or their ‘activism’ on their behalf. One gets the impression that they always look askance at those who stand up for the tolerant accommodating Sinhalese Buddhist cultural foundation of the country, that has made it possible for diverse minorities to live in peace and harmony with the majority over the centuries.

An ad hoc proposal to be considered for a way out of the current crisis and national emergency, which is marking a turning point in our 2500 year history

Even if the executive presidential system must be abolished for reasons still to be defined, it should not be abolished by the incumbent parliament because it has neither the lawfulness nor the moral right to do so.) The best way to put a decisive end to the prevailing dangerous state of anarchy is to dissolve parliament and go for elections. A less desirable alternative would be to form a temporary caretaker government  strictly without foreign involvement on a non-party basis, as an emergency measure, with representatives from the opposition necessarily included in it, for as short a specified period of time as possible for restoring national security, containing Islamic terrorism at least temporarily (until it is addressed in the future with the active participation of the two million strong traditional Sri Lankan Muslim community), and bringing back normalcy to the routine life of the civilian population. These will be ancillary to the express purpose for which such a caretaker government will be needed: the  holding of free and fair elections. It will be absolutely necessary to make sure that it will not be an interim government set up with the involvement of foreign meddlers designed to drive the country into deeper crisis. The pending controversial legislations must be put on hold for now, which might be reviewed, revised or altogether abandoned by the incoming administration after a future election. It will give the people some respite before fresh presidential and parliamentary elections are held when they are due according to the existing constitution; the elections could even be advanced in view of the urgency of the situation.

Concluded

Dr D. Chandraratna

We need to examine the making of Islamic extremism now so that precautionary measures can be taken to avert future catastrophe/s.  Before you venture into rehabilitating the yesterday’s terrorist the government must start a conversation with those who have studied the problem to identify well in advance before they strike in order to guarantee the security of citizens. Islamic terrorist is different from other terrorists like the LTTE suicide cadre where the lower rank recruit is brainwashed to become the martyr for a cause for which he even lacks first hand experience. The Islamic terrorist/ suicide bomber is carrying out a prescribed Godly mission who is intent on falling into the lap of God at the flick of a detonator switch to enjoy carnal pleasures that are forbidden by the same God in this world. Given the incompetence that the GCE (O) level politicians have shown so far, this has to be entrusted to criminologists/ psychologists and other experts who explore the evolution of the criminal mind. They are familiar with the notion of the alienated self and its possible nexus with the family, school, environment, psychology, personality and many other underlying causes. The suicidal terrorist is an unknown quantity but with the danger of terrorism and the magnitude of its horror becoming the new normal greater attention is paid to the would be terrorist. Even in terrorism the political terrorist is easy to understand but the religious terrorist who blows up people to appease a God is a difficult proposition.

A rational discussion cannot take place if we do not talk openly which is specially thwarted in times of crises. Hence we sprout feel good solutions, which last only until the embers are doused. That kind of Sanwedi sanhindiyawa (empathic coexistence?) is ephemeral. We need to ask the serious question whether Muslim society in general has an existential problem. Practically in every continent the recent violence associated with terrorism has links to Islam and Muslims. From the America’s to Europe, Australasia and Africa this cancer is fast growing and as the years roll on it is increasing in its monstrosity. A Muslim scholar resident in Australia has argued that the Muslim society is having an image problem and a tendency to self alienate them from the mainstream. This self-alienation in societies where the Muslims live as a minority is talked about in the West in response to the radicalization of the youth in Western society.

In the Sri Lankan context it is pertinent to pose the question whether our Muslims are a fractured, ‘morally inconsistent’, confused society. There are varying conflictual moral authority systems at play. Within a wider democratic framework Muslim society operates as a mini ‘theocratic’ state, controlled by a priestly class. Given the multiplicity of contradictory scriptural interpretations there are warring sects and collectivities. From the cloistered religious worldviews each one of these moral systems grasp the world in parts but not the totality. Godly moral canons cannot relate to the totality of the human world because modern society has gone past the boundaries of a God dictated world. They cannot take a critical stance outside of their values. In a sense they have moral specialists who are simultaneously a graduate of a university but illiterate in liberal worldly matters. There are those who are retailers who sell the Godly canon through motivational preaching’s and there are also buyers. Those who are confused flock to them. In such a culturally disorganized society the fanatic and the psychopath see a respectable niche opening to win his desired accolades from God.

From a sociological viewpoint this is the constitutional duality of human nature, the duality of the body and its needs in conflict with the soul. The idea of the homo duplex that earlier philosophers spoke of is in a state of antagonism instead of being in a balance. We cannot pursue moral ends without contradicting each other (body and soul), causing a split between the two, without offending the instincts and the penchant for the desires deeply rooted in our bodies. For civilizational advance it is necessary to repress the excessive individualism of the body because the failure to repress this part of the constructional duality of the human being leads to an anomic, ‘asocial’ situation of normlessness or at best confusion. If the moral authority has no relevance to the men’s real material situation in their performance of the occupational and social roles concomitant with natural talents, society tends to decompose itself into a multitude of incoherent corporations with a pervasive guilt complex in the wider society. Subcultural norms of conduct sprout and with their different scriptural interpretations of morality a ‘split personality’ complex abounds. Some of the pathological minds lead the groups and espouse oppositional conduct norms. The highly motivated religious fanatic will not hesitate to jump the bounds of reason. No better power than the Cod’s command will justify his actions. The use of violence and other forms of degeneration are not evil per se but an occasion for self-congratulation.

In the Muslim society there is a love-hate nexus between the priestly class and the bureaucrat, politician and the financier who operate in the wider democratic framework. They in general are sympathetic to the priestly class although they may not openly profess complete allegiance to the strict Godly interpretations and even abhor violence.  The priestly class cultivates them and the fanatic sees him as an ally of the violent subcultures and its conduct norms, which need political and financial resources to survive. The fanatical subculture needs the blessings of political power and bureaucratic favor to defuse the thereat to the their moral authority system. These contradictory moral authority systems make it difficult for the ordinary people to follow behavioral patterns in a socially adaptive manner.

Therefore alienation is rampant. Living according to God’s command and abiding by the strict conduct norms the alienated self finds acceptance and even a sense of superiority. The subculture of religious chauvinism believes that the Muslim social world must be unquestioned and in its determinist way human behaviors must be controlled. Those who want to live in the modern world may enjoy the forbidden fruit in secret and the vices may be practiced in cloistered quarters. But guilt abounds in this theocratic society. Creating Arabia by reintroducing the Arabic language, the beard, the desert landscape, the dress, headgear are all part of the self-infliction of alienation.  Their politician offers subcultural groups exclusive schools, churches, political parties, ethnic ghettoes, banks, legal systems and communication systems without hindrance. This is given the name pragmatic politics by all and sundry, which in the final analysis is, becomes a huge social menace. 

By A. Abdul Aziz.

(Given below is an excerpt of the Friday Sermon delivered by Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, Supreme Head of the world-wide Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Islam, on 10^th May, 2019, at ‘BaithulFuthuh’, London, U.K. gave a discourse on Ramazan and our Responsibilities.

Ahmadiyya Supreme Head recited Holy Qur’an – verses 184-187 of Surah al-Baqarah and then stated:

The translation of these verses is as follows:

O ye who believe! Fasting is prescribed for you, as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may become righteous i.e. to abstain from sin and increase in spirituality. The prescribed fasting is for a fixed number of days, but whoso among you is sick or is on a journey shall fast the same number of other days; and for those who are able to fast only with great difficulty is an expiation — the feeding of a poor man, providing they have the capacity to do so. And whoso performs a good work with willing obedience, it is better for him. And fasting is good for you, if you only knew. The month of Ramadan is that in which the Qur’an was sent down as a guidance for mankind with clear proofs of guidance and discrimination. Therefore, whosoever of you is present at home in this month, let him fast therein. But whoso is sick or is on a journey, shall fast the same number of other days. Allah desires to give you facility and He desires not hardship for you, and that you may complete the number, and that you may exalt Allah for His having guided you and that you may be grateful. And when My servants ask thee about Me, say: ‘I am near. I answer the prayer of the supplicant when he prays to Me. So they should hearken to Me and believe in Me, that they may follow the right way.’”

In these verses, God Almighty has described the obligation of fasting, its importance, the duties of the believers with regards to this month and the ways in which one’s prayers can be accepted. On one occasion, the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said, If you knew the excellences of Ramadan and in which ways and how much God Almighty manifests His mercy, you would have wished that Ramadan were extended to the entire year so that you can gather the blessings of Allah the Exalted all year long.” Thus, God Almighty has prescribed fasting for our own benefit. We can derive spiritual as well as physical benefits from fasting. Now, even the non-Muslim doctors are of the opinion that fasting has a positive effect of one’s health.

God Almighty has said in these [aforementioned] verses, that fasting has been prescribed for every believer and every Muslim who is a true Muslim. To remain hungry from morning until evening is not considered a fast.

Ahmadiyya Muslim Community (Jama’at) Founder – The Promised Messiah – Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, peace be on him,  has stated that through the practice of fasting, God Almighty desires for a person to decrease one form of nourishment and increase in another form of sustenance. A person observing the fast remains occupied in the remembrance of God Almighty in order to develop a state of inclination towards God and detachment from the world. Fasting has been prescribed so that one may become righteous. However, what is righteousness? It is to abstain from spiritual and moral weaknesses. The observing of the fast should develop a standard of righteousness within a person, through the means of which one is then able to protect themselves from all forms of spiritual and moral weaknesses, otherwise it is meaningless to fast. Thus, by truly fulfilling the due rights of fasting and by attaining high standards of righteousness that the observing of fasts will bring a person, a believer and a Muslim become under the protection of God Almighty.

Ahmadiyya Khalifa continued:

Hazrat Abu Huraira narrates that the Holy Prophet (PBUH) stated that God Almighty says that every deed of a person is for his own sake, except for observing fasts. In fact, the fast is observed for My sake.” Similarly, the Holy Prophet (PBUH) also stated that fasts are a shield and if anyone of you is observing a fast, he should not utter anything which is indecent and foul.”

The Holy Prophet (PBUH) also said, by God, in Whose hand lies Muhammad’s (PBUH) life, the smell of the mouth of an individual observing the fast is more pleasant to Allah the Exalted than musk.” That is, it is more pleasant than the fragrance of musk. The Holy Prophet (PBUH) then stated, there are two joys for an individual who observes fasts and that bring him happiness. Firstly, he rejoices when he breaks the fast in that Allah the Exalted made provisions for him to break the fast. Secondly, when he will meet his Lord, he will rejoice due to the fasts as Allah the Exalted states that I Personally become the reward for one who fasts.” Furthermore, the state of the joy of an individual, who observes the fast for the sake of Allah and receives the uncountable rewards of Allah the Exalted, will be of a completely different nature.

His Holiness Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad went on to say:

The Holy Prophet (PBUH) has also warned us and drawn our attention to the fact that if during the month of Ramadan, wherein the doors to heaven are opened; the doors to hell are closed and Satan is shackled, but yet if one were to witness the month of Ramadhan and not have their sins forgiven then when will he be forgiven? The Holy Prophet (PBUH) also warned that if despite the extremely comprehensive mercy of God Almighty, the means to secure one’s forgiveness are not attained (even in Ramadan), then when will they be attained? Hence, we should not simply become happy on account of Ramadan’s arrival and become satisfied in merely congratulating each other for Ramadan and the act of fasting. Rather, we should seriously evaluate ourselves about whether we are striving to attain the true purpose of fasting as laid out by God Almighty. May Allah Almighty enable all of us to achieve this purpose and grant us His forgiveness.

Then, in the next verse, God Almighty also describes those conditions in which one may be excused from fasting. However, before elaborating upon this, God Almighty explains, saying that since I Myself am the reward for the one who fasts, and I personally provide believers the means to secure their forgiveness, therefore the thought should not arise in anyone’s mind that we are making a great sacrifice by fasting, as a result of which Almighty Allah has granted us His favours, forbearance and forgivingness. No doubt, the mercy and forgiveness of God has been made extremely vast, but this (fasting) is still not an extraordinary sacrifice. At the time of Sehr, we eat our stomach’s fill, and at the time of breaking the fast, everyone eats whatever they desire; and then, this is hardly an ongoing sacrifice – it is only a matter of a small number of days in the year.

Hence, those afflicted with temporary illnesses can also give the Fidya, so that they get well and can fast. And then, at the end of one’s journey and upon recovering from sickness, it is also compulsory to fast. The need to observe both – observing missed fasts and giving the fidya – is proven by the following.

Ahmadiyya Founder – The Promised Messiah, peace be on him, explains that those who end up recovering and are able to make up their fasts, for them to think that they only need to pay the Fidya [and not keep the missed fasts] opens a dangerous door to legitimising that which is forbidden. If one’s condition is such that he recovered after Ramadan, or he became ill in Ramadan but later recovered, if such people simply say that we did not fast in Ramadan but paid the Fidya, then this is also opening the door to legitimising something wrong. It would be condoning false exceptions, opening forbidden ways and forging false innovations. Even if one has paid the Fidya, he still needs to make up the missed fasts after Ramadan. These missed fasts can be kept at any time in the year.

Then, God Almighty states in this verse that whichever good work you carry out with the utmost obedience, even if you don’t want to do it, you still do it because it is a command of God, and subsequently God Almighty shall reward you with even more. At the end of this verse, God Almighty has once again emphasized that your observing fasts is better for you in every respect.

Then, in the following verse, God Almighty states, We caused the Qur’an to descend in this month, which is a means of guidance for you, and contains within itself clear and illuminating signs. Thus, the Holy Quran and the month of Ramadan have a special connection. Therefore, alongside fasting one ought to ponder over the Quran and strive to act according to its teachings, so that one can derive true blessings from the fasts during Ramadan.

Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad – The Promised Messiah, peace be on him, further says: When reciting the Holy Quran, when someone comes across a portion in which there is mention of the Mercy of God Almighty, then at that moment one ought to seek mercy from God Almighty. And when one recites a portion in which the Quran refers to punishment of a particular people, at that point one ought to seek protection from God Almighty through repentance and seeking His forgiveness. One should ponder and reflect over the Holy Quran and act according to its teachings.” Thus, this is the manner in which the Holy Quran ought to be read.

Then in the following verse [of the Quran], God Almighty states: In the month of Ramadan, My servants increase their endeavour and search for Me. Thus, I am near, and that I listen to their supplications. If they seek from Me with sincerity, I accept their prayers. However, in order for you to have your prayers accepted, you must first act on My commands.” God Almighty states that one ought to act on His commands and for one to increase in their belief in Him.

The Holy Prophet (PBUH) has stated that the first ten days of this month are to attain God Almighty’s mercy, the middle ten days are to seek His forgiveness and the last ten days one seeks to be saved from the hellfire.

Concluding his Sermon, Ahmadiyya Khalifa prayed:

May God Almighty enable us to become His true servants and cover us with His mercy and forgiveness and we may become the recipients of the blessings of this month. During these days particularly pray for the Jama’at…….. Pray for the Muslim Community (Ummah) that may God Almighty stop them from carrying out cruelties and from taking the lives of one another. May they become truly sincere Muslims and recognise the Imam of the Age. Pray for the world in general because they are heading towards destruction at an alarming pace. May God Almighty grant mankind wisdom so that they may recognise God Almighty and be saved from this destruction.

Peter Koenig Courtesy Countercurrents.org

Sri Lanka, Easter Sunday, 21 April 2019: More than half a dozen bomb blasts shook the country killing from 250 to more than 350 people. Depending on who counts, the death toll varies. The devastation took place in in several catholic churches and luxury hotels. Other explosions, including from – what they say – are suicide bombers, have since killed another several dozens of people. Many are children, women – christen worshippers. Why the luxury hotels? Western (Christian) tourists?

Yesterday, another explosion ripped through a suspicious building, killing 18, including children and women. Again, they, the ‘authorities’, say suicide bombers, who didn’t want their ‘cache’ to be discovered. Conveniently they are all dead – the suicide bombers”. Nobody can ask them any questions.

There was a lot of confusion, and still is, all through Sri Lanka. Nobody claimed credit for the massacres. There were rumors that Sri Lanka’s President received warnings ahead of the attacks from foreign intelligence, but ignored them. The President denies these allegations. And the explosions continue.

Finally, the verdict is in. The culprits are an Islamic terrorist group, associated with ISIS. What else is new.

Sri Lanka’s population is composed of about 70% Buddhists, 13% Hindus, almost 10% Muslims, mainly Sunni, the Salafi version, and about 7% Christians. The New York times reports that the accused mastermind of the terror attacks was strongly influenced by Wahhabism, the same extreme hardliners that control most of Saudi Arabia.

Hatred between religions seems on the rise. In New Zealand a few weeks ago a white supremacist assaulted a mosque, killing 50. This past weekend, a shooting in a Synagogue near San Diego, California, killed a woman. The murderer said he was inspired by the New Zealand massacre. Are these spontaneous, interreligious mini-wars part of a foreign directed ‘divide to conquer’ effort, a strategy that has been used by empires for centuries, but seems to be alive and well with the current Washington based empire?

MintPress News reports that Sri Lanka Easter attacks are the handiwork of terrorists returning from fighting in Syria, practicing the Saudi-backed Wahhabi Salafist ideology,” adding, though not confirmed yet, they, [the attacks], are in keeping with the modus operandi of Saudi-sponsored Wahhabi terrorism worldwide. [The] Saudi sponsorship of Salafi Wahhabi dogma [is found] across the globe. From Boko Haram to ISIS, and from the Taliban to Al Qaeda, a common ideological thread runs through these terror groups. This is the Saudi-sponsored Wahhabi Salafi ideology whose South Asian counterpart is Deobandi.  For abbreviation purposes, it is becoming increasingly common to term this interconnected ideology as WSD (Wahhabi Salafi Deobandi).”

May we expect a wave of Saudi-sponsored WSD terrorism in the east too? – Is the horror Saudi government protected by the US, because it does its bidding? And this bidding leads to making gradually Islam extremism the justification for NATO bases around the globe? – Perhaps in Sri Lanka, tomorrow? So far Sri Lanka is clean from NATO. Sri Lanka has not even an association agreement with NATO.

Just look at the world-geostrategic location of Sri Lanka, linking the Arabian Sea with the Indian Ocean. Sri Lanka may also have a direct, open-sea connection with the small British island of Diego Garcia, in the Chagos Archipelago, north-east of Madagascar. Diego Garcia hosts the US’s largest Navy base outside the American Continent. Many of the drone killings in Yemen, Syria and other places in the Middle East originate from Diego Garcia. The civil war” in Syria was (and still is) largely directed from Diego Garcia, as well as from Djibouti.

Wouldn’t it be logical for NATO to set up base in Sri Lanka to control South East Asia? Saudi guided WSD attacks would create the necessary chaos justifying all the AngloZionist secret services – plus NATO – to descend on Colombo, to create further protests and anarchy – a never-ending internal strife, giving the war industry a new never-ending flow of profit, hence, further justifying the never-ending war on terror – and, thereby, moving yet an inch closer to Full Spectrum Dominance over Mother Earth and her hapless spectators, what western humanity has become – a bunch of complacent consumers, drenched in turbo-capitalist market ideology, too comfortable to go on the barricades.

The key and engine to all of this is NATO, whose modus operandi is killing for a living, for dominance and for profit. If there is ever to be Peace – and that’s what the vast majority of the inhabitants of this globe wants – I’m not exaggerating pretending that 99.99% of world population wants to live in peace – then NATO must go, NATO must be dismantled.

So, Europe which has the largest membership in NATO (27 out of 29 nations) has to put the money where her mouth is: Europe calls for Peace, Europe claims to be Peace-loving – really? Then put your money into creating Peace – pulling out of NATO, refusing at once to fund this killing machine under the pretext of protecting Europe”. Protecting Europe from what? From whom? – Not from Russia – despite all the highly propagandized and highly corporate-funded Russiagate / Russia phobia, exacerbated by a new artificially implanted fear – China. These countries have no history of expansion, like the west.

They only seek friendly relations of trade, of transport, cultural and research interconnectivity within the supercontinent, Eurasia, and ultimately, they promote a multi-polar world. The best example is the Chinese President Xi’s ingenuity – the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that just finished its highly successful forum in Beijing – where more than 120 nations signed memoranda of understanding (MOU) and cooperation agreements with China for tens of billions of dollars equivalent. – What a way of cooperating, instead of sowing western-style belligerence.

Europe and the rest of the world is not in danger, except in danger of itself for being a vassal of the US and for hosting 30-plus NATO bases which would be first in the line of fire, if the east is forced to defend itself from that permanent Pentagon-NATO driven aggression.

Europe withhold your funding for NATO, get out of NATO, dismantle NATO, – NOW, before NATO sets up yet another base in Asia, before NATO spreads more death around the globe.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21^st Century; TeleSUR; The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.
Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

First published by the New Eastern Outlook – NEO

Ministry Of Science , Technology & Research 

ස්විට්සර්ලන්තයේ ජිනීවා නුවරදී පැවැත්වෙන සංවර්ධනය සඳහා වූ විද්‍යා හා තාක්ෂණ කොමිසමෙහි (CSTD) 22 වන සැසිය සඳහා විද්‍යා, තාක්ෂණ හා පර්යේෂණ අමාත්‍ය සුජීව සේනසිංහ මහතා ඇතුළු නියෝජිත පිරිසක් සහභාගී වී සිටියි. මෙම සැසිය 2019 මැයි 13 සිට 17 දක්වා පැවැත්වේ.

සංවර්ධනය සඳහා වූ විද්‍යා හා තාක්ෂණ කොමිසම, ආර්ථික සහ සමාජීය කවුන්සිලයේ (ECOSOC) සහ එක්සත් ජාතීන්ගේ සංවර්ධනය සඳහා වූ විද්‍යා, තාක්ෂණ සහ නවෝත්පාදන නාභීය ලක්ෂ්‍යයෙහි අනුබද්ධ ආයතනයකි. ක්‍රමෝපායික සැලසුම් සකස් කිරීම උගත් පාඩම් සහ මනා පිළිවෙත් බෙදා හදාගැනීම, ආර්ථිකයේ, පරිසරයේ සහ සමාජයේ ප්‍රධාන ක්ෂේත්‍රයන්හි විද්‍යා, තාක්ෂණ සහ නවෝත්පාදන හා සම්බන්ධිත වැදගත් ප්‍රවණතා පිළිබඳ පෙර දැක්මක් සපයාදීම යනාදිය සඳහා සාකච්ඡා මණ්ඩපයක් ලෙස මෙය ක්‍රියාත්මක වන අතර නැගී එන සහ පෙරළිකාර තාක්ෂණයන් පිළිබඳව  මෙහිදී ප්‍රමුඛ අවධානයක් යොමුකෙරේ.

සෑම වර්ෂයකම මෙම කොමිසම ප්‍රමුඛතා තේමාවන් ද්විත්වයක් යටතේ ක්‍රියාත්ම වන අතර,  මෙම වර්ෂය සඳහා වන තේමාවන් ලෙස, තිරසර සංවර්ධනය සඳහා ශීඝ්‍ර තාක්ෂණික විපර්යාසයන් හරහා එල්ලවන බලපෑම නම්‍යශීලීත්වයෙන් යුතු ප්‍රජාවන් බිහිකිරිම උදෙසා විද්‍යා, තාක්ෂණ සහ නවෝත්පාදනයන් හි භූමිකාව තෝරා ගෙන තිබේ.

මෙම  සැසියේදී, තොරතුරු සමාජය පිළිබඳ ජගත් සමුළුවේ (WSIS) ප්‍රතිඵලයන් ක්‍රියාත්මක කිරීම හා සම්බන්ධිත ප්‍රගතියදී සමාලෝචනයට ලක් කිරීම මෙන්ම, ජාතික විද්‍යා, තාක්ෂණ සහ නවෝත්පාදන ප්‍රතිපත්ති සමාලෝචනයන් (STIP සමාලෝචන) පිළිබඳ ඉදිරිපත් කිරීම්ද කොමිසම හමුවේ සිදුකෙරෙනු ඇත.

මෙම අවස්ථාව සඳහා අමාත්‍යවරුන්, රජ්‍ය නිළධාරීන්, සිවිල් සමාජයේ ක්‍රියාකාරීන්, ව්‍යාපාරික ප්‍රජාව, අධ්‍යාපන ක්ෂේත්‍රයන්හි, ජාත්‍යන්තර සහ කලාපීය සංවිධානයන්හි  නියෝජිතයන් සහභාගී වී සිටී. බොහෝ රාජ්‍යයන්, ඉහළ මට්ටමේ දූත මණ්ඩල විසින් නියෝජනය කර ඇත. සමුළුවේ සමාරම්භක උළෙලෙන් අනතුරුව A Conversation with Great Minds” යන මාතෘතාව යටතේ, විද්‍යා හා තාක්ෂණක් ක්ෂේත්‍රයේ විශිෂ්ට මට්ටමේ චින්තකයින් අතර සිදුකෙරෙන විශේෂ සාකච්ඡාවක් ද පැවැත්විණි. ඉන් අනතුරුව උසස් මට්ටමේ වටමේස සාකච්ඡා හරහා 22 වන සැසිවාරය අඛණ්ඩව ඉදිරියට පැවැත්වේ

Minster of Science, Technology & Research, along with a delegation is currently attending the 22^nd session of the commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) in Geneva, Switzerland. This session is held form the 13^th to 17^th of May 2019.

The CSTD is a Subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the united Nations focal point for Science, Technology and Innovation for development. 

It acts as a forum for strategic planning, sharing lessons learned and best practise, providing foresight about critical trends in STI in key sectors of the economy, the environment and society and drawing attention to emerging and disruptive technologies.

Every year, the commission has two priority themes. This year these are,

·         The impact of rapid technological change on sustainable development

·         The role of Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) in building resilient communities.

This session will review the progress made in the implementation of the Outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), In addition, the commission will hear presentations on national Science, Technology and Innovation policy reviews (STIP reviews).

This session is attended by Ministers, Government officials, civil   activits, representatives of business community, academia and international and regional organizations. Most member states are represented by high- level delegations.

The opening ceremony of the session was followed by a special   segment devoted to A Conversation with Great Minds” a dialogue between eminent thinkers in the field of Science & Technology. The 22^nd sessions will continue with high level roundtables.

අද (21) පැවැති ශ්‍රී ලංකා පොදුජන පෙරමුනේ මාධ්‍ය හමුව

අද (21) පැවැති මාධ්‍ය හමුවට සහභාගි වු නියෝජිතයින්  

පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්තී ලක්ෂ්මන් යාපා අබේවර්ධන මහතා ,පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රී  අනුර ප්‍රියදර්ශන යාපා මහතා, පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රී එස්. එම්. චන්ද්‍රසේන මහතා

පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්තී ලක්ෂ්මන් යාපා අබේවර්ධන මහතා 

රටේ නොසන්සුන්තාවය ඇති වෙලා මසකට ආසන්නයි. නමුත් තවමත් රට අස්ථාවරයි. මේ වෙනකල් නොසන්සුන්තාවය පාලනය කර ගන්න රජයට හැකි වුනේ නැහැ. කිසියිම් තැනක සිද්ධියක් වුනු හැටියේ පොලිස් ඇදිරිනීතිය දානවා. ඊට පස්සේ රට පුරාම පොලිස් ඇදිරි නීතිය දානවා. අවසානයේ කිසිම ප්‍රතිඵලයක් නැති දිගින් දිගටම සිද්ධින් වාර්තා වෙන්න අරන් තියෙන්නේ. යම් සිද්ධියක් ඇති වුනාම ඒ ප්‍රදේශයේ පක්ෂ විපක්ෂ දේශපාලනඥයින් පූජකතුමන් කැදවලා ප්‍රදේශයේ නොසන්සුන්තාවය සම්බන්ධයෙන් අපේ කාලයේදී වගකීම් පැවරුවා. මේ ආන්ඩුව එවැනි කිසිදු පියවරක් අරන් නැහැ. කිසිදු දිස්ත්‍රික්කයක විපක්ෂයේ මන්ත්‍රීවරයෙක් මහජන නියෝජිතයෙක් කැදවලා නැහැ. මේක ආන්ඩුවේ නොහැකියාවයි. 

මීට පෙර බුද්ධි අංශයේ කිහිප දෙනෙක් අත් අඩංගුවට ගත්තාට ප්‍රශන්යක් නැහැ කියලයි ආන්ඩු පක්ෂයේ අය කිව්වේ. නමුත් මේ වෙද්දි හමුදාපතිවරයා පුවත්පතකට ප්‍රකාශ කරලා තියෙනවා බුද්ධි අංශ දුර්වල වීම මේ ප්‍රශ්නයට මූලික හේතුව කිව්වා. පහුගිය කාලයේම ආන්ඩුවේ ඇමැතිවරු කලේ පරස්පර විරෝධී ප්‍රකාශ. එක ඇමැතිවරයෙක් පාසල් පටන් ගන්න කියද්දි අනෙක් හිටපු හමුදාපතිවරයා කියනවා මගේ පරිපාලනයක් යටතේ නම් මේක කරන්නේ නැහැ කියනවා. ජනතාව පිළිගන්නේ හිටපු හමුදාපතිගේ, වත්මන් හමුදාපති, ආරක්ෂක අංශ කියන දේයි. එක ඇමැතිවරයෙක් කියනවා මේක සිංහල බෞද්ධ රටක් නෙවෙයි කියාලා. ජනතාව පීඩනයට පත්වෙලා ඉන්න වෙලාවකයි ඇමැතිවරු ඇවිත් මේ වගේ කතා කියන්නේ. ඇමැතිවරුන් මේ වගේ අදහස් ප්‍රකාශ කළාම කුපිත වෙන්නේ නැති මිනිස්සුත් කුපිත වෙනවා. 

දැන් එක්සත් ජාතික පෙරමුනේ ඇමැතිවරු විවිධ දේට සූදානම් වෙනවා. වැඩි දවසක් යන්න කළින් එක්සත් ජාතික පෙරමුනේ ඇමැතිවරයෙක් ආණ්ඩුවෙන් එලියට බැහැලා ජාතික බලවේගයකට මිනිස්සු ගොනු කරන්න උත්සාහ කරනවා. ඒ ඇමැතිවරයාම කියනවා ආන්ඩුවේ නායකයින්ට කොන්දක් නැත්නම් ඔවුන් ඉවත් වෙන්න ඕනේ. නැත්නම් අපි ඉවත් කරනවා කියලා. රටේ ප්‍රශ්නයට විසදුමක් හොයන්න කිසිවෙක් උත්සාහ කරන්නේ නැහැ. රටේ ජනතාව ආණ්ඩුව කියන දේ අහන්නෙත් නැහැ. ඇමැතිවරු අහන්නෙත් නැහැ. පසුවෙල මන්ත්‍රීවරු විවිධ දේ කියනවා. මේක තමයි ආන්ඩුවේ නොහැකියාව කියන්නේ. 

මිට වසර ගාණකට පෙර මෙරට ඇමැරිකාවේ තානාපති රොබට් බ්ලේක් මහතා ඒ වෙලාවේ රාජපක්ෂවරුන් හා අපේ ආණ්ඩුව ගැන ප්‍රකාශ කරපු ආකාරය අපි දන්නවා. දැන් කියන්නේ මොනවාද? මේකට පරිපාලනයක් ඕනේ. ඒ කාලයේ මේ වගේ සිද්ධීන් ඇති වුනාම ඒ සිද්ධීන්වලට නායකත්වයක් දෙන්න අය හිටියා. ඒ වගේ නායකත්වයක් රටට අවශ්‍යයිලු. 

ආන්ඩුවට වත්මන් තත්ත්වය කිසිසේත් පාලනය කර ගත නොහැකි බව පැහැදිලියි. භාරකාර ආණ්ඩුවක් යටතේ මැතිවරණයකට යන්න ඕනේ. නැත්නම් ආන්ඩුවේ නායකයෝ ඉල්ලා අස්වෙලා රට කරන්න පුලුවන් කෙනෙකුට දෙන්න ඕනේ. අගමැතිතුමාගේ මුලික ප්‍රශ්නයවෙලා තියෙන්නේ ප්‍රතිත්‍රස්ත පනත ගේන එකයි. ප්‍රතිත්‍රස්ත පනත ගෙනාවොත් දවල පත්‍රිකාව ගෙනාවා වගේ තත්ත්වයක් මේ රටේ ඇති වෙනවා. මේ පනත් කෙටුම්පත ගෙනාවොත් හදිසි නිතිය තිබුණා කියලා නැතිව වෘත්තීය සමිති, වෛද්‍යවරු, වෘත්තිකයින් එළියට බහිනවා. අගමැතිතුමාට රට තවත් අවුල් කරන්න ඕනේ නම් ප්‍රතිත්‍රස්ත පනත ගෙන්න. රට් ප්‍රධානම දේ ප්‍රතිත්‍රස්ත පනත නෙවෙයි. 

මේ වෙලාවේ ජාතික ප්‍රශ්නයක් ඇති නොකර ඉවසීමෙන් ඉන්න කියලයි අපි ඉල්ලා සිටින්නේ. සිංහල, දෙමළ මුස්ලිම් සියලු ජනතාව එක සංස්කෘතියක් යටතේ අපි හිටියා. සාමකාමී වෙන්න. මේ ආන්ඩුවට තව මාස හයයි තියෙන්නේ. එතෙක් අපි මේ ආණ්ඩුවට ජාතික ආරක්ෂාව සම්බන්ධයෙන් අපේ සහාය දෙනවා. හදිසි නිතිය යටතේ ඇදිරි නිතිය ගැසට් කලේ නැහැ.හදිසි නීතිය යටතේ ඇදිරි නීිතිය දවස් දෙකක් හරියට දැම්මා නම් මේ තත්ත්වය රටේ ඇති වෙන්නේ නැහැ. මේ අය බලන්නේ ඡන්ද පදනම රැක ගැනිම විතරයි. මේ විදියට ආන්ඩුවට වැඩිකල් යන්න බැහැ. ඉතිහාසය පුරාම ඇති නොවුනු ප්‍රශ්නයක් මේක. කරුණාකරලා විවිධ මත ප්‍රකාශ නොකර මේ ප්‍රශ්නය විසදන්න. ආන්ඩුව කිව්වත් මිනිස්සු වැඩට එන්නේ නැත්නම්, දරුවා පාසලට එවන්නේ නැත්නම් ආන්ඩුව ගැන ජනතාවට විශ්වාසයක් නැති බවයි පේන්නේ. 

■             ආන්ඩුවේ ඇමැතිවරයෙක් රටේ ප්‍රදාන ආගම බුද්ධාගම නෙවෙයි කීම ගැන කණගාටු වෙනවා. ඒක අමනෝඥ ප්‍රකාශයක්.

■             ආන්ඩුවේ දුර්වලතාවය නිසා ගොඩ නැගුණු වහාබ් අන්තවාදින් රටෙන් පිටකරන හෝ නඩු අසා නිතියෙන් කටයුතු කරන ශක්තිමත් රජයක් බිහිවේවා කියලා ප්‍රාර්ථනා කරමු

පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රී  අනුර ප්‍රියදර්ශන යාපා මහතා 

හිටපු එක්සත් ජනපද තානාපතිවරයෙක් ලංකාව ජාත්‍යන්තර වශයෙන් කෙරම් වැදගත්ද කියන දේ ප්‍රකාශ කළා.මුහුදු මාර්ගයක් ආසන්නයේ, ස්ථානීය වශයෙන් වැදගත්, උපක්‍රමික ස්ථානයක පිහිටි දිවයිනක් නිසා සියලු දෙනා අපේ රටට ඇහැගහගෙන සිටින බවයි ප්‍රකාශ කර තියෙන්නේ. රාජ්‍යයන්වල අස්ථාවර ඇති කිරීමට වහාබ්වාදය භාවිතා කරලා තියෙනවා. නමුත් අරාබිය වහාබ්වාදය භාවිතා කරලා තියෙන්නේ ස්ථාවරභාවය ඇති කරන්නයි. අපේ රටේ ඇති වුනේ වහාබ්වාදය විසින් පෝෂණය කරපු ලංකාවේ ඇතිවූවක්. මේ වගේ ප්‍රශන්යක් බංගලා දේශයේ ඇති වුනා. ඒ අවස්ථාවෙදි ඇමරිකාවේ යුද හමුදා දකවුරක් ඇති කරන්න දූපතක් දෙන්න කියලා දැඩි බලපෑමක් බංගලාදේශයට සිදු කළා. එදා බංගලාදේ්‍ය අගමැතිනිය ඥාණාන්විතව ඒ තත්ත්වය වැලැක්වුවා. අපේ රජය මොකද කරන්නේ. ඔත්තු සේවා දියුණූ කරලා වහාබ්වාදය මැඩ පැවැත්විය යුතුයි. රජයට වැඩපිළීවෙලක් නැති බව පේන නිසා ජනතාව දරුවෝ පාසල් යවන්නේ නැහැ. රාජකාරිවලට යන්නේ නැහැ. මේක පාලකයින්ගේ තියෙන අදක්ෂකම. පක්ෂ විපක්ෂ දේශපාලනඥයෝ කැදවිමක්කරලා වගකිම් පැවරිමක් අපේ පළාතේ නම් මෙතෙක් වුනේ නැහැ. මට කිසිම කැදවිමක් වුනේ නැහැ. අපේ පළාතේ ඇති වුනු සිද්ධීන් ගැන කණගාටු වෙනවා. දේශපාලන වශයෙන් කවුරුත් සම්බන්ධ වුනේ නැහැ. ආනඩුවේ ක්‍රියාකළාපය ගැන කළ කිරිම හෝ පිටින් පැමිණ කරපු දෙයක් කියලයි මම හිතන්නේ. පුද්ගලයෝ කිහිප දෙනෙක් මරාගෙන මැරුණා වුනත් මෙයට උදව් කරපු පිරිස් ආරක්ෂක අංශ වලටමින් සිටිනවා. පරිගණක දැනුමක් ඇති පුද්ගලයෙක් ලංකාවේ හා ඉන්දියාවේ සියලු දෙනා සම්බන්ධ කිරීමක් කර තියෙන බවත් ඔහු අත් අඩංගුවට ගැනීමට හැකි වූ බවත් කියැවෙනවා. මෙවැනි අවස්ථාවක බුද්ධි අංශ පුලුල් කර බුද්ධි අංශ ඒකාබද්ධ කළ යුතුයි. ඒක හිටපු ඇමැරිකානු තානාපතිවරයාත් කියලා තියනවා. පහුගිය කාලයේ ඔත්තු සේවා ඒකාබද්ධ කරලා තොරතුරු ගත්තා කියලා. 

මේ වගේ ත්‍රස්තවාදයක් නැති කරන්න පුලුවන් වෙන්නේ ඔත්තු සේවා පුලුල් කිරීමෙන් පමණයි. පහුගිය කාලයේ යුද හමුදා ඔත්තු සේවවන්ගෙන් කිසිම ප්‍රයෝජනයක් ගෙන නැති බව විශේෂඥයෝ පවසනවා. මේ රජය දිගින් දිගටම රට තුල විශ්වාසය ඇති කරන්නත්, ප්‍රශ්නයට විසදුමක් ගේන්නත් අසමත් වෙලා. මේකට ජාත්‍යන්තර අදව් උපකාර වෙනුවට මෙවැනි තත්ත්වයන් නිර්මාණය වීම වැලැක්වීමට අපේමක්‍රමවේදයන් සකස් කළ යුතුයි. රටේ කළබල ඇති කිරීම වෙනුවට සාමයෙන් නැවත ත්‍රස්තවාදය වැලැක්වීමේ ක්‍රියාමාර්ගවගට යන්න ඕනේ. මේ රජයට මහජන විශ්වාසයක් නැහැ. මුස්ලිම් ඇමැතිවරු රටේ තත්ත්වය තේරුම්ගෙන සුපුරුදු පරිදි ක්‍රියා නොකර ඉන්න ඕනේ. ඔවුන් හේ අන්තවාදය ගැන රජයට දැන්වූයේ නැහැ. ඔවුන් කලේ ඔවුන්ගේ දේශපාලන පක්ෂ පෝෂණය කිරීම හා ඔවුන්ගේ උදර පෝෂණය කිරීමත් පමණයි. මුස්ලිම් ජනතාවට අවශ්‍ය නිවැරදි නායකත්වයක් දුන්නේ නැහැ. ඒ නිසයි මේ තරම් දේශකයෝ ලංකාවට එන්නේ. ළමයින්ට ආගම උගන්වන වෙනම විශ්ව විද්‍යාල එන්න කොහොමද? සහරාන් වැනි අන්තවාදින් පිරිසක් නිර්මාණය වෙන්න විදියක් නැහැ ඔවුන් නිවැරදි නායකත්වයක් මුස්ලිම් සමාජයට දුන්නා නම්. අදටත් ඔවුන් මෙහි නිවරදි තත්ත්වය තමන්ගේ ජනතාවට පෙන්විමට ඉදිරිපත් වුනේ නැහැ. මුනිවත රකිමින් තමන්ගේ උදර පෝෂණය සදහාම කටයුතු කරනවා විතරයි. 

ඉංග්‍රිසින් උඩරට පළාත් යටත් කරගත් අවස්ථාවේ ගිවිසුමකට ආවා. ඒ ගිවිසුමේ ප්‍රධාන වාක්‍ය  වුනේ ලංකාවේ බුද්ධාගම ආරක්ෂා කරනවා පෝෂණය කරනවා කියනඑක. ඒකෙන් පස්සේ ආන්ඩු ක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවලටත් මේ වාක්‍ය ඇතුළත් වුනා. බුද්ධාගම තියෙන රටවල් වල අනෙක් ආගම් වර්ධනයට බාධාවක් තිබුනේ නැහැ. පහුගිය කාලයේ අලුතින් පල්ලි මොනතරම් ඇති වුනත් බාධා ඇති වුනේ නැ. ආණ්ඩුවේ ඇමැතිවරයෙක් රටේ ප්‍රධාන ආගම බුද්ධාගම නෙවෙයි කීම ගැන කණගාටු වෙනවා. අමනෝඥ ප්‍රකාශයක්. බුද්ධාගම ප්‍රධාන ආගමයි. අනෙක් ආගම්වලට හානි නොවන මැදිහත් ආගමක්. මේවා අපව දුකට පත්කරන කතාවල්. ආන්ඩුවේ දුර්වලතාවය නිසා ගොඩ නැගුණු වහාබ් අන්තවාදින් රටෙන් පිටකරන හෝ නඩු අසා නිතියෙන් කටයුතු කරන ශක්තිමත් රජයක් බිහිවේවා කියලා ප්‍රාර්ථනා කරමු. 

■             මංගල සමරවිර කියන්නේ පුංචි බබෙකේ නෙවෙයි. දැනදැනම බෞද්ධ ජනතාව අවුස්සන අරමුණින් ප්‍රකාශ කරනවා

■             පාඨලී චම්පික අලුත් පාරක යන්න හදන්නේ

■             මේ අයට ජාතික මගක් නැහැ. ඒ අයගේ මග හදාගන්නයි බලන්නේ. 

පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රී එස්. එම්. චන්ද්‍රසේන මහතා 

බෝම්බ පිපිරීමෙන් පස්සේ රටේ කළඹලයක් ඇති වෙයි කියලා ආණ්ඩුව බාලපොරොත්තු වුනත් කාදිනල්තුමන් සාමය ඇති කිරීමට පෙරමුණ ගත්තා. තමන්ගේ අයට ප්‍රාහරයක් වෙලා තියෙන අවස්ථාවක රඑතුමා ඉවසිලිවන්තව ක්‍රියා කිරීම අගය කරනවා. අපේ ජනතාවත් ඉවසිලිවන්තව හිටියා. තිස් අවුරුදු යුද්ධයක අත් දැකීම් ජනතාවට තියෙන නිසා ජනතාවත් ප්‍රචණ්ඩත්වයට ගියේ නැහැ. නමුත් ආන්ඩුවට අවශ්‍ය වුනේ ප්‍රචණ්ඩත්වය ඇති කරන්නයි. ලක්ෂ්මන් කිරිඇල්ල ඇමැතිවරයාගේ කාර්ය මණ්ඩලයේ පිරිසක් ජනාධිපතිවරයාට එරෙහි ලිපියක් පන්සල්වලට යවන්න උත්සාහ කළා. මංගල සමරවිර කියන්නේ පුංචි බබෙකේ නෙවෙයි. දැනදැනම බෞද්ධ ජනතාව අවුස්සන අරමුණින් ප්‍රකාශ කරනවා . මිහිදු මහ අරතන් වහන්සේ බුද්ධාගම අරන් ඇවිත් වසර 2500ට වැඩියි. පෘතුග්‍රීසීන්ගෙන් පස්සේ ක්‍රිස්තියානු ආගම පැතිරුණා’. වෙලදාමේ ආපු මුස්ලිම් අයගෙන් ඉස්ලාම් ආගම ප්‍රචාරය වුනා. මේවා ඉතිහාසය දන්න කුඩාම දරුවෝ වුනත් දන්නවා. මංගල සමරවීර හිතාමතාව අවුස්සන්නයි මේ ප්‍රකාශ කරන්නේ. දැන් ප්‍රකාශයක් කරනවා කිසියම් පක්ෂයක් මේ තතත්වයට වග කියන්න ඕනෙලු. එතුමා කණ්නාඩියක් ඉස්සරහට ගිහින් බැලුවා නම් හරි. ඔවුන්ට අවශ්‍ය වෙලා තියෙන්නේ බොර දියේ මාලුබාන්නයි. මැතිවරණය දැන් කිට්ටුයි. අවුරුදු හතරහමාරක් රට විනාශ කරලා ගමට යන්න බැරිව ඉන්න නිසා බොරදියේ මාලු බාන්න යන්නේ. මැතිවරණය කල් දාන්න ලැබෙන්නේ නම් නැහැ. ජවිපේ කැරැල්ල කාලේ ඡන්දය කල්දාන්න පුල්වන්කමක් තිබුණා නම් ජයවර්ධන මහත්තයා ඒකත් කරනවා. බෝම්බ ගහද්දි ගිහින්ලයි ඡන්දෙට මුහුණ දුන්නේ. ඒ උප්පරවැට්ටිය තමයි මේ අය යොදමින් ඉන්නේ. ත්‍රස්තවාදීන් ප්‍රශ්න කරන්න භාරදුන්නත් පැයක් දෙකක් යද්දි අත හරින්නේ විශාල දේශපාලන බලපෑමක් වෙන නිසා. 1971 කැරැල්ල කාලෙදිවත්, යුද්ධය සමයේදීවත් මේ විදියේ දේශපාලන අත පෙවීම් සිදු වුනේ නැහැ. අවශ්‍ය අයගෙන් ප්‍රශන් කරන්නේ නැති නිසයි නිවිලා තිබුණ තත්ත්වයෙන් නැවතත් ගිණිදැල්වුනේ. කාදිනල්තුමා කිව්වා මිනිස්සු පාරට බහින්න කලින් නිතිය ක්‍රියාත්මක කරන්න කියලා. චම්පික රණවක් ඇමැතිවරයා ජාතික මග කියලා අලුත් මුහුණුවරකින් එන්න සූදානම් වෙනවා. ඡන්දෙට මාස කිහිපයක් තියලා බොරු බේගල් කියලා මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ ආන්ඩුව පෙරලන්න අනෙක් පැත්තට පැන්නා. සිංහල බෞද්ධ ඡන්ද ටික ගන්නයි මේ අලුත් මගක් හදන එලියට බහින්න යන්නේ. මේ වෙනකල් ආන්ඩුව හොදයි. ඡන්දේ ලංවෙද්දි හොද නැහැ. පරදින බව දන්න නිසා වෙන මාර්ගයකින් ජනතාව මුලා කරන්නයි යන්නේ. මේ අයට ජාතික මගක් නැහැ. ඒ අයගේ මග හදාගන්නයි බලන්නේ. 

සංචාරක ක්ෂේත්‍රයට සහන දෙනවා කිව්වාට දැන් කියනවා ලියාපදිංචි අයට විතරයිලු සහන දෙන්නේ. ඉතිහාසයේ පළමුවරට දින තුනක් කල් තැබීමේ යෝජනාවක් සාකච්ඡාවට ගත්තා. ඒ කතා කරපු කිසිවක් අද කෙරෙන්නේ නැහැ. සංචාරක කර්මානත්යේ යෙදිලා ඉන්න අය රවටන්නේ නැතිව ව්‍යාපාරිකයින්ට සහන දෙන්න. සංචාරකයින්ට හොදම රට කිව්වේ අපේ රටයි. සංචාරක ව්‍යාපාරය විනාශ කරන්න එපා කියලයි අපි ඉල්ලා සිටින්නේ. 

Walter Rajaratne Sydney 

His holiness Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the bishop of Colombo is the man of the moment. At the most decisive time when the country needed a voice of sanctity,  he delivered. And, delivered in no uncertain terms that doused the heat that was running at volcanic molten lava scale when the majority Sinhalese would have unleashed their wrath and venom, in reminiscent of the July 83, on Muslims. His name is deservedly proposed as a nominee to the coveted Noble peace prize which would undoubtedly challenge any other similar feat anywhere in the world

Nevertheless, the flip side of the Malcolm phenomenon is, the behavior of the so called moderate Muslim leadership, in different political persuasions and from the intellectual strata. They are, in unison, falling over each other, to jump on the bandwagon that our good Cardinal Ranjith built as a deterrent to mounting angst amongst the aggrieved masses under Muslim invasion of the country during the last two or so decades that knows nothing but killing as their only modus operandi, in glorifying their God, Alla. Succinctly put, look no further but the scripture in their holy book, Koran, which has dedicated chapters to guide them as to how a majority of a country could be cowed down, at the right time, when their own number is multiplied from nothing to majority within a short span of time. Until such time be the most trusted and faithful subordinate to the majority. 

Yes, the heroic efforts of the Muslim soldiers of our armed forces contributed heavily to the war effort against Tamil terrorism. Yes they speak better Sinhalese than Sinhalese themselves. Yes, they even deliver Buddhist sermons more eloquently than most Buddhists themselves. However, be aware, where are all these virtuous deeds leading to.

By the hour, these Muslim leaders are scoring heavily through this shrewd line of attack, taking the heat off the sensible action against the invasion they have been engaged in with the blessing of warped political leadership of the country who are hell bent on securing their continuity of pillage through ballet.  

Majority Sinhalese Buddhists/Christians and Tamil Hindu/ Christians and all attached to other denominations who prefer to call this resplendent island as their motherland need not be fooled by the scoundrels whose only goal is plunder of the wealth at any cost. This is the golden opportunity that has been offered to them on a platter, a blessing in disguise which should not let go without reaping the best to eradicate the Muslim invasion, that has engulfed the present day world to irretrievable scale, since the barbaric invading armies  of Ottoman empire.

Back to the good Cardinal. 

Hats off to your timely action that gave us some breathing space to bring the tenuous situation under control. Nevertheless, it’s time to make some soul searching whether your God will be able to save your flock from this Lucifer, nurtured under the watchful eyes of 225 rogues at Diyawanna, turned into a behemoth of an octopus, stretching its monstrous tentacles to all spheres of Sri Lankan life with unflinching grip. The first foremost move is, stop singing hosanna to the so called moderate Muslim leadership. You need not build a centre stage from where they are moralizing the victim, thats us, that lets the demon off the hook.  No other community should accommodate Muslims in their campaign of eradicating fundamentalism since Muslim Koran propagates, killing the adversary is the God’s Will. No pious Muslim ever renounce these edicts in their holy book. The cunning Muslim cleric keeps a safe distance from answering these horrific practices in Koran.

Dear Cardinal, may your attention is drawn to a decisive instant in the Sinhala Buddhist history. That was 1505, anno domini. They came, they saw and they crucified or you may call it christened – the native Buddhists, brandishing the sword with right hand while the left holding the holy Bible. And where did the “conquistador” start from. A piece of land, area of a cowhide in extent. ‘Gerisamka Idak’. Today, your flock, the descendants of that holocaust paid a terrible price at the hands of an identical aggressor who came under the guise of selling pieces of Siling Biling to our innocent village damsels.

Your recent comment that, Buddhism should be the foremost religion is noted with reservation. Declining Ranil’s offer of a bullet proof limousine too observed with reservation. What is your ultimate goal. Only the heavenly God knows, your holiness.

Priyantha Hettige 

Setting The Scene: Threats to us and our survival

For true freedom, people need transparency in all things. The fact is, for democracy (and freedom) to survive we need good information; we need to understand. When government hides things or give us false information, our freedom is diminished. In fact, there are so many things we are not told.

For how much longer can human civilization survive? For seventy years we have been living under the shadow of nuclear war.  Several times, we humans have come extremely close to final nuclear disaster, even by just a few minutes due to misunderstanding or human error. When the doomsday clock of the Bulletin of National Scientists was set last January at just two minutes to midnight that is now the closest it has been to terminal disaster since the clock was set up in 1947. With the USA and Russia, armed with unstoppable hypersonic weapons, staring each other down, the world is facing total destruction.

Another threat to our continued existence is global warming. It has been slowly getting hotter year by year over the last ten years and shows no signs of slowing down. Experts say it is the sun changing and warming our upper atmosphere – but assisted by our emissions of methane, carbon dioxide and other noxious gases.

A third danger facing us all, is the threat from Earth’s N-S Polar reversal. The Earth’s magnetosphere provides us with protection from harmful solar and space radiation. A reversal is when the North and South poles switch positions. This is highly disruptive, causing mountainous tsunamis, violent earthquakes and high winds.

Those are terminal cataclysms, but there are others of lesser degree.

There is the danger from state tyranny to our freedom.  The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. There is the grave danger facing the free world made by the world’s ruling elites who are busily undermining democracy. On one side is the political left, who secretly plan a ‘New World Order’ ruled by the United Nations. On the other is the political right, who want to, country by country, install right-wing governments into power ruled by dictators, all for the benefit of business!

They want dictators installed into power to implement their agendas of either the left or right, who can rule and imprison all those who oppose their rule. Donald Trump has seriously upset the left’s long-laid plans of re-organizing and oppressing the common man. That explains the animosity directed towards him.

Then, there are the Islamists, who want a Caliphate to rule the world with Muslim Sharia law, putting society back a thousand years. Extremists, idealists all, would be happy to install such a state by Jihad or by terror.

Or, irresponsible researchers playing with viruses which can unleash an epidemic, or other sources of a virus which is unstoppable and wipes us all out. AIDS and Ebola viruses are unstoppable and lethal.

Little of these threats named above get into the newspapers or on television – governments want the common man to be kept in the dark, vulnerable to the dangers, but entertained by gossip and drama! With our heads empty of meaningful thoughts, they can manipulate and control us like sheep and pigs, and profit from us, too.

How we, ourselves, Undermine Democracy

Philosophers say we cannot have true freedom without personal moral constraint in a democratic society. The only truly free people are those that are ruled by personal moral behavior. Democratic government can be very successful where a population is moral, but it will fail when good standards and practices decline and fall and good order in society breaks down.

RULE: When unrestrained liberty leads to a loss of order, then the demand for order leads to a loss of liberty.

EXPLANATION: In the case of a society enduring moral anarchy, corruption and chaos, even before the arrival of a strong man, people are not truly free. They must be alert and on the defensive.                                                          You can say that those who are unrestrained in behavior; by being corrupt and immoral, are destined to be ruled by a tyrant.

They mistakenly think it is necessary to install a strongman to restore order – a just man – if such a man can be found! But just men or tyrants have few tools in their tool box – when you only have a hammer – you see all problems as a nail to be hammered.

Thus, moral anarchy, corruption and chaos can lead to dictators who have to use strong-arm tactics to solve all the different problems. They have only one response to extreme problems – the police, jails and even torture and death.

The Superiority of Reasoning and Moral Restraint

Strong men are a one-sided response to modern situations of chaos; but society is better reformed by reasoning, explanation and debate for problem solving.

Therefore, the only truly free people are those who are ruled by personal moral behavior. Good, educated people can reason and realize the importance of the best human qualities, trust, truth, moderation, an efficient system of law; recognizing what is good and beautiful and protecting it. There is a need to teach the constituent aspects of a moral society.

Democratic Society based on Free, Unbiased Information

Free people need accurate, unbiased information with nothing held back by which to form opinions and understand events in this world. Freedom and good information are inseparable necessities for mankind.

It is reality, not illusion or delusion that will determine what the future will bring. Unfortunately, there are few TV. documentaries to educate and inform people. All they get is TV. news which is severely limited to five minuits of news – supplying what one person thinks are items of importance, all followed closely by the Tele-Dramas. They do not tell us of our dependence on the sun, its power and treachery, nor do they give information of the factual, repeating planetary disasters nor the true history of mankind. Without this, people cannot imagine such events. Many people have only limited awareness of news and events in the wider world.                                          The main media fails them and most people do not trouble themselves to access smaller, better news providers. They live in a bubble of delusion. Then they act accordingly.

This limited awareness of a fast moving, violent world should not be enough for any normal educated person. People need more facts about the sun and our planet and truths of political currents and form opinions about them. (For example, Julian Assange distributed information about the massive political corruption in the USA – so he is arrested and maybe sent to prison for life for revealing the truth.)

The fact is, we live in a turbulent world of man’s inhumanity to man. Who would have dreamed that just before Easter this year, suicide bombers would change our society so deeply?

There was the French Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, the American Revolution, the revolution in Nicaragua. The world seems peaceful, but in fact, like volcanoes, explosions occur! – and driving these are the elites who plan for a New World Order, or world dictatorships or even an Islamic Caliphate.  Be aware of all the dangers facing you!

A Suggested Definition of  ‘Good’ And ‘Bad’

‘GOOD’ is defined as whatever is beneficial or brings social harmony and happiness to society. These actions are good Karma which brings its own good reward. This is important for progress along the ‘Eight-fold Noble Path’ towards a personal wisdom, peace and Nibbana.                                                                                                                                      

  ‘BAD’ is whatever action(s) or event(s) that result(s) in pain, harm, anger, conflict or causes disharmony in Buddhist society. This slows, hinders or even prevents people following their ‘Eight-fold Noble Path’ to self-development and wisdom.

Most actions of people fall within these limits of ‘GOOD’ or ‘not BAD’ as defined. This can also be seen as a way of minimizing society’s overall unhappiness. (i.e. maximizing overall happiness in society).

Dr Sarath Obeysekera 

It is sad to see how politicians behave.Some government ministers and MP’s were criticising the Leader for running away from the country during the most needed times in the country 

Yesterday when I saw TV clippings I saw two prominent ministers sitting in a meeting with our  president during the discussion with Chinese President

Conference is supposed to be about Asian Culture.

Why does a minister of justice and another prominent minister from east was also sitting in such  meeting !!

Statements made by The Eminent cardinal and some Buddhist clergy have been very critical about the  leaders in the country for inability to tackle the situation.

Whole country is helpless when we have have such leaders ?

Dr Sarath Obeysekera

When I see how government ministers and opposition politicians and politically motivated artists  express various views indirectly supporting and even abetting terrorism  and also tend to interfere in police actions against wrongdoers in various areas ,I feel sad that we lost leader like Athulathmudali who would have act differently.

In eighties one of his nephew was arrested by police for active involvement In JVP  activities and kept in Panagoda camp

His father who was a ex military office met me after coming from UK to try to get him released.

Ministers flatly refused  to interfere

After he was released I gave him a sponsor letter to run away to UK

Our blabbering politicians should stop interfering with the police actions against  Muslim terrorists as well as Sinhalese racist elements  who are trying to destablise the good name of the country.

BBC and some western press organisations are already going to town trying to tell the world that Sinhalese  Buddhists are very racist .

My contention still stands.

We need a just and benevolent brave leader to take matters to their hands.

Military top brass should stop playing political games 

One voice from one leader should decide how to tackle the situation 

That is the need of the hour 

Courtesy Mail Online

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Muslim-owned shops and businesses were targetted by rioters in Sri Lanka’s North-West Province

Sri Lankan authorities said Wednesday they had the situation “under control” after mosques and Muslim-owned shops and businesses were targetted in a violent backlash after the Easter Sunday terror attacks.

A second overnight curfew imposed nationwide ensured there was no repeat of Monday’s violence against the Muslim minority, who make up some 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s population of 21 million.

Many Muslims have been bracing for revenge attacks since three churches and three luxury hotels were bombed by local Islamist extremists on April 21, killing 258 people,

“The situation is now totally under control,” said Military spokesman Sumith Atapattu. “There were no incidents of violence overnight and we are arresting groups of people responsible for taking part in mob attacks.”

Ruwan Gunasekera, a police spokesman, said that more than 80 people were in custody as of Tuesday evening.

But Muslims in North-West Province remained nervous and stayed indoors Wednesday, after sword-wielding rioters killed one man late Monday while vandalising scores of shops and mosques.

In Bingiriya, where some 2,000 people went on the rampage, Muslim cleric M. I. M. Siddeeque said the community was worried.

“Our people are still afraid to go out,” he told AFP by telephone.

Military spokesman Atapattu said security forces were arresting small groups of suspected trouble-makers and handing them over to police.

They were being held under emergency laws under which convicts can be jailed up to 10 years, police spokesman Gunasekera said.

Among those detained was Amith Weerasinghe, a man from Sri Lanka’s majority Buddhist Sinhalese community and on bail for his role in similar riots in March last year in the central Kandy district.

Police had also ordered a shake-up of their leadership in the province after allegations of inaction to contain the unrest.

Parliamentary speaker Karu Jayasuriya condemned the violence and appealed for calm.

“The attacks on mosques, the burning of houses and shops, the attacks on innocent people cannot be condoned in any way,” Jayasuriya said in a statement.

The attacks come during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan.

A state of emergency has been in place since the bombings and security forces have been given sweeping powers to detain suspects.

Internet service providers said the telecoms regulator on Tuesday extended a social media ban to Twitter. Earlier, Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube and Instagram had been blocked to prevent the spread of messages inciting violence.

Sri Lanka’s debt crisis and Chinese loans – separating myth from reality.

By Umesh Moramudali

Sri Lanka is often portrayed as a country that fell into a debt trap as a result of public investment projects financed by China. One such investment project was Hambantota port, which was leased to China Merchant Port Holdings Limited (CM Port) for 99 years for $1.12 billion in 2017. This project is largely the reason as why Sri Lanka is widely cited as a clear example of getting trapped in Chinese debt and being forced to hand over assets with national and strategic importance to China. The general belief seems to be that Sri Lanka was unable to pay off the loans obtained from China to construct Hambantota port in the first place, and therefore had no choice but hand over the port to Chinese control to pay off the debt.

However, the real picture of Sri Lanka’s debt crisis, which is not often explained, is very different and far more destructive. Debt owed to China is in fact the tip of the iceberg, and that should make the debt crisis all the more alarming. The famous Hambantota port deal is not merely an issue of Chinese debt — Sri Lanka has much larger economic issues that go well beyond the debt owed to China.

It is true that the EXIM Bank of China funded the construction of Hambantota port and the project certainly was not an economically sensible decision at the time given the fiscal constraints of the economy. In fact, there were serious concerns about the necessity of constructing an additional international port in Sri Lanka, particularly one financed through borrowing at commercial rates, and whether such a port would be able to generate enough revenue to break even. Sure enough, Hambantota port was not making enough revenue to repay China when loan payments came due. However, the real reason Sri Lanka moved to lease the port to China goes well beyond the difficulties of paying off the loan installments on debt obtained to construct the port. Alarmingly, the Hambantota handover indicates a far bigger economic crisis underway in Sri Lanka.Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month.

The Sri Lankan government obtained several rounds of loans to construct Hambantota port from 2007 to 2016. All these loans were obtained from China EXIM Bank, most at commercial rates. However, each loan had a grace period of around five years and a payback period of 15-plus years. For this very reason, the loan repayments for Hambantota do not amount to a large portion of Sri Lanka’s external debt servicing payments; some loan repayments have not even started yet. Debt repayments for the loans obtained for Hambantota port amount to only around 5 percent of Sri Lanka’s total annual foreign debt payments, and even less among total debt repayments.

The economic reality is that Sri Lanka leased out Hambantota port to China largely due to a persistent balance of payment (BOP) crisis resulting from the reduction of trade over the years even while external debt servicing costs have been soaring. Sri Lank faced a severe shortage of foreign reserves in light of the upcoming debt servicing payments, due to the maturity of international sovereign bonds. Therefore, the country had to look for various avenues to obtain foreign currency inflows. Leasing out Hambantota port was one of the ways to increase the country’s foreign reserves.

Although Hambantota port was leased to CM Port, the loans obtained to construct Hambanota port were not written off and the government is still committed to loan repayments as per the original agreements. The money obtained through leasing Hambantota port was used to strengthen Sri Lanka’s dollar reserves in 2017-18, particularly in light of the huge external debt servicing due to the maturity of international sovereign bonds in early 2019.

Sri Lanka’s debt problem goes well beyond China. It is related to a change in foreign debt composition and structural weaknesses of the economy, such as an overall reduction of trade, the rise of protectionism, and the reduction of government revenue.

By the end of 2017, only little over 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s foreign debt was owed to China and most of that was in the form of concessionary loans.

Data from the Ministry of Finance, Sri Lanka. as of the end of 2017.

Instead, the largest portion of Sri Lanka’s foreign debt was international sovereign bonds, which amounted to 39 percent of the total foreign debt as of 2017. These are commercial borrowings obtained from international capital markets since 2007, and such bonds have resulted in soaring external debt servicing due to the nature of the debt. Unlike in concessionary loans obtained to carry out a specific development project, these commercial borrowings do not have a long payback period or the option of payment in small installments. When sovereign bonds mature, it results in a significant increase of external debt servicing costs, as the entire face value of the bond should be paid once as opposed to paying installments for concessionary loans.

Data from the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.

The danger of rising external debt repayments is they require a large amount of foreign currency. To put it in simple terms, a country should have a sufficient amount of foreign currency inflows (through exports, FDI, or more external debt) to finance foreign debt repayments. Sadly, though, Sri Lanka has failed to increase exports or FDI by a sufficient margin to match its rising foreign debt repayment obligations. On the contrary, the country’s export-to-GDP ratio (including exports of both good and services) has declined from 39 percent in 2000 to 21 percent in 2017, raising serious concerns regarding external debt sustainability. Meanwhile, the foreign debt servicing-to-exports ratio, a major indicator of external debt sustainability, reached a peak of 28 percent in 2015. The ratio was only 10.6 percent in 2007 and had increased to 22.5 percent by the end of 2017. Since 2011, the foreign debt servicing-to-exports ratio has remained above 20 percent except for a slight drop to 19.7 percent in 2016. By 2017, Sri Lanka was compelled to increase the level of foreign reserves despite the unfavorable global economic environment for emerging markets in light of the pending maturity of sovereign bonds amounting to $5 billion, which are due between 2019-2022.

Estimates based on Central Bank of Sri Lanka data.

This scenario forced the government to seek out for various ways to raise foreign currency and leasing Hambantota port, which was not generating sufficient return on investment, was among the options. In addition to that, media reports have indicated that the government is planning to lease Mattala Rajapaksa International  Airport (MRIA), one of the emptiest airports in the world, also located in Hambantota, to India. Both these infrastructure projects were constructed using Chinese loans and severely criticized as economically nonsustainable investments.

It is true that, thanks to financing a number of infrastructure projects, the portion of Sri Lankan foreign debt owned by the Chinese has increased drastically during the last decade or so. From 2008 to 2012, approximately 60 percent of foreign borrowing has come from China.

However, having said that, Sri Lanka would have encountered concerns pertaining to external debt sustainability and persistent balance of payment (BOP) issues even in the absence of Chinese debt. Of course, there were serious concerns regarding the economic sustainability and the necessity of the projects financed by the Chinese at the time those were initiated. Yet the bigger issue behind Sri Lanka’s debt crisis was the choice to borrow from international capital markets at commercial rates at a time when the country’s exports were going down even while the government consistently failed to fix structural issues such as the reduction of trade, rising protectionism, and reduction of government revenue. With those structural issues, serious concerns regarding debt management are inevitable. Resolving the problem will require a consistent effort for reforms, which involves serious political challenges.

Umesh Moramudali is an economic researcher focusing on public debt dynamics in Sri Lanka and international trade. He is currently pursuing an M.Sc in Economics at the University of Warwick. 

G Parthasarathy Courtesy The Hindu

The people of Sri Lanka have shown courage, wisdom and resilience in recovering from the traumatic effects of the country’s brutal ethnic conflict between 1983 and 2010. An estimated 47,000 Tamil civilians, 27,000 LTTE members, 50,000 Sinhala civilians, 23,790 Sri Lankan soldiers and 1,500 members of the Indian Peace Keeping Force laid down their lives, during the conflict.

The Sri Lankan ethnic conflict, however, did not affect the lives of Indian Tamils” in Southern Sri Lanka, whose ancestors had migrated, as plantation workers, during British rule. There have, however, been recent incidents of religious tensions between the Sinhala Buddhist clergy and radicalised elements in the Muslim minority. Sri Lanka’s relatively small Christian minority, which is peaceful and relatively affluent, had steered clear of getting drawn into any ethnic conflict.

In these circumstances, the world was shocked to learn that in the midst of holy Easter Sunday church services on April 21, churches in Colombo, Negombo and even the eastern port of Tamil dominated Batticaloa, were hit by bomb explosions.

Three hotels housing a large number of western tourists in Colombo were also targeted. As many as 253 innocent people perished in the carnage.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” (ISIS) soon claimed responsibility for the attack, contradicting President Trump’s claims that the terrorist outfit had been 100 per cent” crushed in Syria. It soon emerged that the mastermind behind the blasts was a rabidly fundamentalist Sri Lankan Tamil, Maulvi Mohammad Zahran Hashim, who was from the town of Kathankudy, in Sri Lanka’s Tamil dominated eastern province.

Indian intelligence agencies had provided timely warnings to the Sri Lankan Government about an impending terrorist strike by the ISIS. These warnings were not seriously taken note of by the Sri Lanka Government. It is, however, imperative that India keeps in touch discreetly with the Sri Lankan Government. We are evidently seeing the beginnings of long-term internal and regional problems and challenges, as ISIS members disperse and regroup, after being ousted from Iraq and Syria, like Al Qaeda and the Taliban did, after American militarily intervention in Afghanistan.

As the ISIS targets in Sri Lanka were the country’s peaceful Christian community and western (Christian) tourists, the bomb attacks sent ripples across the West, as the attacks came soon after the massacre of Muslims in New Zealand, during their Sunday prayers.

Radicalisation drive

Sri Lanka’s Muslim community, which has done well economically in the Island, has lived in peace with both Buddhist Sinhalas and Hindu Tamils. Recent studies, however, indicate that some years before the bombings, sections of Tamil Muslims from the eastern province were getting radicalised in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab countries.

Zahran Hashim was one of those so influenced by radical Islamist practices and beliefs. Cutting across ethnic differences, Hashim made common cause with Sinhala Muslims, including two sons of a Muslim business tycoon in Colombo, who had been deeply influenced by the ISIS. Both the sons died in suicide bomb blasts, even as the wife of another bomber detonated explosives in a suicide bombing the same day, resulting in the deaths of three police personnel.

The Sri Lanka bomb blasts were thus executed by young radicalised Sri Lankan Muslims, cutting across the ethnic divide. Moreover, there are now signs that an estimated 75-100 Indian Muslims, who were with the ISIS in Syria, have dispersed and chosen escape routes, including through Afghanistan and Pakistan. Hashim has also reportedly established close institutional links with a counterpart group in Coimbatore and with people in other parts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

There are now indications that after being forced out of Iraq and Syria, ISIS fighters have now dispersed across Asia, Africa and even to parts of Europe. While the Osama bin Laden-led Al Qaeda made it clear that its struggle was against Jews and Crusaders,” the ISIS targets all non-Muslims, as was evident from its brutal killings of Indians in Iraq. Moreover, the Al Qaeda operated primarily out of Afghanistan and Pakistan, apart from select Arab countries. Al Qaeda’s leadership was predominantly Arab. It had very few members from other parts of the world.

The ISIS poses a much more serious challenge to India than the Al Qaeda ever did, primarily because it has recruited its fighters from countries across Europe, Asia and Africa. President George Bush praised India because not a single Indian joined or backed Al Qaeda. But, things are different with ISIS, which regards India as a part of the Islamic State of Khorasan”. Over 100 Indians are estimated to have joined the ISIS.

Extending its reach

The reach of ISIS across India is evident from its links with extremists in Kashmir, apart from those established in the recent past, in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Radicalisation in our southern States poses new and serious security challenges. ISIS also acknowledges its links with associates, across India’s maritime frontiers in Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Myanmar, Indonesia, Maldives, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. It also has a growing presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

India will also have to take note of the distinct possibility of ISIS attempting to take advantage of tensions arising out of the Rohingya refugee crisis. A senior Myanmar official recently revealed that even as ISIS was losing influence in Iraq and Syria, its supporters were moving into Myanmar’s Rakhine State, where Rohingyas reside. Many Rohingya refugees, now in Bangladesh, could well make common cause with ISIS and with members of Pakistani backed militant outfits like the Jamat-ul-Mujahideen, to destabilise the situation along the common borders of India, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Pakistan has had an abiding interest in destabilising the Sheikh Hasina-led Government in Bangladesh.

Apart from having to deal with continuing Pakistan sponsored terrorism, India will now also have to keep a watch on challenges that would likely arise from the ISIS, with its emerging presence in the southern States. Like in Sri Lanka, ISIS activities could target selected sections of the population in India, while seeking to radicalise them. They will pose a challenge to internal security in India. Finally, Pakistan could be expected to use the challenges posed by ISIS, to absolve itself of responsibility on actions of its trained jihadis, on Indian soil and in Bangladesh. These issues will hopefully receive careful attention after the general elections.

The writer is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan

Jon Grevatt, Bangkok – Jane’s Defence Weekly

China has agreed to provide aid worth USD14 million to Sri Lanka to procure Chinese-made counter-insurgency equipment, it was announced on 14 May.

The funding – pledged during Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena’s visit to Beijing – is intended to boost the capability of Sri Lanka’s security forces, the president’s media division said.

China has also agreed to provide Sri Lanka’s police force with 150 vehicles, it added.

The donations were pledged less than a month after Sri Lanka endured a series of suicide bombings, which killed more than 250 people.

The funding pledge is the latest that China has offered Sri Lanka to support defence equipment purchases

Courtesy VOA

COLOMBO — 

Sri Lanka said on Wednesday hardline Buddhist groups were likely to blame for a wave of anti-Muslim riots that swept the island this week in apparent retaliation for Easter bombings by Islamist militants.

The April 21 attacks, claimed by Islamic State, targeted churches and hotels, killing more than 250 people and fueling fears of a backlash against the nation’s minority Muslims.

In the anti-Muslim unrest that started Sunday, mobs moved through towns in Sri Lanka’s northwest, ransacking mosques, burning Korans and attacking shops with petrol bombs, residents said.

Authorities have arrested some 78 suspected rioters, including three described as Sinhala Buddhist extremists who had been investigated for similar actions in the town in Kandy district last year.

“These are organized attacks on Muslim business houses and premises,” Navin Dissanayake, minister of plantation industries, said during a government news conference about the security situation.

Asked who was organizing the attacks, Dissanayake said: “I think these organizations that Amith Weerasinghe, Dan Priyasad, and Namal Kumara [are heading],” referring to the three Buddhist extremists arrested on Tuesday.

Local media reported on Wednesday that Priyasad was released on bail on Wednesday while Weerasinghe was remanded until May 28. The status of Kumara was not clear.

A police spokesperson was not immediately available for comment on the arrests.

Muslims make up nearly 10% of Sri Lanka’s population of 22 million, which is predominantly Buddhist. The Indian Ocean island was torn for decades by a civil war between separatists from the mostly Hindu Tamil minority and the Sinhala Buddhist-dominated government. The government stamped out the rebellion about 10 years ago.

In recent years, Buddhist hardliners, led by the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) or “Buddhist Power Force” have stoked hostility against Muslims, saying Middle Eastern influence has turned the community more conservative and insular.

In the same press conference, Ranjith Madduma Bandara, minister of public administration, said the group behind the attacks had political aims.

“This group is trying to tarnish the government’s image and show the government is unable to handle the situation,” he said, without naming the organization.

Authorities said the island was calm again, with no anti-Muslim violence reported on Wednesday.

Army probe

Also on Wednesday, Sri Lanka’s army said it was investigating a video posted on social media that showed a man wearing what appears to be an army uniform walking away seconds before an anti-Muslim mob attacked a building this week.

In the video, the man stands outside the building and then leaves. Seconds later, about two dozen people, including young men wearing motorbike helmets, run over and throw stones at the building.

Reuters could not independently verify the video. “The attention of the army has been drawn to a video clip where a person dressed in uniform similar to that of the army was watching while a group of violent saboteurs were in action in the general area of Thunmodara,” the army said in a statement announcing the investigation.

Two residents of Thunmodara, a town to the northeast of the capital Colombo, told Reuters that a mosque and some Muslim-owned shops were attacked.

In over a dozen interviews in the hard-hit Kurunegala district northeast of Colombo, Muslims said attacks took place despite the presence of security forces.

One police source who declined to be identified told Reuters they did not have enough officers to handle the rioters. Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera on Tuesday rejected allegations that police had stood by.