Three incendiary devices and 100 grams of ammonia were found buried near a mosque in Sri Lanka, local media report citing police as authorities warn of a new wave of terror two weeks after the attacks on Christian churches.
The ammo was discovered in the town of Welipenna – 70 kilometers south of Colombo – as police conducted a raid on Friday night, the local Daily Mirror paper reported. Authorities revealed the bombs were locally produced. A 42-year-old suspect is said to have been detained in connection with the findings.
In a separate operation, police seized 16 motherboards, 16 SIM cards and a range of other computer parts in a house in Mount Lavinia, a Sothern Colombo suburb. A 52-year old man was arrested during the raid.
When PM Wickramasinghe was asked by BBC’s Channel 4 why he had not taken action
against ISIS terrorists who had returned to the Island in 2017, his fatuous
reply was that it was not illegal in SL to take part in terrorist actions
abroad.
The
PM has a basic degree in law. He likes to continuously impress his ill educated
but fawning parliamentary minions and Colombo’s socialites. But with the Channel
4 man the PM was clearly out of his depth and clearly in fear of personal
repercussions for the Easter Sunday massacre. There were 250 dead, almost all
Christians, and 450 wounded. A colossal intelligence failure was blamed for it.
The PM thought it and anything else was not enough to damn him.
The
PM, hoping to impress, casually tossed in the (French) Foreign Legion (FFR) as
an example of a terrorist organization. It blew away the interviewer. It
stripped any notion that the PM had but the foggiest notion of terrorists. This
after being PM 4 times over in a land that went through 26 years of terrorism.
Due to his incompetency, global terrorism has been spawned after 10 years of
peace.
The
Legion is a branch of the French Army raised in 1831.Frenchmen consist only of
24% in it .The others are from about 140 foreign countries. It has an unenviable
reputation. The PM’s remarks were a reckless, unforgivable insult to the Legion.
The PM’s off the cuff repartees often pass in SL but the BBC man must have
wondered if he had heard right.
Pressed
further by an astounded interviewer as to government responsibility for the
massive security lapse, the PM blithely said defence and the police were under
the President. He then quipped that had he been in charge of defence he would
have resigned. That was a sniper shot at the head of the President. It also
indicated he would not hang himself even if a thousand or more had died.
He
may have forgotten how he installed his school friend Singaporean citizen
Mahendra as Governor of the Central Bank as soon as he became PM in 2015.
Mahendra is accused of being the mastermind behind the greatest ever bond
scandal in SL. It ran into Rs 19 billion. The PM wise cracked that ignoramuses
had got it mixed with James Bond. The PM was adamant that he had no
responsibility for Mahendra’s conduct even though he was the subject minister
and appointed Mahendra. He told the Courts that he got the information that
Mahendra was innocent from Mahendra himself! He has steadfastly ignored demands
to resign on this score too.
The
PM must have cast his endearment for legality to the winds when in 2002 as PM he
allowed a rendition flight from Australia to use Colombo International airport
to ferry an Al Qaida suspect to the mercies of the USA and Guantanamo There was
also another suspect living in SL. He was abducted by the Police and extradited
illegally to the USA. So much for the PM’s beliefs in law, justice, HR and
national sovereignty.
Is
it a wonder that ISIS yet targeted SL despite the PM’s shameless excuse for not
arresting the ISIS returned terrorists in SL.? According to this incorrigible PM
a citizen can go abroad, commit any act of terror including rape, murder and
bombings as the ISIS did, and return to SL without fear of arrest or punishment.
He
admitted there was a lacuna in the law yet he did nothing to correct it for 2
years allowing these terrorists to roam freely. Is the lacuna in his thinking?
Or is it in his head?
An
ice cold PM opened the parliamentary sessions following the Easter Sunday
massacre. Though a 2 minute silence preceded his address, grief, pain, agony or
sorrow did not surface. He had survived 1983, 1988/9 and 26 years of conflict
without any excessive heart beats or any thought of mea culpa too. He stammered,
stuttered, stumbled and contradicted himself as never before. He was incoherent
at times. He was fighting for his personal survival what ever happened.
Did
he allow those ISIS returnees to roam freely for 2 years without making any
change in the law that had a ‘lacuna’ for legal reasons or because he did not
want to lose Muslim votes? His silver speech would not save him.
He
had over looked the Prime Minister’s responsibility for government in his very
own scrambled egg constitution of 2018. His powers were substantive as he had
shackled the President’s. But he lacked the guts to enforce it. He as PM, almost
an elected dictator, accepted without a whimper being kept out of Security
Council meetings for 6 months.
To
downplay the magnitude of his responsibility and the enormity of the tragedy the
ice cool PM and his acolytes said the Easter Sunday terrorist atrocities were
just a trend in global terrorism. He wants SL to learn to live with that. He
wants to survive. Is that is what 250 deaths in 15 minutes means to him?
With
countless examples to chose from including SL’s own conflict he dropped another
clanger, a singularly ill timed and stupid remark when interviewed by Sun TV.
According to him the ‘Falklands’ (war) was an example of a terrorist conflict.
Why
he chose the Falklands war boggles the mind. Why he avoided mentioning the LTTE
terror, Sambandan and Sumanthiran could guess easily. The Falkland’s war was a
conventional one fought between Britain and Argentina with conventional forces.
A British nuclear powered submarine even sank an Argentinean aircraft carrier.
Three hundred died. Did the PM give this silly example to rope in the British?
His uncle JRJ, isolating himself from all non western colonies and the Non
Aligned countries, declared for Britain in that conflict.
The
PM’s interview with a BBC man of African origin on 27 April blew away any
remaining semblance of rationality in the PM. After many responses obstinately
refusing to acknowledge his responsibility, the BBC man told the PM he had been
in SL for about 4 days. He had picked up that the majority of people think he
should resign.
The
PM explained that it was a case of collective responsibility at cabinet level
and not his fault alone, so there was no need for him to resign. He added that
there was a Presidential commission of Inquiry and its report should be awaited.
After looking heavenwards, the BBC man asked the PM if he would resign if the
commission faulted him. The PM shot back saying it could not find fault with
him. The BBC man propositioned that the PM was prejudging the Commission report.
The obdurate PM did not think so.
The
BBC man said he understood from the people that the PM did not empathize with
them. The PM denied it. He said he had visited 2 (empty?) churches later in the
day. He was asked what next he did. He said he was not in the habit of visiting
each and every one who survived or were affected. So he went back to his office
and started working on how to protect the Muslims. He was asked how he could do
so when he could not protect the Christians. The ‘whole world’ that the PM never
tires of saying that thinks SL is a marvelous place only after he took over, was
listening. It must have squirmed.
Answers
will have to be given to questions of collective and command responsibility
(Geneva type or otherwise) and criminal negligence. Supplicants at Temple Trees,
academically sanitized and biased ‘Forum’ members and alternative NGO types may
pray with the PM that he will survive. They must hope this, like the Bond and
other scams including Sri Lankan will wash away.
It
will not, cannot and must not .The price SL paid is far too great to tolerate
any more PMs who lead from the rear in greed for power and fear.
SL
fortunately had Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith and Catholic clergy to lead at this
very crucial time. The Cardinal spoke clearly, firmly and without fear.
Catholics were told that reprisals would not be sanctioned. Tightly bonded,
highly disciplined and God fearing, they listened and obeyed. The country of
about 70% Buddhists also listened. They were astonished, amazed and hugely
inspired by this response. To the Muslims the Cardinal was a savior. SL will be
forever indebted to him, his clergy and the inconsolable, grief stricken
Catholics for their singular act of unprecedented humanity.
Thus
there was no return to 1983 when SL was leaderless. It was described as a pariah
state for many years. The PM was then a minister. He and his party men were just
as distant and dispassionate then, but unlike him JRJ pleaded mea culpa.
The
peoples’ loathing for all politicians has been reinforced. The PM and incurably
venal politicians must know where the buck stops. The people hold them in utter
contempt. This tragic calamity and those responsible will not be forgotten or
forgiven. There will be no more passing of the buck. Heads must roll.
This is the time for Tamil Brotheren to forget the past and unite with Sinhalese to fight terrorism
As Muslims speak Tamil our brothers can infiltrate and provide advanced information about any radical movement among Muslims to security agencies Tamils should also remember that same Tamil speaking Muslims were providing information of Tigers to law enforcement agencies Tamils in the north should allow Muslims to return to north so that they are under their radar Emergency laws has given much power to security forces and they can check any unlawful activity in the north . That means any possibility of revival of Tiger movement will also be remote. India from now on may not back Tamil separatism as they will be more involved in Suppression of Muslim radicalism Both Sinhalese and Tamils are of similar religions in someway believing in reincarnation and void of fancy Muslim ideology of going to heaven to taste virgins It is high time we move our gear and spread both religions Hindu and Buddhism ,because we both believe in non violence , Metta and Karuna Dr Sarath obeysekera
I request all patriotic citizens
to carefully and seriously go through the following statements of four
Prominent Muslim politicians. TWO, senior Ministers in the present Cabinet and
the Governors Hisbulla and Asad Sali.
Also please see the comments made
by MP Sumanthiran at a meeting held at BMCI on April 29th.
The only difference between
Muslim terrorism and Tamil terrorism in this country is that Tamil Terrorism was mainly operated
only by the Tigers and Tamil politicians of the north and East with the
assistance of India where as in Muslim terrorism it was operated by Muslim
extremists living all over the Island trained and financed by Muslims living
all over the world. But both were equally brutal and savage and disastrous to
the Sinhala Buddhist nation in this country.
Also the Tamils wanted only to have their EELAM in the North and East
perhaps with more future plans. Muslims on the other hand wanted to capture the
whole Island at once to have perhaps their
third Islamic State after ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria). Their
disclosed plan to carry out bombing in all 9 provinces simultaneously clearly
substantiates this statement.
Furthermore to find out who Rishard Badurdeen is, I also request to you
to view the debate telecasted in Hiru 6.55-7.30 pm news bulletin on April 30
for further stunning revelations by Badurdeen, rather open confessions,
revealed by him, thanks to the brilliant members of the panel.
At the same time I request
President Sirisena to remove all these four men from their posts as Ministers
and Governors immediately and order the police to arrest them before they
conspire and hatch, further attacks and proceed with action to remove these
traitors form Sri Lankan politics. Together with these three the Western PC
Governor also has to removed, in view of the allegations fired at him by many
citizens. This I think is the best time to take such bold decisions lest you
realize that you have done a big blunder by not doing so as MR did after the
conclusion of the war in 2009, and repent later.
Meanwhile I also take this
opportunity to request the President (Not
the Government as there is no Government in this country) to take the
following course of actions at least to save his own life even if he is not
seriously concerned about the wellbeing and the good of the country, or Sri
Lanka and its people to have a tomorrow.
1To ban all Muslim political
parties and Islamic terrorist organizations immediately and bring the country
under one Law for all. Ban Muslim Law and all other special privileges afforded
to them like polygamy, permission to wear a different dress, separate Muslim
schools like Madrasa and nuisance of shouting Allahu Akbar five times a day.
Continue the present operation non-stopped until the enemy is totally
eradicated from the soil of this land and take all measures to prevent external
involvements in all forms and continue the Island wide surveillance non-stop to
stop re-emergence of similar situation in future. In this process don’t leave
any stone unturned in all three spheres land, sea and air.
2 To ban all Tamil political
parties including all such parties under different disguised names like the
Akila ilangei Mahajana Congress, Lanka Kamkaru Conress, Upcountry Peoples Front
and Mano Ganesan’s Democratic People’s Front and Tamil Progressive Alliance.
3 Setup a powerful search operation
unit empowered to search every mosque and all suspected places in the Whole
Island and take stern action against all those found involved in any crime
against the Government or the people. Also demolish all illegally constructed
Mosques
4 Suspend this illegal and
unconstitutional Parliament headed by Ranil and Karu J, which has become a big
threat to this country and ceased to be of any use for this country long ago
and set up a War Council under the Heads
of the Three Forces and the Police without any politicians immediately, to
handle the present situation and to restore normalcy in the country
5 It may be very appropriate to
adopt the Russian and Australian approaches in keeping the minorities in their
places. Ask them to adapt to the native system as those countries have done or
leave for good for their lands of origin. Just follow Putin and the Australian
Prime Minister in tis regard.
7 Also ban communal segregation
and control putting up of mosques by legislation with strict conditions to
protect the rights of the natives and ban things like Halal and Sharia Law
inimical to our traditions and culture.
8 Make everybody in this country
and even the whole world to realize that this is the Land of the Sinhala
Buddhists as it had been found, defended and protected by their ancestors for
the past 2500 years against all foreign invasions
9 Make it compulsory to take
native names and convert to Buddhism as it was done in Burma in 1947 if anyone
wants to be a citizen and live in this country or go back to their lands of
origin immediately.
10 Set up a National Supreme
Advisory Council of the Mahasanga consisting of Mahanayaka Theras of the three
Nikayas and the Most Rev Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith Fernando and any other whom
you deem necessary to advice the government.
11 Initiate an action to work out
a plan to get down all housemaids from the Muslim countries.
12 At the same time think of a
plan to repeal the 19th A and restore the powers of the Executive
President so that there will be a Sinhala Buddhist leader all the time to take
crucial decisions on matters of national importance without leaving it in the
hands of an anti- Sinhala and anti-Buddhist body like the present Constitutional
Council.
I also like to bring to your
notice a very serious lapse in peripheral governance and administration that
has been a root cause of this wave of crimes and lack of governance in this
country with a view to have effective and strong governance and administration
all over the country.
One of the main reasons why law
and order has disappeared and crimes have increased in the country side today
is the complete breakdown of the administration and governance at the village
level.
The village, the last link of the
administration and Governance of this country has to be completely restructured
and reorganized. The main reason for this situation in the country side is the
complete collapse of the GS Divisions that form the cornerstone of effective and
good Governance of the country. In order to rectify this we have to completely
re-organize and restructure the Grama Seva system with people of higher
educational attainments, character and integrity, empowered with more power to
arrest and produce criminals in courts in collaboration with the Police. The
GSS should be given power to search and arrest those whore are found involved
in antisocial activities within their Divisions such as illicit brewing,
narcotics, illicit felling, illicit gemming, theft and other offences that come
under the Criminal Procedure Code, encroachment on crown reservations,
criminals and strangers hiding or carrying out any other illegal and criminal
activity within his division.
But all this will be a day dream
if we don’t make it compulsory for the Grama Niladharis to reside 24 hours
within his division. Today in most places GSN comes to the village only once a
week. This is the appalling situation in village administration in this
country. If this is done I can vouch, at least 90% of the countryside crimes
could be reduced. When the roots rot or the foundation is gone the tree falls
and the building too falls. So no wonder the country has fallen to this sad
situation in maintaining Law and Order when you see what has happened to
village level administration under the present system.
Also if you need to make District
Administration meaningful and effective and efficient in all field like keeping
peace and Law and Order, expediting development and end waste and corruption,
immediately abolish the Provincial Councils that has been a curse to this
Island nation since 1987.That will also prevent the division of the country in
to 9 independent political units eternally fighting against each other for
resources and power.
It will also save billions of
public funds and completely eradicate the existing chaotic governance and
enormous waste of financial and human resources in the country
Once normalcy is restored Dissolve the
Parliament and allow the people of this country to elect a Government they
want.
Finally please remember Mr. President that you
will not get a single Muslim or Tamil vote at the next election if you decide
to contest. Even Asad Sali and Hisbulla will not give their votes. That is the
stark truth about Sri Lankan communal politics. As a matter of fact all Tamils
vote only for Tamil candidates and Muslim Muslim candidates. They work only for
their own community and their religions. I hope you remember when Asad Sali
migrated to Central Province as a PC candidate at the last PC elections he was
voted in although he was a complete stranger to Kandy. That is how communalism
works in Sri Lankan politics although none of the Sinhala politician accept
this. That is why they have leaders like Asad Sali, Badurdeen and Hisbulla
Since you are neither a Muslim nor a Tamil you will never get their vote. That
is the stark truth though it might sound bitter for you.
Unfortunately we Sinhalese who
founded the civilization here and lived and owned this land from the dawn of
history today don’t have a single leader who is committed to protect and uphold
our heritage and rights and aspirations
of the Sinhala nation. This is the biggest tragedy we have inherited from the
day we got relieved from the Colonial yoke in 1948. Even the buffaloes and
monkeys have their leaders. Isn’t it a tragedy we don’t.
CT Web
02:00 AM May 01 2019
By Ranmini Gunaseka
The recent cache of swords and knives found in mosques, according to
Minister of Muslim Religious Affairs, Abdul Haleem was to clear the overgrown
shrubs surrounding compounds of mosques.
He said so at Media briefing at
his Ministry yesterday. It is possible that certain mosques would have kept
weapons and other sharp objects to clean the yards and surrounding shrubs
around certain religious places,” he claimed.
This was in response to journalists’
queries as to why certain mosques had amassed weapons such as swords and other
sharp objects. Most mosques have graveyards around them and some of these
mosques could have a lot of shrubs and weeds growing in their yards, so it’s
possible that they use these objects to clean up these areas,” claimed Haleem.
When queried by journalists as to
why some of these places of worship were found keeping uniforms resembling Army
fatigues, he claimed that he had seen the suspects involved claim to the media
that these uniforms were for re-selling
purposes.
We didn’t know about such things
other than from the media. We also saw a person in charge of a particular
mosque saying these uniforms were for re-sale purposes and even showed
receipts,” he added.
Meanwhile, releasing a statement,
the Ministry of Muslim Religious Affairs has asked the Muslim community to
cooperate with the necessary security measures implemented by the Government by
avoiding different types of face covering veils such as the Niqab and the
Burqa.
CT Web
02:00 AM May 01 2019
Updated 9 hours ago
Share
By Sulochana Ramiah Mohan
The Special Task Force (STF) yesterday (30) raided Eastern Province
Governor A.L.M. Hizbullah’s Kattankudi office where they found 35 Type 56
bullets, which the Governor claims belong to the Police security officers
working for him.
According to the Police Media
Unit, this office was shut down a month ago.
The STF detained two of
Hizbullah’s office staff for further questioning.
The two staffers were taken to
the Kattankudi Police Station for an inquiry and to determine whether the
bullets belong to the Police security provided to the Governor.
The STF conducted a search
operation in the coastal area of Kattankudi and entered the office belonging to
Hizbullah on the road to the Telecom office in Kattankudi. However, when
inquired about the raid, Governor Hizbullah told Ceylon Today that the STF that
was conducting the search operation had entered the Police security office that
is given to him which is in the same premises as his office.
The Governor in his statement
claimed that the STF confiscated 40 bullets from the room in the Kattankudi
Police post, but the Police Media Unit confirmed that it was 35 T-56 bullets.
He said, These bullets were
officially given to the Police security offered to me and to probe further, my
two staffers have been detained by the Police.”
He claimed that the bullets were
not for his private use and that the detention of his staffers has no
connection to the bullets confiscated.
He confirmed that the bullets
were officially given to his security officers by the Kattankudi Police and
they are theirs.
He also denied that the STF
raided his residence in Kattankudi.
Bathiudeen’s coordinating secretary arrested in Wedithalathivu
30 April 2019
Four men including a coordinating
secretary of Minister Rishad Bathiudeen were arrested by the Adampan police
following the discovery of 10 detonators during a search in Wedithalathivu,
Mannar on Monday.
47-year-old Mohamed Zanus
believed to be on of the minister’s coordinating secretaries, the
Wedithalathivu Rural Bank Manager and two other businessmen were among those
arrested. It was reported that the Mr. Zanus is also the Mantai West
Co-operative society chairman.
The detonators were recovered
near a public toilet located near a shop belonging to Mohamed Zanus, during a
search conducted at Erukkalapiddi in Wedithalathivu.
The arrested suspects will be
produced in the Mannar Magistrate’s Court and the Adampan Police are
investigating the incident to determine who had brought the detonators.
Meanwhile, the All Ceylon Makkal
Congress (ACMC) said today that none of the coordinating secretaries of
Minister Rishad Bathiudeen nor any member of his staff were arrested.
The ACMC said in a statement that
Mohamed Zanus, was a former Member of the Mantai West PS representing ACMC, but
he is not affiliated to ACMC anymore after he resigned voluntarily.
It said the minister’s two officially appointed coordinating secretaries
are Jailabdeen Mohammed Naleem and Irshad Rahmathulla. They both attend to
their duties regularly at the ministry office, Colombo 3 and not in Mannar.
(Sithum Chathuranga)”
The way this man behaved at the yesterday’s Sirasa discussion and the words
he used, answers he gave and the threats he made alone are quite sufficient to
arrest his man immediately as he pauses a very big threat to the security of
the country. He warned the panel to remember that there are 2 million Muslims
in this country. The only thing he did not say last night is that the entire
Arab world and their oil money is behind him
TNA blames Easter Sunday massacres on Sri Lanka’s failure to address
grievances of minorities
April 30, 2019, 10:33 pm
Sumanthiran addressing event at the BMICH on Monday
By Shamindra Ferdinando
Tamil National Alliance (TNA)
Jaffna District MP M.A. Sumanthiran on Monday (April 29) alleges that the
Easter Sunday carnage was a result of Sri Lanka’s failure to ensure certain
basic values.
Attorney-at-law Sumanthiran warned of dire consequences unless the
government addressed the grievances of the minorities.
Sumanthiran warned: “Unless
we agree on those basic values we are doomed.” Declaring that there
wouldn’t be any future for the country unless consensus could be reached on
what those basic values were, Sumanthiran called equality a key value.
Complaining about lack of ‘Social Contract,’ Sumanthiran warned that
Tamil people hadn’t agreed to live in one country yet.
Declaring that the Tamils hadn’t accepted 1972 and 1978 Constitutions,
Sumanthiran said that in the absence of their participation in the new
Constitution making process, there couldn’t be a “Social Contract.’
“The most significant minority not yet
given their consent to live together as one country because they had not agreed to that social contract.
They were not party to that social contract,” he said.
The TNA spokesman emphasized that
there was no agreement/consensus with regard to .basic value of equality in the
country. Sumanthiran
recalled how he opposed in parliament Buddhism being given the foremost place
in the Constitution. The Jaffna District MP said that he took a
tough stand on behalf of his community when the interim report was debated. The
MP said that he declared they were willing to concede that to appease the
majority community. “I came under heavy attack. People asked me who are
you to concede that,” Sumanthiran said. The MP acknowledged that his
people were quite right in taking that stand.
At the conclusion, Sumanthiran asked whether
Sri Lankans were really ready to accept that all were equal. And if not, there
wouldn’t be a tomorrow, the MP said”.
My comments
Obviously he justifies this 21st carnage and he is overjoyed
over the devastation done even as a Christian. Doesn’t it clearly displays his
deep enmity and the inborn desire to destroy this Sinhala nation and their
motherland
Now look at the audacity of this
parasitic Indian intruder TIGER who represents only a mere 5 %of the total
population of this country. Also note how much he hates the Sinhalese Buddhists
and consistently stands for a separate state claiming 1/3 of the country and
2/3 of the coastal belt with over more than ½ of the country’s Oceanic
resources of this Land of the Sinhala Nation that had been their only
Motherland on this planet from the dawn of history. Just imagine what nasty
speech he has made and what a hypocrite and a communalist he is as a Law maker
who has sworn a as an MP under the 4th Schedule of the Constitution
of the country.
Also now look at the list of
traitors who have participated in this meeting
Professor Carlo Fonseka, former
President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, Speaker Karu Jayasuriya, Minister
Mano Ganeshan, MP. Dr. Jayampathy Wickramaratne, MP Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa,
former MP Lal Kantha and a large group of civil society activists, including
Ven. Dambara Amila, Gamini Viyangoda, Prof. Sarath Wijesuriya, Saman
Ratnapriya, Chandragupta Thenuwara and Sandya Ekneligoda were present on the
occasion. At the onset of the programme, Annidda editor attorney-at-law K. W.
Janaranjana requested speakers Prof. Jayadeva Uyangoda, Human Rights
Commissioner Dr. Deepika Udagama, MP M.A. Sumanthiran, PC, J.C. Weliamuna, PC
and Constitutional Council member attorney-at-law Javid Yusuf and filmmaker
Asoka Handagama to take the Easter Sunday carnage into
consideration.”
Aren’t all these people sworn enemies of the Sinhala Buddhists and of
this country?
Kashmir has been referred to as Paradise on Earth” owing to its
stunning natural beauty. The great Buddhist Emperor Asoka (273-236 BCE) was
instrumental in introducing Buddhism to Kashmir. The introduction of Buddhism to
Kashmir is of great historic importance because it was from Kashmir that
Buddhism spread to the Himalayan region and beyond including Tibet. Kashmir
played an important role in spread of Buddhism to Central Asia and eventually
China. For more than 1300 years, from the 3rd century BCE to about
the 12 century CE, Kashmir was inhabited by Buddhists. Kashmir flourished under
illustrious Buddhist kings such as Jalouk, Hushka, Jushka followed by the great
King Kanishka. This illustrious Buddhist Kingdom was marked by magnificent
Buddhist shrines, monasteries, stupes, Buddha and Bodhisattva statues and other
Buddhist monuments. It was a place adorned with exquisite Buddhist art,
sculpture and architecture of high aesthetic and spiritual appeal.
Besides, it was a renowned place of Buddhist learning and practice.
It was inhabited by many celebrated Buddhist scholar monks of high repute,
including Asvaghosha the reputed Buddhist writer, Nagarjuna the philosopher,
Vasumitra the Buddhist scholar, Charaka the physician, Samgharaksha the
chaplain, Mathara the politician and Agisala the engineer. Learning and
literature greatly expanded due to the patronage of king Kanishka. The Sanskrit
language and literature flourished during this period and Sanskrit religious and
secular literature were greatly enriched under the royal patronage. Several
eminent Buddhist scholars wrote outstanding books in Sanskrit during this period
time, including highly learned scholars such as Aswaghosha, Nagarjuna,
Vasumitra, and Charaka. Being an
ardent and devoted Buddhist, king Kanishka was instrumental in organizing and
holding a Buddhist Council or Conference in Kashmir, under the leadership of
famous Buddhist scholar monks Vasumitra and Asvaghosha, with the participation
of several leading scholars and monks including Parsva and Nagaijuna. In order to safeguard the original thinking in Buddhism
which the Mahayana school refers to as Sarvastivada” or Vaibhashika” reputed
Buddhist scholars at the time came to Kashmir and compiled a detailed and
authentic commentary of this philosophy. This monumental work was completed in
Kashmir and was known as ‘Abhidharma Mahavtbhashashastra ‘ which was translated
to Chinese in year 383 CE.
Scholars and pilgrims came to Kashmir from many distant places in
order to study the teachings of the Buddha, at the feet of these renowned
scholars. It is reported that there were more than five hundred Buddhist
scholars in Kashmir during the reign of King Kanishka in the
1st century CE. Much like Emperor Asoka, King Kanishka resorted to
missionary activities for the spread of Buddhism outside India, to distant
countries including Tibet, China, Myanmar. Mongolia and Japan.
MUSLIM MUGHAL OR MONGOL INVASION OF KASHMIR
Muslim Mughal invasion of Kashmir started during the early
11th century at a time when Kashmir was faced with political turmoil
with internal rivalries within its royalty. These conditions led to disruption
of Buddhist activities and the Buddhist community was in disarray, paving the
way for Muslim invasion of Kashmir. A ruthless Mughal chief named Zulju led a
savage raid of Kashmir causing severe destruction, including the massacre of
Buddhists and Hindus. The Kashmir king fled Kashmir and the Mughal chief brought
Kashmir under Muslim rule.
The Mughal occupation of Kashmir was marked by widespread bloodshed
and destruction and forced conversion of Buddhists and Hindus to Islam. Most of
the magnificent Buddhist shrines, monasteries, places of learning and monuments
were destroyed. In the early part of the 13th century, there was
another Mughal invasion of Kashmir which led to Kashmir becoming a Mughal
dependency and the stationing of a Mughal Governor referred to as, Darughachi to
administer Kashmir. A brutal and cruel period followed with people facing
immense hardships. Their rule was
the cruellest that the Kashmir people ever faced. Buddhists of Kashmir were ruthlessly forced to convert to Islam. In
the mid-13th century, the Buddhists and Hindus of Kashmir revolted
unsuccessfully against the Muslims and this led to further subjugation of
Kashmiris and forced conversions becoming the order of the day. By the
14th century, Islam became the dominant religion in Kashmir. The former glory of the
Buddhist culture of Kashmir was lost forever and Kashmir has continued for many
centuries to be a place of turmoil and insecurity.
HARDSHIP INSTABILITY AND INSECURITY
Mughals ruled Kashmir for 167 long years, with the help of 35
governors who looted and plundered Kashmir. Tyranny was the order of the day and
any whimper of rebellion was crushed mercilessly. Numerous Kashmiri Buddhists
and Hindus laid their life in the process for the sake of independence. Since
the 15th century, Kashmir was raided and attacked several times by
the Afghans, Sikhs and Dogras and a highly troubled situation, marked by turmoil
and insecurity continued to prevail in Kashmir until modern times. Mughal rule
came to an end in 1753 CE with the capture of capture of Kashmir by the Afghans.
This proved to be a worst nightmare for Kashmiris. Muslim Afghans crossed all
boundaries of civilization, killing, raping, plundering, looting, brutally
torturing non-Muslims. It is reported that no woman was safe in her house during
this brutal Afghan rule. Mass migration of Buddhists and Hindus out of their
native Kashmir took place during this time. In desperation, many Kashmiri people turned to the powerful Sikh
ruler of the Punjab – Ranjit Singh, who, accompanied by Gulab Singh, Raja of
Jammu, eventually drove out the Moghal Afghans from Kashmir. In 1819, Afghans were defeated by Sikh forces led by Ranjit Singh,
and the Sikhs did not prove any better. Destruction and killing became rampant.
The troubled situation continued until the partition of the subcontinent in 1947
and the division of Kashmir into Indian administered Kashmir and Pakistan
administered Kashmir.
JESUS CHRIST IN KASHMIR
In recent years, European scholars have asserted that Jesus Christ
spent a good part of his life in Buddhist Kashmir and was deeply influenced by
Buddhist teachings. This was in the 1st century CE, at the time when
the kingdom of Kashmir was ruled by the great Buddhist king Kanishka-I. This was
the time of great Buddhist cultural and intellectual revival and the time when
the historic Taxila and Nalanda Universities were at their peak in terms of
Buddhist studies.
There is an undocumented time-span between Jesus’s childhood and the
beginning of his ministry as recorded in the gospels or Bibles. The belief among
Christians is that Jesus lived in Nazareth during this period, but there
are various accounts that present other scenarios, including travels to India.
Several authors have claimed to have found proof of the existence of manuscripts
in India and Tibet that support the belief that Christ was in India during this
time in his life. Among the several authors who have written on this subject are
Nicolas
Notovitch (1894), Mirza Ghulam
Ahmad (founder of Ahmadiyya
movement) (1899), Levi H.
Dowling (1908), Swami
Abhedananda (1922), Nicholas
Roerich (1923–1928), Mathilde
Ludendorff (1930), and Elizabeth
Clare Prophet (founder of Ascended
Master TeachingsNew Age group)
(1956).
According to the German Holger Kersten’s book published in1894, titled “Jesus Lived in India”
which is regarded as a thorough, methodical and authoritative examination of the
evidence of Christ’s life beyond the Middle East before crucifixion and in India
and elsewhere after it. He asserts that after the crucifixion, Jesus came to
Kashmir in India with his Mother Mary and finally his death and entombment
happened in Kashmir. He notes that there are many parallels of Christ’s
teachings with those in Buddhism.
Nicolai Notovich a Russian scholar was the first to suggest that
Christ may have gone to India. In 1887, he visited Kashmir and was a guest in a
Buddhist monastery, where a monk told him of a bodhisattva saint called “Issa”
who had come to Kashmir from somewhere and who had lived and died in Kashmir.
According to Notovich’s extensive research, for about sixteen years, Christ
travelled through Turkey, Persia and Western Europe and finally arrived with
Mary at a place near Kashmir, where she died. He was a great prophet who was
venerated by the people of Kashmir at that time, and after many years in Kashmir
as a reformer he died and was buried in a tomb in Kashmir. In this light, not
only Buddhists, but Christians, who venerate Jesus Christ also should be
concerned about the tragedy that befell Kashmir owing to the savage Muslim
hostility, violence, atrocities and misdemeanors, in ancient times.
A joint search operation by the Police and the Army has arrested three suspects in Welimada area last night (02).
A total of thirty empty bullet casings, a military uniform, 6
national identity cars, Cannabis and several other drugs were seized
from one of the suspect’s house.
Welimada Police is conducting further investigations into the incident.
Meanwhile, in another search operation in Ahungalla area, two persons
were arrested along with a cache of alms bowls and parts of robes
ordained by Buddhist monks.
Ahungalla Police is probing the incident further.
A separate search mission in Ambalangoda area had managed to apprehend
three persons last night (02). One suspect had been in possession of a
sword.
The search was carried out by the Ambalangoda Police and Special Task Force.
The Fundamental Rights (FR) petition filed against former Defence
Secretary Hemasiri Fernando and Inspector General of Police Pujith
Jayasundara is set to be considered on 21st of May.
The petition was taken up before the Supreme Court judge bench
consisting of Justices Buwaneka Aluwihare and Preethi Padman Surasena
today (03).
Attorney General told the court that a decision is yet to be reached
regarding appearing on behalf of the IGP and the former Defence
Secretary.
Considering the submissions, the Supreme Court decided to take up the petition on May 21st, said Ada Derana reporter.
The petition accuses the IGP and the former Defence Secretary of
infringing the fundamental rights of the people by failing to prevent
the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks on churches and hotels even when
intelligence information had forewarned.
A person by the name Abdul Sakthar Mohamed, who is suspected to have
been in charge of the financial accounts of the National Thowheed
Jamaath (NTJ), was arrested today (03).
The security forces had recovered 200 bank slips showing cash
receipts worth Rs 10 million and 25 receipts of cash payments during the
raid.
In addition to the bank slips, a laptop computer, videos on the
Islamic State terrorist group, photos showing costumes similar to that
of military uniforms, 2 national identity cards and video clips
containing the clashes in Theldeniya have also been seized.
The police also found a voice clip of a female cautioning the members
of the organization to be vigilant in the aftermath of the attacks.
The alleged financial manager of the NTJ Abdul Sakthar was arrested
at a rented house located near the residence of the shoe shop owner,
which had been a hideout of two suicide bombers.
Ken Livingstone is an English politician, he served as the Mayor of London between 2000 and 2008. He is also a former MP and a former member of the Labour Party.
The vast majority of people who believe in God are appalled by
terrorism and we should no more be denouncing the Muslim community today
than we did the Irish Catholic one forty years ago.
The world
watched with horror as our TV screens showed the killing of at least
253 people in Sri Lanka, as locals went to their Sunday churches and
holidaymakers relaxed in their hotels. This came shortly after the equally horrific mass murder of Muslims at prayers in New Zealand mosques.
All
around the world people fear the rise of terrorism and increasingly
people believe the real threat comes from the rise of Islamic
fundamentalism. But the truth is Islamist terror incidents have been
reducing across the world and particularly in the West since 2014. The
decline of Islamist terror incidents has been matched by a surge of
terror attacks by far-right racists which make up a third of terror
attacks around the world.
Most people will find
this surprising because our media focuses on Islamist terror rather than
that of the far-right. In a recent report
published by the Guardian, Scott Atran, who is a founder of the Centre
of the Resolution of Intractable Conflict at the University of Oxford,
revealed that attacks by Muslims received over four times more coverage
in the media in the US than other terrorist incidents.
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So, is Islam the natural home of terrorism as
implied by so much of our media coverage? To discover the truth, we need
to look at the teachings of the founder of Islam, the prophet Mohammed.
Born in 570 AD, he was the son of a poor merchant who was orphaned at
the age of six and reared by his grandfather to be a merchant. Although
he continued as a trader he was drawn to religion claiming he received
revelations by the angel Gabriel and just like Jesus Christ he was a
strong advocate that the rich should provide more support for the
poorest. He started with a small band of devoted followers but within a
decade had gained control over all of what is today’s Arabia.
Shortly before he died on 8th June 632 he delivered his last sermon which stands out as remarkably liberal:
An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab, nor a non-Arab any
superiority over an Arab. Also, a white has no superiority over a black
nor a black any superiority over a white.” He then went on to say that God had created humanity and formed you into tribes and nations so that you may get to know one another.” Not so you may fight or oppress or occupy or convert or terrorise but so that you can get to know one another.”
So,
if these are the rules laid down by the founder of Islam how can
someone like Osama bin Laden plan the murder of over 3,000 Americans in
the attack on the Twin Towers back in 2001 and do the Sri Lankan
terrorists even know that this was the message of Mohammed. And if they
do how could they justify the monstrous crime they unleashed on their
Christian neighbours.
The grim fact is that every faith has its
extremist elements. The Ku Klux Klan, which hanged thousands of black
Americans identified as a Christian organisation. Back in 2015, Rabbi
Benzi Gopstein was asked in an interview: Do you support the burning of churches in Israel?” He replied that of course he was in support. This unleashed a wave of criticism, but Israel’s attorney general refused to prosecute him for this extreme statement. Since 2009, at least fifty-three mosques and churches have been vandalised
in Israel. Perhaps one thing that could have fuelled Islamist extremism
is the fact that the great mosque al-Masjid al-Kabir was destroyed by
Israeli missiles on 8th July 2014 and the PLO claim that sixty-three mosques have been destroyed by Israel.
The
growth of far-right terrorism is seen as being fuelled by Islamist
threats. Dylann Roof killed nine African American churchgoers in South
Carolina in 2015 and said he was Like a Palestinian in an Israel jail after killing nine people… the Palestinian would not be upset or have any regret.” Nor can we forget the vast number of Norwegian young socialists who were killed by Anders Breivik.
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I could go on endlessly listing terrorist
attacks but it’s more important that we can look at what we can do to
restrain them. How can we create a less violent, more tolerant world by
dealing with what fuels the anger that leads to these acts of terrorism?
Undoubtedly for many the terrible poverty has been a factor but as we
saw with the terror attacks in Sri Lanka many of the individuals involved were relatively well-off.
There
is no doubt in my mind that one of the major causes of the rise of
terrorism has been the foreign policy of US presidents who have
consistently interfered in Arab states for decades. In July 1979,
President Jimmy Carter was briefed by the CIA about what was happening
in Afghanistan. At that time the Afghan government was pro-Soviet and
firmly clamped down on Islamist extremism whilst promoting equal rights
for women. The CIA told President Carter that if the US started
providing arms for the Muslim groups that were fighting to overthrow the
pro-Soviet government, this could provoke the Soviet Union to invade
Afghanistan and ‘it would be their Vietnam.’ Carter agreed, the Soviet
Union invaded and forty years on the violence in Afghanistan continues.
The United Nations has just reported
that the Afghan government, with US support, has killed more civilians
in the first quarter of 2019 than the Taliban and other Islamist groups.
American air strikes caused 140 deaths, a quarter of the total. The
Afghan government was responsible for a fifth of deaths. Altogether 581 civilians have been killed and 1,192 injured between January and March.
We
still live with a similar consequence in Iraq, following the invasion
unleashed by US President George W Bush and UK PM Tony Blair. The West’s
involvement in trying to overthrow the governments of Syria and Libya
have been equally devastating in their consequences. Since 1945, the US
has been responsible for many foreign invasions and coups to overthrow
governments that they did not want to see continue in power. None of
this was ever about defending human rights or democracy, it was always
about defending US commercial interests.
The
people of Britain and America were told we had to invade Iraq because it
had weapons of mass destruction and had been linked to the 9/11 terror
attacks in the US. The US Congress conducted a detailed investigation of
this but when their report was published, twenty-eight pages were
withheld. Had those pages been revealed Congress and the British House
of Commons would not have voted to support the invasion of Iraq because
these pages alleged that the funding for Osama bin Laden’s terrorist
organisation came from Saudi Arabia.
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Of course there are extreme religious elements that fuel terrorism. We know now that the slaughter in Sri Lanka was inspired
by Zahran Hashim, a preacher whose video was released by Islamic State
(IS, formerly ISIS) claiming responsibility for the attacks. We know
little about Hashim. He is believed to be about forty-years-old and was
driven out of his town in Sri Lanka because of his extremist views.
Many, if not most, of these terrorist attacks, whether by religious
groups or the far-right are inspired by charismatic individuals.
If
we are to stop terrorism, the US, and its main ally Britain, have to
stop interfering in other nations and we also have to mobilise
international pressure to stop Saudi Arabia funding terrorist organisations.
We
also have to recognise the importance of religion in our world.
Although I have been an atheist since the age of twelve, through all my
time in politics I have engaged with different faiths. Back in the 1970s
and 1980s I was defending the Irish Catholic community here in Britain.
In those days the IRA was letting off two or three bombs a year but the
British media demonised the whole Irish Catholic community with one
appalling cartoon depicting every Irish Catholic as a terrorist. The
media coverage fuelled intolerance towards Catholics and there were many
physical attacks just as is the case today with Muslims. The vast
majority of people who believe in God are appalled by terrorism and we
should no more be denouncing the Muslim community today than we did the
Irish Catholic one forty years ago.
Colombo, May 2 (Daily Express): The Easter
Sunday multiple suicide bombings in Sri Lanka have had an impact on the
country’s external relations and on the domestic social, economic and
political front.
Looking at the impact on the country’s external
relations first, the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government has become quite
dependent on the US and its Western allies for intelligence on the
Islamic State (IS) and its world-wide tentacles. The West has been
fighting with the IS and al Qaeda for many years now and has a fund of
knowledge and expertise in this matter.
America’s FBI and British
intelligence officials are already in Colombo participating in the
investigations into the IS network including the National Tawheed
Jamaath (NTJ) and the Jamaathei Millathu Ibraheemi (JMI) which had
carried out the blasts in a joint operation on April 21.
Since
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe feels that the blasts were carried
out under the command of some elements based outside the island, the
dependence on international intelligence agencies will only grow,
especially since the US Ambassador in Sri Lanka Alaina Teplitz has said
publicly that further attacks are possible.
The reappearance of
the IS leader Abu Bakr-al Bhagdadi in a new IS video, his threat to
fight a long war” and his celebration of the Lanka bombings will enable
the US to have a foothold in Sri Lanka’s security and political
Establishments indefinitely though the US embassy has said that American
presence will be a short one.
After helping the Sri Lankan
Security Forces with vital intelligence on the Tamil Tigers’ floating
warehouses” during the war, the US intensified its military involvement
in Sri Lanka. It has given US$ 39 million in aid for defense-related
expenses. A Coast Guard Cutter has been given. Joint naval exercises on
disaster management have been held in Trincomalee and Hambantota
harbors. In addition, there is a logistics agreement and an American Air
Logistics Hub in Katunanayake airbase, north of Colombo.
The US
military and political interest in Sri Lanka is primarily rooted in the
growing Chinese economic (and possibly strategic) footprint in Sri
Lanka. However, it is also believed that the IS could have been
irritated by the increasing American presence in Sri Lanka, and hence
the bombing of places where Westerners gather and where Christians
congregate.
Be that as it may, the addition of the IS factor to the existing China factor helps the US dig its boots into Sri Lanka.
And as The Sunday Times
reported, the US would like to get all it wants from Sri Lanka while
Sirisena and Wickremesinghe are in power. The Americans know that the
duo may not get re-elected and the next man in, mostly probably Gotabaya
Rajapaksa, is expected to be independent if not pro-China.
The
Wickremesinghe regime is also humoring the US and the West so that the
Western nations do not press for the implemention of the UNHRC
resolutions on human rights in Sri Lanka. The government is said to be
signing on the dotted line on pacts suggested by the US.
It is in
view of this that the opposition Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), led
by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, is vehemently opposing any plan
to let American troops or American intelligence personnel in.
Mahinda
Rajapaksa has said that the bulk of the intelligence work could be done
by Lankan intelligence, which had only a decade ago broken the cells of
the deadly Tamil Tigers and eliminated their leaders.
While
relations with the US and the West are expected to be a bit problematic
with the public mood being against close ties with the US and the West,
relations with India are likely to improve because it was India which
had given actionable intelligence 16 days before the April 21 blasts
which killed 253 people including 40 foreigners. It had repeated the
input two more times.
To a man, Sri Lankans are blaming Lankan
security officials and political leaders for turning a blind eye to the
intelligence inputs and turning a deaf ear to complaints about Islamic
radicals in the past three years. However, Sri Lankans will tolerate
India only so long as it remains in the background and does not make its
presence felt as the US does.
Sri Lanka’s relations with China
will be unaffected because in the absence of US and Western investments
in infrastructure development, the island nation will have to depend on
China which has liberally funded the building of roads, railways,
airports and seaports.
Even the pro-West Wickremesinghe regime has
given more projects to China than to any other country. However,
relations with China will be even more warm if one of the Rajapaksas
comes to power in the elections due at the end of 2019.
Impact on International Situation
The
Catholic leader Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith has appealed to political
parties not to politicize the blasts and has asked them to postpone
elections to ensure concentration on cracking the terror network and
maintaining national peace and harmony. But politicians of all hues are
using the blasts to enhance their political chances and weaken their
rivals.
Nobody or no political party is communalizing the blasts
or seeking to humiliate, persecute or attack the Muslims community as
such. They are saying with one voice that the perpetrators of the
attacks were misguided individuals under the influence of a foreign
terror group. But Muslim politicians, MPs and Ministers are being
singled out for attacks by politicians from other communities.
This
is because it is believed that Muslim leaders had been pampered by
successive Sri Lankan governments and that these leaders had misused the
privileges to continue to do communal politics.
Eastern Province
Governor MLAM Hisbullah is being accused of getting Saudi money to set
up a grandiose Sharia University which could be a breeding ground for
Wahabist/Salafist ideology, which Islamic terrorists imbibe and uphold.
Some key Muslim leaders’ staff have been arrested for possessing weapons
like swords and explosives.
President Sirisena is using the
post-blasts fear and apprehension to show that he can take resolute
action in the interest of the country and live down the image that he
has been ineffective for the last four years.
On May Day he
declared that he is ready to sacrifice his life to protect the country
against terror. He has said that terrorists attacked Sri Lanka because
of his strong anti-drug campaign. He said terror groups survive on drug
smuggling and that the IS was enraged because he was coming down heavily
on drug trafficking.
He has promised action against officials who
did not act on the intelligence made available by India. A good number
of conspirators have been arrested under his orders.
While
Sirisena’s actions are appreciated, there is still a deep-rooted feeling
that he has been a weak leader under the thumb of Prime Minister Ranil
Wickremesinghe who himself had not been a hands-on man. There is a
general yearning among Sri Lankans, including Muslims, that the country
needs a strong leader who will deliver on all fronts including national
security and economic development.
The duo – Mahinda Rajapaksa and
Gotabaya Rajapaksa – had delivered on both the national security and
economic fronts when they were in power between 2005 and 2014. Gotabaya
Rajapaksa has said that he is going to a candidate for the Presidency.
If he is released from US citizenship and he contests, he has the best
chance of winning.
But to weaken Gotabaya, the President, Prime
Minister and other ministers are linking him with the National Tawheed
Jamaath (NTJ) whose founder leader Zahran Hashim was a suicide bomber
and leader of the bombing squad.
Cabinet spokesman Rajitha
Senaratne said that when Gotabaya was Defense Secretary he had used some
NTJ members as spies for Military Intelligence.
There also a number of cases against Gotabaya in the courts. These cases are being pursued vigorously now.
As peace loving Sri Lankans we are
dismayed by the surreptitious accusations and innuendos cast on the majority
Sinhala Buddhist community by Waleed Ali, an Australian TV presenter in his
Column in the Daily telegraph, on the recent tragic events in Sri Lanka. This
terrorist activity in Easter Sunday was directed at the Christians, but not
limited to Christian churches is obvious as bombings have been carried out in 5
and 6 star hotels in Colombo where the majority of the patrons are Sinhalese
and Europeans as the numbers of dead and the injured reveal. The terror
extended to the North and the East of Sri Lanka is indicative that the North
and the East where the majority are Muslims have become a fertile ground for
insurgent activity. Waleed Ali’s reference to Sinhala Buddhists is an
unnecessary digression, populist, irresponsible racial backsliding to distract
the Islamic terror and mitigate the blame that should squarely fall on the
radical Muslims.
Generally the Western media has been for
decades noted for their historic partisanship. There assertions implicating the
Sinhala Buddhists were tantamount to encouragement of Tamil separatist
terrorism in Sri Lanka. The scant sympathy they extended to the Sinhalese
victims is still reverberating in our memory for which we have forgiven. Yet some have seen in the recent events a
golden opportunity yet again to cast aspersions and accusations on the majority
Sinhala Buddhist community in Sri Lanka.
Let us respond to this man in detail. He writes, ‘ (E) very terrorist attack in which
innocent people are killed is devastatingly tragic. Every one of them is
heinous. But what we’ve seen in Sri Lanka this week exists on a rarefied level
of depravity.
Of course, there’s the supreme violation
of slaughtering people in worship – now an established feature of terrorism and
particularly Islamic State’s violence’. We are in total agreement with Ali and
might we also add that we extend our sympathy to the dead, both innocent and
the misguided guilty, for it is a wanton waste of a precious human life as
Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith said at the Easter mass in Colombo. As Sinhalese Buddhists
we cultivate no hatred towards other religions for we have no concept of ‘infidels’
and we seek no revenge for not being Buddhists. As intelligent people we must
use our words carefully. There is certainly no hatred between the Buddhists and
the Christians, just like between Muslims and Christians that Ali is proud of. Moreover
the Sinhalese and Christians are frequently consanguineal blood relatives, in
the thousands. We have no religious, dogmatic taboos about marrying non-Buddhists
and that is how we have been for centuries. The link between Christians and
Buddhists is from time immemorial. The previous President is married to a
Catholic family and the current Prime Minister hails from a Christian family.
Waleed Ali described the 30-year terrorist
war as between Sinhalese Buddhists and Hindu minority is absurd nonsense. He does
not know that it was an insurrection against the state. Was there a Hindu
temple in Colombo ever attacked, did a single Buddhist ever murder a Hindu, we
ask. To keep a 20 odd million agitated Sinhalese subdued when bombs were flying
all around them, prevent attacking a single Tamil in the 30-year war is a
tribute to the culture of the Sinhalese Buddhists. Yet, in disturbing contrast
are his references to the extremism, muted, cagey and sheepish, showing double
standards? A Sri Lankan commentator added, quite rightly, that in the Sunday
Massacre ‘we haven’t seen outpouring of outrage from
Muslim ‘civil society’ of the kind witnessed when the comparatively baby-like
acts of violence perpetrated against Muslims by extremist Buddhists in Digana
and Teldeniya last year or when similar violence was unleashed in Aluthgama a
few years before. One has to ask if it is because Buddhists constitute a soft
and preferred target as far as ‘civil society’ outfits are concerned’
This uninformed man must understand the nature
of violence, which happens sporadically in a multiracial, politically active
society where people are scrambling for the limited resources, in a competitive
economy. No society is ever immune to such sporadic episodes for humans are
emotionally charged being. Race riots
they are but terrorism they are not. Reality has to be grasped properly. Mob
violence is round the corner in any multicultural, multi religious society when
there is an immediate event that arouses the sensibilities of people. The
rational beings control their impulses but the same does not hold with the
under educated and irrational subjects. The Sinhalese – Muslim skirmishes that
he so loudly proclaims to mitigate the depravity of the terror must be examined
in its proper light. The Aluthgama riots were allegedly over the incident
involving Muslim youth desecrating a temple by throwing a severed head of a cow
and the Digana Kandy riots were due to the killing of a Sinhalese lorry driver
by Muslim youth. These are not terrorist activities in any definition or there
were no caches of weapons discovered to indicate they were intent on massacring
innocent people. How many lives were lost, perhaps none. But to call something terrorism
against a racial group needs a confluence of many things. It cannot happen in a
day or two. It is organized as in a war situation by bringing weapons in large
quantities. Illegal weapons,
explosives, detonators, communication equipment, forged passports, National
Identity Cards and vehicles.
There must be hundreds and thousands of agents to carry out the mass violence. That
is terrorism. The Thowheed Jama’th speaks of 200,000 followers according to Muslim
sources. To write that in Digana, houses are set on fire, reminiscent of the
old gruesome story of death inside their own home as in 1983, is over the top.
Take the case of the Sinhalese attacks
on mushrooming Christian sects. Waleed Ali and others like Amanda Hodge must be
factual in what they write. The truth of the matter is that Sinhalese Christians
were annoyed as much as the Buddhists owing to the numerous evangelical sects
mushrooming in the island after the tsunami. Converting poor Sinhalese was a
past time on the pretext of assisting them materially out of the funds collected
on the pretext of the disaster in Western countries was an irritant to the
established Christian religions as much as to the Sinhalese. For conversion of
their brethren the Sinhalese killed none. Unlike in the Muslim community these
incidents do not end in blood letting and in a multi religious society these
are events the state has to control through legislation. That silence gave the
spark to the radical elements in the events after the Tsunami and they were a
passing phase. No traditional churches were ever attacked by the rioters. Freedom
of religion also has limits for you do not live in isolation.
These uninformed characters should note
what Muslim intellectuals have to say. A respected scholar domiciled in
Australia says that in a multi racial society that is Sri Lanka, there was a
self-inflicted alienation which was widening the gap between some Muslims and
other communities, primarily the Sinhala Buddhist community, arousing
suspicion. Dr Ameer Ali is emphatic that the vast majority of Buddhists are not
fanatics and a vast majority of Sinhalese are not racists either. He said a minority, who is very vocal and is
trying to grab attention should not be allowed to take the country in the wrong
direction. The small radical element among the Sinhalese are legally punished
and put in jail. At elections these elements are bundled out but the Muslims still
go by ethnicity in all-political matters and make democracy really unworkable.
As
far as the Muslims are concerned, it must be understood that the new doctrine
promotes a vicious cycle
of
self-alienation that leads to exclusivism to extremism ending in radicalization
and terrorism. Self-alienation
starts in many ways. To give a few
examples, the Muslim schools operate on a different calendar. It prevents the
Muslims children from interacting with other communities. Muslims do not hoist
the national flag in front of our mosques and schools and other institutions on
the day of Independence, a symbolic meeting point for everyone. Kaththankudy, the
newly discovered hot bed of terror was spending millions of rupees to make it look like
Arabia? The planned Arab University premises present an Arabic desert environment
with date palms. The other vexatious issue was with halal and cattle slaughter,
another reason for the skirmishes. Even moderate Muslims urged anyone with any
humaneness to see the way the cows were being slaughtered; the way cows were
dragged into the slaughterhouse in a Buddhist country where the slaughter of
the cow is abhorrent to the Buddhists. Sri Lankans in general will not tolerate
such a practice. A call for a ban on cattle slaughter has to be seen in this
context.
The
other issue of differentiation is the black dress the Burka that is covering
the whole female body, except the eyes, which is alien to Sri Lanka. This
attire is only misconstruing Islam.
While Muslim women in the 70s wore sarees, the radical women of today are
making a political statement, a misreading of Islamic scriptures that had led
to the current situation. Such extremism should be countered through education,
which should be done by Muslims themselves. Surely the Peradeniya campus where
not one wore the Burka in days gone by is now over strewn with it. Wahabism from Saudi Arabia and the rising
Islamic militant rhetoric in the East has had an impact in places like
Kattankudy where allegedly, large scale overseas funding from Middle Eastern
countries was fuelling a foreign brand of toxic Islamic revival, Building mosques
surplus to requirements is unwarranted when the existing mosques are empty.
The
brand of Islam imported from Saudi Arabia is intolerant in its teachings and it
is increasingly becoming intolerant of others. This new brand is a
misrepresentation of Islam and its scriptures. The
present Director of the Department of Muslim Religious and Cultural Affairs,
recently disclosed more than 500 unregistered mosques in the country? It would
be pertinent to raise the question, how many of these 500 mosques are involved
in “preaching and practicing religious intolerance’. The teachers from
abroad are purveyors of the radical ideology contamination the young” Does
the government have the political will and the Peace Loving Moderate Muslims
the commitment to shut down these 500 illegal mosques and deport the imams for
good?
It is a known fact some mosques and madrassas are used
by extremists for their destructive activities the world over. While religious
freedom is guaranteed in our constitution, it is the state’s prerogative to
monitor what goes on inside the religious places of every denomination. By
mobilizing the Peace Loving Moderate Muslims membership (PLMM) in actively
supporting government efforts to contain and prevent further extremist
activities, the moderates can now make a worthwhile contribution.
Silence is complicity. All those who are
speaking of inter-faith peace and unity now, irresponsibly ignored extremist
Islamic thought on social media for years. They dismissed it as rants of some
mad men. An exasperated Muslim journalist remarked that although there were
many opportunities to nip such thoughts in the bud, they did not do so. ‘Now
that the knife is at your throat you are crying hoarse that terrorism must be
defeated and there is no room for violence in Islam’. Now it does not cut with
the rest. ‘When more and more religious schools were established, abayas and
other masks took root as default symbols of our superior ‘culture’’. Stop
bashing the Sinhala Buddhists. Speak the
truth and not degrade the vocation of journalism.
Apropos your statement released to the media and the public
today ( 25th April)
The Friday Forum which consists of very educated and eminent
person’s like you,while expressing solidarity with all those who are fighting
the current terrorist menace goes on to state as follows.
“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.” Here I give an email I received in shortened form.
In a statement you issued on 14th of July 2018 “From
Eliya to Andura and on to vipath maga” with ridicule,you go at
Asgiriya anunayaka Ven. Wanduruwe Upali Thero,Gotabhaya
Rajapaksa(probable next presidential candidate) former state minister Wijyakala
Maheshwaran and Rear Admiral Sarath Weerasekara for towing their own line of
thinking they believe is for betterment of the people.
“Rev. Upali exhorted
Rajapaksa to give leadership for good governance, even if he has to be a
Hitler” to do this. Some weeks later Weerasekara denounced Dr. Udagama as an
LTTE supporter and a traitor to this country, with the battle cry death to
traitors”. Maheswaran called for a return of the LTTE to ensure the
security protection and progress of the people of the North, and especially
their women and children. “
Two of these three have made their statements not in it’s
metopharical sense but it was in a literal sense except Weerasekara.An educated
lot like you should surely know this,but you pretend not to know. Upali thera
has said that we need a “Hitler” like person to make this country
disciplined and prosperous, Vijayakala has said that only LTTE can give
protection and discipline to her people in the North.
What SW has said could be his observation not only of Dr.
Deepika Udagama,it applies to entire Friday Forum. Your line of thinking
has right through been in the veil of human rights, democracy, reconciliation
etc. In actual fact you are advocates of certain global thinking opposed to
stability and development of democratic states. what happened on Easter Sunday
this month is this trend. We have Afghanistan,Iraq,Lybia,Syria,Egypt as
examples. All these countries had dictators and they violated human rights no
doubt,but Libiya was the most economically prosperous country in Africa at that
time. I have visited Iraq many times on trade matters during Saddam’s tenure.
They were prosperous and most literate in the middle East. Most have got
educated in England. There was freedom of speech except criticizing the
government. Night clubs restaurants and tourism were thriving. Here I quote an
email I received recently.
*A German’s View on Islam :*
Worth reading because this is by far the best explanation of the Muslim
terrorist situation I have ever read. The author of this email is Dr. Emanuel
Tanya, a well-known and well-respected psychiatrist–a man, whose family was
German aristocracy prior to World War II, and owned a number of large
industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the
answer he gave can guide and shape our attitude toward the present day Islamic
fanaticism. He said,
“Very few people were true Nazis, but many enjoyed the
return of German pride the Nazis brought to the German nation, and many more
were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a
bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then,
before we knew it, the Nazis were in control of the nation, they owned us, and
we had lost control. Suddenly they plunged the country into a devastating and
costly world war, and by the end of the war we had woken up to a new reality –
our world of comfort, peace and freedom had come to an end. My family lost
everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my
factories.
“I see the same situation playing out today with respect to
the attitude of the majority towards the the current Islamist movement. We are
told again and again by ‘experts’ and ‘talking heads’ that Islam is the
religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in
peace. This unqualified assertion may be true, but the fact is that it is
entirely irrelevant! It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and
meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in
the name of Islam. The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in
history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who are waging any
one of the 50 shooting wars currently going on worldwide. It is the fanatics
who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups in Africa and are
gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the
fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, and carry out the so called honour killing.
It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who
zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is
the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers. The
hard and quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the ‘silent
majority,’ has been cowed and made extraneous and irrelevant.”
“History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt. Yet
for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of
points: peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.
Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because,
like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the
fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.
Peace loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans,
Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many
others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was
too late.”
“Islamic prayers have now been introduced into Toronto and
other public schools in Ontario, and, yes, in Ottawa too while the Lord’s
Prayer was removed due to being so offensive! But to whom? Not to the vast
majority of Canadians but to the few Islamic fanatics!”
There are some noted examples where you applied the policy
in a manner without uniformity. Take the case of LTTE violations of human
rights where your response was lackadaisical ,some prefer to call you in
disdain,a rapacious NGO savants.I do not wish to call you such names. You
are a most educated lot in this country,but if one scrutinize your policy over
the years it idoes not show any impartiality but an inclination towards certain
global blueprints.
Why were these countries destabilized and leaders killed. Whose
requirement it is? Why aren’t you suggesting we get the assistance of the
Russians who are adoptes sccessful tactics in handling the ISIS specially in
Syria. For tthat matter why not the Chinese. The government has preferred to
have KGB instead.This rflects to which power block Sri Lanka has been taken and
seem to be endorsing iit.
Neither do I for a moment advocate a dictatorship in our
country. Nor do I condone human rights violations that happened in the past.
Those responsible have to be brought to book but nothing has been proven so
far. Why cannot the government expedite this process. Is there a”you
scratch my back and I scratch your’s” situation?
Egypy’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, Yugoslavia’s Tito, Mao tse tung,Deng
shiao Ping, Chu En Lai all , from China were dictators while Putin of
Russia, Allende of Chili,Peron of Argentina, who were democradically
elected,but they used their powers in an uncompromising manner for the
betterment of their people. I have seen my self how Yugoslavia and Russia was
progressing under Tito and Yeltstin. What happened in Yugoslavia?
Two last examples which is very popular among us when comparing
our political affairs,is Singapore’s late Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yu. Was he
not virtually a dictator though elected democratically? Margaret Thatcher
of UK was dubbed “Iron lady”because of her uncompromising attitude in
state affairs.
Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka in his excellent speech today ,(25
the of April )was devoid of all politics and hatred. In fact he gave credit to
former President Mahinda Rajpaksa for eradicating terrorism in this country and
vice- versa MR in his speech. It attracted editorials and comments in the
media
The yahapalana government in order to villify the previous
government and with a false complacency weakened the intelligence agencies by
sending some officers to prison and some others to inactive places. Others fled
the country.
This started under the UNP government in January 2002. Kulasiri
Udugampola the Police superintendent incharge of Kandy district under
instructions of then interior minister John Amaratumga raided the hide out of
Long range reconisceance petrol of the Srilanka army at Millennium
City,Athurugiriya and exposed the entire intelligence net work resulting
in the LTTE killing Colonel Muthaliph and other officers fleeing the country.
Six years ago Friday Forum was worried about “Muslim
Hunting”. As emphzied earlier,your Colombo elite group is seeing things
with a particular aim. Some members are in the camp of Chadrika Kumaratunga.
She ridiculed young village boys and girls fighting the LTTE at the risk of
their life,by promoting “Sudu Nelum” (white Lotus) through
Mangala Samaraweera. She also promoted ruffians such as Baddegane Sanjeewa and
Mervyn Silva. Sinhala people were hiding their faces in shame.It was
Ven.gangodawila Soma Thera who came forward to pump oxygen to the Sinhala
Buddhists. He would brought up the Muslim Rand grab and radicalization
issue to the fore. He was not a radical and would have played the role now
being played by the Malcolm Cardinal Rangith.Most people now sympathise with
Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara thera. What was wrong with him was preached violence
instead of compassion to draw Muslims out of extremism. Malcolm Cardinal
Ranjith is a shining light in this regard. The government should nominate
him for the Nobel peace prize though he is unlikely to accept it. He even
refused to receive a bullet proof car.
Why not the CBK and RW combine excercise due diligence as far
back as 2006 when Islamist extirmists raised their head?
Gotabhaya Rajapaksa helped his brother to win the terrorist war
and bring peace to this country and development was progressing at a fast pace
when yahapalanaya took over. That has now been drawn back at least,by five
years. This does not mean that MR government was Lily white. There was large
scale corruption and bribery during this period.It is alleged the leaders own
seven star hotels in Dubai and slush funds in sychells. Why aren’t these
allegations being investigated? Is this to compromise with larger scams
such as the Bond scam, Central higway etc?.
You wine and dine in five star hotels and make statement from
your comfort zone. It is time you just limit yourself to your Friday
meetings and go home without spreading facts to suit a docket belonging to a
source you prefer. Only thing I agree with you is the abolition of the
Presidential system.
Also note that there are very eminent persons such as Ven
Prof. Madagoda Abhayatissa,Prof Janitha Liyange,Prof Raja Gunaratne,
President’s councilor Manohara de Silva, Major Genaral Kamal Goonaratna ,Rear
Admiral Daya Dharmapriya , Dr. Priyath Bandu Wickrama, President’s councilor
Razik Zarook,Dr.Nalaka Godahewa,Gevidu Kumaratunga and many others who supports
a Gotabhaya Presidency.
It has to also be noted that not a single Buddhist or
Hindu Monk is in your forum.
Burqa, the most
repulsive dress on this planet, should be banned in every country.
No saudi should
be allowed to enter Sri Lanka.
And we must
stop sending our women for slave labour in Saudi, the country the filthy
Americans support, anything can
happen. The journalist murder is linked
to ruler but filthy American ignores this as that will mess up
the oil flow. If there was no oil in
Saudi there would not have been a presence of filthy American.
Why does the
world comply with American demands to stop oil flow from Iran. Let the whole
world go to war with
filthy Americans!
Some women
feminists say it’s the right of a woman to cover or hide her identity. But the world
had changed. It is a right of other women too to know who is behind
the covered face! A woman or a man. A terrorist or an innocent woman. We have a right to
challenge this abominable irrelevant dress in Sri Lanka and world over except that
stupid country run by a corrupt royal family saudi Arabia.
No one should impose their culture on others and that is not
right either. Cover of head us fine but certainly not the face.
Colombon english speaking Catholics and Christians, the
darlings of the West saw to that galaboda gnanasaara monk end up in jail.
They were harping on this issue. This monk brought up the
issue at wilpattu and wahabis involvement. NIP AT THE bud.
But no one cared and he was incarcerated.
Oh what a
relief! No wahaabis on Mount Lavinia beach or anywhere!
Here’s what should happen.
We must lead the world on
burqa ban and make it to the UN.
We must round up all wahaabis in sri lanka, including the ministers,
and send them to Saudi.
All slaves who work for filthy smelly Saudis to be brought back and
paid a subsistence by government to compensate their income.
Release Ven, galaboda gnaanasara immediately.
Round up all English speaking catholics and christians and send them
to Britain or any
Other western
country who is willing to accept their darlings, ON GOVERNMENT expense.
Incarcerate indefinitely the wahaabis who have been rounded up. We should never make the
Mistake we
made with tigers at initial stages releasing them.
The return of terrorism to Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday after the lapse of nearly a decade is a day of infamy in the history of Sri Lanka because of its scale and spread. The whole nation is trying to understand the motivations that drove a group of radicalized individuals to engage in such a dastardly attack. Just as much as such a group was motivated enough to vent their anger for whatever reason, there always will be other groups with other motivations to resort to similar acts in the future. Therefore, the lesson for Sri Lanka or any other nation is eternal vigilance.
Failure of vigilance does not mean failure of intelligence. Vigilance means not only effective intelligence, but also taking effective action on the intelligence information gathered. For the political and security establishments to say that they were unaware of the goings on in the Muslim community is unacceptable. Equally unacceptable is the claim of the moderate Muslim community that it was unaware of the developments within their community, as it was with the Tamil community and the activities of “their boys”. Therefore, collectively there was awareness all around that a process of Muslim radicalization was underway based on religious fundamentalism. What failed was how to act on the information that was common knowledge.
Even if they may not have been aware of the manner, scale and timing as to how the radicalization process was to manifest itself, the intelligence establishment was aware that the radicalization process would manifest itself in one form or the other, even if it did not know details as to how and when it was to manifest itself. The fact that no measures were adopted to meet any challenges arising from the information gathered is because of the over emphasis given by the government to reconciliation and related issues, at the expense of security related matters. Consequently, the security establishment failed to get the attention of the political establishment to heed their concerns; a fact that caused them to adopt a no-care attitude.
BALANCING CIVIL LIBERTIES WITH VIGILENCE
A hard fact that cannot be denied is that security was down-played at the expense of reconciliation, human rights, and civil liberties. This attitude was starkly evident with the government co-sponsoring the UNHRC Resolution 30/1 where the focus was reconciliation along with all the commitments contained therein. During the last four plus years the security forces that gave their full measure of devotion to eradicate terrorism were collectively held accountable for alleged violations without any credible evidence by a government that had ridiculed them during the conflict. They see the actions of this government as the work of an ungrateful nation for the sacrifices they made. These measures have bruised and shattered their morale thereby compromising the security of the nation. This government must be held accountable for adopting measures that has brought the Sri Lankan State to its current level of vulnerability.
Even the need to ban the full body cover for reasons of security is being opposed by sections of the government itself on grounds that it targets only the Muslim community, and therefore the need to keep them “informed”. On the other hand, it would have been a measure of solidarity if the Muslim leadership voluntarily appealed to their community to desist from wearing the full body cover for reasons of security. Even if the community responded positively to such an appeal, the fact is that those who wear the full body cover are members of radicalized groups that reject practices adopted by the rest of the community. Therefore, in this particular instance, security should override civil liberties and beliefs for the sanctity of the right to life of others. Hence, there is an imperative need to legislate banning the full body cover for reasons of security of the community as a whole.
At the end of the day there has to be a balance between security and civil liberties without which vigilance is compromised. For instance, freedom of speech and expression is a valued freedom. However, not all exercise such freedoms with responsibility. The result is hate speech. Although there are laws to prevent hate speech under provisions of ICCPR ACT No. 56 of 2007 of Sri Lanka, the question is whether there are laws to gather the evidence needed to prosecute anyone engaging in speech that violates the provisions in the Act cited above. If such laws are not in operation, the opportunity to deter hate speech is lost and without hate speech it would not be possible to radicalize young people to commit hate crimes, in the name of their warped intolerant beliefs.
INTELLIGENCE and VIGILANCE
One aspect of Intelligence is to know what is going on in a country. However, intelligence gathered has no meaning if there are no laws to act on the information gathered. Such laws could either prevent and contain unlawful activities or be of a nature that punishes anyone who commits an unlawful act. Since prevention of terrorists’ acts save lives, the strategy should be to prevent and deter terrorism rather than punishing those who resort to terrorist acts after the act is committed and hundreds die.
Those who resort to terrorism need to engage in the following activities:
Prospective suicide bombers and those who carry out terrorist acts have to be motivated by radicalizing them.
This requires radicalized leaders to engage in hate speech.
The collection and storing of material are needed to carry out terrorist acts.
Funding is needed to acquire such material.
Unrestricted travel both within and outside the country facilitates engaging in each or all of the four activities listed above.
Recognizing that each and all the activities listed above are needed prior to engaging in a terrorist act, the need of the hour is to revisit existing laws to ascertain whether they are effective enough to prosecute anyone engaging in any of the activities listed above instead of depending on laws that come into play only during an emergency. For instance, acts such as storing of offensive weapons and mutilating and defacing religious objects are offences under provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act. If so, the burning question the public is asking is: “Why did the authorities not take timely action to arrest and prosecute those responsible for such actions”? Had they done so and rule of law prevailed as it should, the government could have prevented the terrorists from executing their missions.
In this regard, since UN Security Council Resolution 1373 addresses most if not all the measures listed above, it is imperative that the government directs the law enforcement agencies to update existing laws to reflect the recommendations in the UN Resolution cited above.
Presented below is a section form the above Resolution calling on States to implement domestic laws in order to prevent and contain terrorism.
1. Decides that all States shall:
(a)Prevent and suppress the financing of terrorist acts;
(b)Criminalize the willful provision or collection, by any means, directly or indirectly, of funds by their nationals or in their territories with the intention that the funds should be used, or in the knowledge that they are to be used, in order to carryout terrorist acts;
(c)Freeze without delay funds and other financial assets or economic resources of persons who commit, or attempt to commit, terrorist acts or participate in or facilitate the commission of terrorist acts; of entities owned or controlled directly or indirectly by such persons; and of persons and entities acting on behalf of, or at the direction of such persons and entities, including funds derived or generated from property owned or controlled directly or indirectly by such persons and associated persons and entities;
(d)Prohibit their nationals or any persons and entities within their territories from making any funds, financial assets or economic resources or financial or other related services available, directly or indirectly, for the benefit of persons who commit or attempt to commit or facilitate or participate in the commission of terrorist acts, of entities owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by such persons and of persons and entities acting on behalf of or at the direction of such persons;
2.Decides also that all States shall:
(a)Refrain from providing any form of support, active or passive, to entities or persons involved in terrorist acts, including by suppressing recruitment of members of terrorist groups and eliminating the supply of weapons to terrorists;
(b)Take the necessary steps to prevent the commission of terrorist acts, including by provision of early warning to other States by exchange of information;
(c)Deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support, or commit terrorist acts, or provide safe havens;
(d)Prevent those who finance, plan, facilitate or commit terrorist acts from using their respective territories for those purposes against other States or their citizens;
(e)Ensure that any person who participates in the financing, planning, preparation or perpetration of terrorist acts or in supporting terrorist acts is brought to justice and ensure that, in addition to any other measures against them, such terrorist acts are established as serious criminal offences in domestic laws and regulations and that the punishment duly reflects the seriousness of such terrorist acts;
(f)Afford one another the greatest measure of assistance in connection with criminal investigations or criminal proceedings relating to the financing or support of terrorist acts, including assistance in obtaining evidence in their possession necessary for the proceedings;
(g)Prevent the movement of terrorists or terrorist groups by effective border controls and controls on issuance of identity papers and travel documents, and through measures for preventing counterfeiting, forgery or fraudulent use of identity papers and travel documents.
These recommendations have been in existence since 2001. Had successive governments upgraded domestic laws in keeping with Resolution 1373 many lives would have been saved. In particular, it would have been a serious impediment to those who funded and provided material support to those resorting to terrorism, without which the whole project would have failed. Such support continues to be received by the Tamil and Muslim communities. Therefore, it is a combination of effective intelligence backed up by effective laws that make a nation sufficiently vigilant for it to be safe and free of threats to its security.
CONCLUSIONS
Although strategies exist to improve the security situation in the country by preventing and containing terrorism, the mood in the country is that this government is not going to adopt the needed measures to make the country safe for its citizens as it had been over the last decade. Whether the reason for such a mood is because of the apathy of the government or because the government is allowing the security situation to deteriorate intentionally for reasons of internal harmony, means the government has lost its right to govern because security that protects the right to life has to prevail over all other considerations. There is also speculation that security is being deliberately sacrificed as part of a greater geostrategic plan to justify intervention in the event security spirals out of the control of the government. The fact that the government has not prosecuted anyone guilty of storing weapons, supports such apprehensions.
There is no denying that the government as a policy has relaxed measures relating to the rule of law. This has resulted in lifting restrictions on travel. Another activity relates to uncontrolled flow of funding to entities, without question as to sources of origin and purpose. Both measures are exploited by terrorists. While a free and open society is what all aspire to, it must be acknowledged that such benefits come at a price, and that price is that all have to trim some of our liberties because a few abuse the freedoms under which they live. Therefore, there has to be a judicious balance between security and civil liberties and if one has to make a choice, security should override civil liberties. The exercise of such balance requires societies to adopt measures that promote vigilance, without which there cannot be the freedoms we cherish.
The Minister of Education announced recently that the Ministry would do away with ethnic-based schools given its own principled” stand we would next like to know how using the same logic of not allowing ethnic” based learning, the education authorities have signed an MOU to establish the Malik Abdulla University College in Kattankudy, in Eastern Province.
When the announcement was given by the Ministry of Education that they would remove ethnic-based” schools the first thoughts of everyone was whether leading schools that have been in existence for years, Government or Semi-Government would agree to changing their names. Ministers have a way of drawing public attention by announcements that provide no logic just as absurd as some came out with the need to change the national anthem and the national flag and now it appears someone has landed a lucrative deal to change the national ID card to include Tamil as well.
Obviously, objections would have been made with former schools, children, parents or past-pupils NOT wanting to change the name of their alma-mater that the Ministry quickly reversed its stand and declared No NEW schools would be ethnic-based”. What do authorities propose to do about the rising number of Muslim Only and Tamil Only international schools, day care centers springing up in every corner while there are no Sinhala Only universities? Does this fall within the oft quoted multi” label?
So if the Ministry has decided to not allow no NEW ethnic-based schools what explanation can be given to allowing a MUSLIM ONLY university college?
The University College is to be funded by Saudi Arabia which is known for funding institutes that radicalize youth and draws them towards Saudi brand of Islam and Sharia law.
The newspaper announcements claim that the University was requested by Deputy Minister Hisbullah and is established as part of the Mahinda Chintanaya which clearly goes to show how authorities have a way of manipulating the system because no where in the Chintanaya does it say to create ETHNIC-based private colleges unless another Chintanaya is being practiced. But the college itself is earmarked to be inaugurated by the President himself. The announcements last line that it would cater to the needs of all three communities” is obviously a whitewash.
The argument against the establishment of an ethnic-based university has nothing to do with being against learning but everything to do with the principle that if authorities are attempting to integrate the youth and not segregate them why are they establishing places of learning that is imparting a brand of education that distances them from other communities?
Students coming out of such universities end up mentally and physically alienating themselves out of choice (in view of their new Arabic attire and thinking) and disassociating themselves from those in their age group – this affects the team spirit, the ability to work as teams even when they join employment. Is this a healthy environment we wish to create?
Moreover, we cannot ignore the rise in Saudi-funded Islamic radicalism to be naïve that while this may exist elsewhere it is unlikely to create similar catastrophe’s here in Sri Lanka too.
Recently wikileaks released US Embassy in Colombo cable identifying 4 such groups based in Sri Lanka – Jamthi Islam, Thauhid Jamath, Thableeq Jamath, and Jamathi Muslim. The cable was written by Ambassador Lunstead on 9 June, 2004. The cable also details training camps, while other youth are sent to Saudi and says that a Saudi-based NGO World Assembly of Muslim Youth fund these activities. The Ambassador cites that the Muslim youth initially started training to defend themselves against the LTTE. The cable also mentions the Muslim Congress being supported by the Islamic Unity Foundation which has military, intelligence, religious and political wings as well as weapons. Other groups mentioned in the cable include Knox group, Ossama group, Jetty group, Mujahadeen, Banda group all with Muslim Congress backing. Links to the underworld is also mentioned. Ambassador Lunstead also notes very little insight into the veiled world of Muslim militancy in eastern Sri Lanka and the information provided is just one part of a vast puzzle that makes up the cultural/political/religious melting pot of Sri Lanka.” This clearly shows that we need to be alert to all Saudi-funded seats of learning because the outcome of these in other parts of the world have resulted in fatal consequences and have torn entire nations apart. The question is – do we want to invite the same in Sri Lanka when we have just come out of a 30 year chaos?
The argument is further strengthened by the fact that ALREADY there are 5 types of institutes offering Arabic in Sri Lanka – the GOSL conducts 2 types of examinations, there are the Madrasas (religious based schools) which offer 8 years Sharia courses, then 4 Government universities which offer degree level courses and the Jamia Naleemia in Beruwela which is also a private university. There is a rising number of children as young as 7 attending these madrasas instead of schools which raises the question of Sri Lanka’s international commitment that ALL Children must attend schools – not religious based schools.
However, Arabic language courses selected by undergraduate students raises more questions than answers – normally in marketing the demand creates the supply – from what is happening is that the supply is been geared to create the demand.
For the 1.8million Muslims of Sri Lanka the number of already existing religious and educational establishments suffices to say the least. Authorities now need to work out a moratorium so that the demography of the country is kept intact and the peace dividends that 27,000 soldiers sacrificed their lives for is not eliminated by the shortsighted decisions taken by officials and public servants.
Recent revelation that those responsible for the Easter Sunday carnage (April 21) had killed two police constables in the early hours of Nov 30, 2018 at Vavnativu in the East has exposed a serious intelligence lapses.
Authoritative sources told The Island that law enforcement authorities and the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) seemed to have been clueless as regards the alleged involvement of Muslim extremists in the Vavnativu killings, which they believed was an act of a group of resurgent Tigers.
Then IGP Pujith Jayasundera directed the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to probe the double killings.
The killing of a Sinhala police constable from the South and a Tamil from the East were conveniently blamed on former members of the LTTE, sources pointed out. Several ex-LTTE cadres were detained in connection with the Vavnativu killings under the Prevention of Terrorist Act (PTA).The police attributed the killings to the police thwarting ex-LTTE cadres’ efforts to mark their heroes’ week.
The lapse on the part of the government intelligence apparatus came to light on April 28-exactly a week after massive coordinated suicide attacks killed over 250 civilians and injured more than 500 others when police headquarters revealed Muslims extremists’ involvement in Vavnativu killings. Police headquarters statement followed the interrogation of Mohamed Sharif Adam Lebbe alias Gaffoor (53), a close associate of the Easter Sunday bombing mastermind. Gaffoor led the police to side arms issued to the slain police constables buried at Wanathavilluwa widely believed to be the main base of their operations.
Senior law enforcement sources said that those ex-LTTE cadres detained under PTA over the twin cop slayings had to be released in the wake of Gaffoor’s statement and recovery of personal weapons issued to the two victim policemen from the Muslim extremists responsible for the Easter Sunday carnage.
The DMI made no reference to Muslim extremists’ involvement in Vavnativu killings when the outfit briefed the media on April 26 at the President’s House on the instructions of President Maithripala Sirisena. The same briefing had been made to several parties, including the National Security Council (NSC) since the April 21 bombings.
President Sirisena proscribed the National Thowheed Jamat (NTJ) and Jamathei Millathu Ibrahim (JMI) on April 29 in terms of the Emergency Regulations.
Other sources pointed out that though the DMI and the Office of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) shouldn’t have been deprived of Indian warning, the former couldn’t under any circumstances absolve itself of the culpability for its failure to thwart the attack. Sources said that the entire intelligence apparatus owed an explanation as to why Vavnativu killings didn’t receive proper attention it deserved.
Well informed sources asserted that Zahran Hashim widely described as the mastermind of the Easter Sunday bombings had been a front. Two persons above him in the grouping had been taken into custody in terms of the PTA and were being interrogated, sources said, emphasizing Hashim was the face of NTJ whereas the actual leadership was in the hands of the two persons taken in. There could be others, sources said, adding Zahran’s leading role in the operation shouldn’t be misconstrued as he was the leader of the terror group.
Sources revealed that security authorities had been alerted to the impending attack by reliable sources even before the Indians warned. The abortive attempt to kill Mohammed Naslim, Co-ordinating Secretary to UNP Chairman and Minister Kabir Hashim on March 09 at Danagama in Mawanella, too, didn’t prompt required action, sources said, adding that the situation remained the same even after authorities established extremists blasting a scooty in a vacant land at Kattankudy belonging to Eastern Province Governor M.L.A.M. Hisbullah. This blast took place a week before the Easter Sunday massacre. President Maithripala Sirisena promoted National List MP Hisbullah from Parliament to the Office of EP Governor in early January this year to pave the way for Shantha Bandara to enter parliament. Hisbullah succeeded Rohitha Bogollagama, a former Foreign Minister.
Perhaps, the Parliamentary Sectoral Committee on national defence, too, should inquire into the intelligence failure, sources said. They said that it would be prudent to examine whether terrorists sought to exploit political crisis in the wake of Oct 2018 ‘constitutional coup’ by killing policemen in the East. Sources said that comprehensive investigation into Vavnativu killings would have exposed the group before the Easter Sunday massacre.
In spite of having a plethora of reports pertaining to the group’s activity those responsible seemed to have hesitated to go the whole hog, they said.
The defeat of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq has only intensified the terrorism challenge .
The Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka rank among the deadliest terrorist attacks in modern history, and underscore the metastasizing scourge of Islamist violence in Asia. Radical Islamic groups have been quietly gaining influence in an arc of countries extending from the Maldivian to the Philippine archipelagos, and the threat they pose can no longer be ignored.
In fact, the grisly Sri Lankan bombings are a reminder that Asia—not West Asia—is the region most afflicted by terrorist violence. Home to the vast majority of the world’s Muslims, it is also host to multiple terrorist safe havens,” owing to the rise of grassroots radical movements and years of complacency on the part of policymakers.
With a total of 359 people dead, the Sri Lanka bombings were seven times deadlier than the 15 March massacre by a white supremacist at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. The death toll is also more than double that of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which involved 10 Pakistan-based militants in one of the modern world’s longest-ever terrorist sieges.
By targeting international hotels and iconic churches, the Islamists behind the Sri Lankan blasts clearly intended to strike a blow against Sri Lanka’s fast-growing tourism industry, a mainstay of the country’s debt-ridden economy. The attacks also mark the dawn of Islamist terrorism in Sri Lanka. Though suicide bombings were not uncommon during the country’s 26-year civil war, Sri Lanka has not previously experienced coordinated violence on this scale or a major attack by Islamist militants.
The civil war ended in 2009, when the Sri Lanka Army brutally crushed the last of the Tamil separatist rebels. But that outcome sowed the seeds of religious conflict between the country’s mainly Buddhist Sinhalese and a Muslim minority that constitutes one-tenth of the population.
Sri Lanka’s Muslim population is largely concentrated in the Eastern Province, where Saudi and other Gulf funding has fuelled the rise of jihadist groups seeking to enforce sharia (Islamic law). The group suspected of carrying out the Easter bombings, the National Thowheed Jamath, thrived in this setting. Like the similarly named outfit Sri Lanka Thawheed Jama’ath and the rapidly growing Tamil Nadu Thoweed Jamath in southernmost India, its primary goal is to foment militant Islamic fundamentalism.
Though its extremist enclave in Syria and Iraq has crumbled and its leaders are on the run, the Islamic State (IS) has claimed responsibility for the bombings. Like Al Qaeda before it, IS wants to demonstrate its continued relevance by taking credit for attacks in areas where it has no presence. Most likely, the Sri Lanka attacks were not the direct work of IS. And yet they were inspired by the same toxic ideology espoused by IS: Wahhabi fanaticism.
Wahhabism, the austere, rigid version of Islam bankrolled by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf sheikhdoms, remains the driving force behind Islamist terrorism today. Its offspring include not just Al Qaeda and IS, but also the Taliban in Afghanistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan, Boko Haram in Nigeria, and al-Shabaab in Somalia. All of these groups are driven by a nihilistic rage born of hostility toward non-Sunnis and a rejection of modernity.
Unfortunately, as the Sri Lanka bombings and other attacks in Asia show, the defeat of IS in Syria and Iraq has only intensified the terrorism challenge, because battle-hardened fighters with the operational training to stage savage attacks are now returning home. The presence of such returnees in Sri Lanka explains how an obscure local group was able to carry out sophisticated, near-simultaneous strikes on three churches and three hotels, using military-grade explosives.
Returnees are present in many other Asian countries as well, from the Philippines and Indonesia to the Maldives and Uzbekistan. Like Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders who cut their teeth in the US-backed war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, this new generation of jihadist veterans could haunt the security of Asia, West Asia and the West for years to come.
To be sure, official discrimination against Muslims has contributed to Islamists’ growing influence, particularly in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, Thailand’s four southernmost provinces, and the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. But so have Saudi-funded madrasas (religious seminaries) and social-media platforms, which facilitate fundraising, recruitment, and dissemination of jihadist propaganda. Hence, jihadist violence has also come to threaten predominantly Muslim countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Kazakhstan. And in some cases—namely Pakistan—the state itself is abetting violent extremists.
By CCN.com: Bitcoin played a role in staging the Easter Sunday suicide bombing in Sri Lanka that killed 253 civilians, according to Israeli blockchain intelligence firm Whitestream.
The agency revealed that the ISIS used Canada-based payment gateway CoinPayments to convert bitcoins to fiat money. The firm identified large scale transactions between the wallets that ISIS used to raise contributions and the bitcoin accounts held by CoinPayments.
Whitestream found that the balances in the payment company’s wallets surged from $500,000 to $4.5 million just one day before the Easter attacks. The firm added that the CoinPayments’ balances dropped back to $500,000 right after the deadly attacks took place. The payment company in question admitted that they had processed high-volume transactions. However, it denied having any knowledge about the money’s links with terrorist groups.
CoinPayments admits that their wallet was involved but denied that it is connected to ISIS,” Whitestream told Globes. It’s possible that the company is not aware of the usage of their wallets, perhaps because ISIS uses straw companies [to] transfer the money.”
THE ISIS-BITCOIN CONNECTION
Whitestream, founded by Itsik Levy and Uri Bornstein, confirmed that it was monitoring ISIS-linked bitcoin wallets from the past two years. The firm eventually maximized its focus on one bitcoin wallet that was receiving donations actively over different periods. It succeeded in verifying two transactions originated from the bitcoin wallet address listed on the ISIS fundraising website.
Levy said they were able to trace the transactions back to CoinPayments, indicating that the payment processing company knowingly/unknowingly was facilitating the ISIS funding campaign.
Our assumption is that the terrorist organization probably possesses many bitcoin addresses through CoinPayments, with every donation sent to a different address,” Levy told Globes. On the day before the Sri Lanka terror attacks, we identified two relatively big transactions at this address with bitcoins worth about $9,800.”
Whitestream in February had named CoinPayments for facilitating bitcoin-enabled donation campaigns for Hamas, a Palestine-based Sunni-Islamist fundamentalist group. Meanwhile, the firm believed that cryptocurrency-based payment and exchange companies were working in a largely unregulated environment. It was making it easier for terrorist organizations to exploit them for financing their attacks around the globe.
Another terror attack targeting churches in Sri Lanka could come this week. Credit: AP
The terror threat still looms large in Sri Lanka and an attack on a church could take place this week, the country’s Catholic cardinal has warned.
Malcolm Ranjith has raised his concerns in a letter, sent to church officials, in which he claims to have received ”foreign information” that another strike is imminent.
The archbishop of Colombo has been an outspoken critic of the Sri Lankan government’s apparent failure to act on Indian government intelligence ahead of the Easter attack.
In his missive, which has been posted on social media, he states a church or another church institution is likely to be targeted.
The archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith. Credit: AP
He states that he has therefore made the decision for churches and Catholic schools throughout Sri Lanka to be closed and public congregations for Mass will be cancelled “until further notice”.
“For your own good, we have decided to close down those institutions,” he wrote.
More than 250 people were killed, including eight Britons and a further 300 injured during the Easter Sunday bloodshed in the country’s capital Colombo.
The terror bombings targeted three churches, packed with worshippers, and three upmarket hotels.
The Sri Lankan government imposed a no face veil ban earlier this week. Credit: ITV News
Church spokesman Rev. Edmund Thilakaratne confirmed the authenticity of the letter to The Associated Press but declined to disclose further details, including the source of the foreign information.
An Islamic State-linked group of Sri Lankan nationals is believed to have carried out the co-ordinated suicide bombings.
With suspects still at large the Sri Lankan government introduced a ban on face veils this week designed, it was stated, to help police in their hunt.
A warning was also issued of jihadis in military uniform.
Last week, Muslims were told to stay home for Friday prayers and all of Sri Lanka’s Catholic churches were closed.
Instead of the usual Sunday Mass, Ranjith delivered a homily before clergy and national leaders at his residence that was broadcast on television.
Sri Lanka’s Muslim leaders, however, were encouraging Muslims to return to mosques for Friday prayers, according to N.M. Ameen, president of the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka.
Ameen said the security situation seemed to have improved, though the group had asked the government for additional protection.
Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi appears in video for first time in five years.
Officials have warned that suspects linked to the bombings are still at large.
Intelligence warnings have indicated Sri Lankan government ministers could be targeted by the same group, which pledged its loyalty to Islamic State militants.
Sri Lankan police have released the names and photographs of nine alleged suicide bombers who carried out the Easter attacks, all belonging to an offshoot of a local group called National Towheed Jamaat.
They included extremist preacher Mohamed Zahran, also known as Zahran Hashim, who was described as the attack leader, and the wife of another suicide bomber, who blew herself up, along with her children and three police officers, at a villa belonging to her father-in-law, who is a prominent spice trader.
Troops continue to patrol the streets of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Credit: ITV News
The bodies of 10 suspected militants killed in a gun battle with security forces and subsequent explosion at a safe house in Sri Lanka’s Eastern province last week were buried without any religious rites.
Police suspect that Zahran’s father and two brothers, Rilwan and Sheini, were among the 16 killed at the safe house, according to spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara.
Zahran’s wife and daughter sustained injuries from the blast, but their medical condition was not immediately clear.Last updated Thu 2 May 2019
Three persons have been arrested at the Central Mail Exchange with 600 letters defamatory of the President and inciting enmity among races, the Police Spokesman SP Ruwan Gunasekara said.
The letters were reportedly addressed to various Buddhist temples across the country.
However, due to a suspicion with regard to the letters, the officials at the central mail exchange had taken steps to notify the police.
After being notified regarding the letters, the suspects were arrested by police at the Central Mail Exchange in Colombo, the spokesman said.
The content of the letters in question are defamatory of President Maithripala Sirisena and also incite enmity among the population on the grounds of race and religion, police said.
Ada Derana reliably learns that the three arrested suspects are staff members of a powerful UNP Minister.
A report compiled by several former Sri Lankan security forces commanders, regarding the terrorist attacks of Easter Sunday and the current security situation of the country, has been presented to Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa.
The committee report was officially handed over to Rajapaksa at the Opposition Leader’s official residence today (02).
Rajapaksa expressed his immense gratitude to the former military commanders for volunteering to come forward at this time of need to fulfill this task for the people of the country, even though they have retired from the service.
Former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, MPs Dinesh Gunawardena, Wimal Weerawansa, Kumara Welgama, Rohitha Abeygunawardena and Dullas Alahapperuma were also present on the occasion.
