{"id":87811,"date":"2019-04-27T18:07:43","date_gmt":"2019-04-28T01:07:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=87811"},"modified":"2019-04-27T18:21:13","modified_gmt":"2019-04-28T01:21:13","slug":"sri-lanka-easter-sunday-attacks-possibly-more-than-a-religious-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/04\/27\/sri-lanka-easter-sunday-attacks-possibly-more-than-a-religious-conflict\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka Easter Sunday Attacks Possibly More Than a Religious Conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kalinga Seneviratne<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

SINGAPORE\n(IDN) \u2013 I gave leadership to the government that defeated the terrorists that\nno one thought could ever be defeated. From the moment this government came\ninto power in January 2015, they have been persecuting the members of the armed\nforces and the intelligence services that ended that war,\u201d said former President\nand Current Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapakse in an emotional 10 minute\naddress to parliament on April 23.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With his\nvoice almost cracking up with emotion, the war-winning president said that the\narmed forces personnel who carried out their duties on behalf of the nation\nwere harassed and hunted down by this government\u201d. He slammed the government\nfor listening to foreign (western) powers and undermining national security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ngovernment should at least now realise that you cannot run this country according\nto the dictates coming from foreign countries. We have to solve our own\nproblems. Because the government was engaged in relentlessly persecuting its\nown armed forces, we became an easy target for terrorists,\u201d pointed out\nRajapakse, adding that no other country in the world has persecuted and\nweakened their own armed forces and intelligence services in this manner\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While\nsocial media is blocked by the government, his comments have triggered a debate\nin much of the mainstream media about how the government led by President\nMaitripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has been inept at\nprotecting the security of the country, because they have allowed western\ngovernments, NGOs funded by them and UN organisations like the UN Human Rights\nCouncil (UNHRC<\/a>)\nto dictate national security policies to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In September\n2015, the government virtually surrendered the policy making process to the\nUNHRC when it co-sponsored a resolution calling upon the government to account\nfor alleged war crimes  and missing persons during the final push to\neliminate one of the deadliest terrorist groups in the world at the time,\nLiberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has\nled to pressure on the government to set up war crimes courts with foreign\njudges, set up a missing persons investigation centre and imprisonment of\nformer intelligence officers and army personnel, many of whom are seen by most\nSri Lankans as war heroes, who brought peace to the country. At the time of the\nEaster Sunday attack, the government was on the verge of repealing the\n\u2018Prevention of Terrorism Act\u2019 under the dictates of the West and UNHRC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If that\nhad happened what position would we be at today?\u201d asked Rajapakse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a video\ninterview given by leading Constitutional Lawyer Manohara de Silva on April 23\nthat was widely circulated via email, he also slammed the government for giving\nthe responsibility for the country\u2019s security to the international community.\nHe blamed the 2015 UNHRC resolution for the current situation where the\ncountry\u2019s security guard was lowered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He pointed\nout that the new anti-terror law that was presented to parliament recently,\nmakes it impossible to pursue or charge anyone for terrorism activity if that\nperson is a foreign national \u2013 even though he may have been a Sri Lankan\nnational before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the\ncountry he lives now don\u2019t agree, we can\u2019t charge him,\u201d he notes. So this law\nis going to be subservient to the West (because most of those who support\nterrorism in Sri Lanka have obtained asylum in Western countries, especially\nLTTE sympathisers)\u201d. He accuses the government of trying to please the West\nrather than protecting our citizens\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Silva\npointed out in the interview that about 40 intelligence officers who helped to\nend terrorism in Sri Lanka are now behind bars. They are still held on remand\nwhen there is no sound evidence against them,\u201d he notes. If so they should be\ncharged by now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has\nled to a situation, argues Silva, that intelligence officers are afraid to\ninvestigate terrorism threats today because they are worried that they would be\nframed like those in jail. We cannot operate our intelligence services this\nway. This is why we have to depend on Indian intelligence,\u201d he argues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Silva also\npoints out that 54 bills have been passed against our army\u201d under pressure\nfrom UNHRC and the missing persons act passed does not allow the police to the\ninvestigations, but delegates it to the \u2018Office of Missing Persons\u2019 that is\nstacked with anti-national NGO types, one of whom is Dr Nilmalka Fernando, a\nwell-known anti-Buddhist western-funded NGO activist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a\nstatement released to the media today on April 25, Sri Lanka\u2019s major Buddhist\nchapter, Asgiriya chapter, called upon the government to give an immediate\npardon to all imprisoned intelligence officials and draft them back into the\ncountry\u2019s national security framework. Religious extremism spread in the\ncountry because experienced intelligence officials have been imprisoned for\nvarious reasons. They did an immense service to defeat terrorism. We need to\nconsider our national security and they should be pardoned and released\nimmediately,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another\nSri Lankan lawyer, Dharshan Weerasekare, author of \u2018UN\u2019s Relentless Pursuit of\nSri Lanka\u2019 in a commentary published in Lankaweb has called into question the\ntiming and reason for the Easter Sunday attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is\ncrucial is that the bombings not be permitted to become a pretext for the\nGovernment to join the U.S.\u2019s \u2018War on Terror.\u2019 For the past four years, the\nU.S. and India (the U.S.\u2019s new ally in Asia) have been busy trying to gain\nmaximum indirect control over Sri Lanka in order to prevent the Chinese from\nestablishing a presence in this country,\u201d he argues.They would have succeeded\nhad it not been for the collapse of the \u2018National Government\u2019 and the\nsubsequent collapse of the drive to enact a new Constitution\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With both\npresidential and parliamentary elections due in Sri Lanka within the next 12\nmonths, the nationalist alliance led by Rajapakse is strongly tipped to win both\nelections. Survival of the staunchly pro-Western Wickremasingle is crucial for\nthe West to control Sri Lanka\u2019s destiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March\n2018 when a no-confidence motion against the PM was gathering momentum a riot\nbroke out between Muslims and Buddhists in Central Sri Lanka. Timely action by\nlocal community leaders of both communities prevented it becoming a major\nnationwide conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then when\nSirisena sacked Wickremasinghe and appointed Rajapakse as PM in November 2018,\nWestern ambassadors in Colombo openly interfered in the domestic political\nprocess to get Wickremasinghe reinstalled. Now come the terror attacks that\nhave the potential to create chaos in the country so that Sri Lanka could be\ncalled a \u2018failed state\u2019, ripe for the West\u2019s new-colonialism via the R2P (Right\nto Protect) framework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka\nwhich sits at a strategically vital spot in the Indian Ocean is crucial for\nboth the Americans as well as the Chinese, the former in order to further\nentrench their control over this region, the latter to break out of the\n\u2018encirclement\u2019 notes Weerasekare, pointing out that a new government that\nwould take power after elections next year could be heavily pro-nationalist as\nwell as pro-Chinese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short,\nall the hopes that the Americans\/Indians had in January 2015 are now in ruins,\nand the \u2018gains\u2019 they made in the last four years are very much in danger of\nbeing reversed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri\nLanka\u2019s oldest leftist party Lanka Sama Samaji Party (LSSP), while issuing a\ncondolence message to victims of the bombing, said there was something more\nsinister than what meets the eye. This whole attack has similarities with\nevents abroad that have been attributed to the CIA of the USA,\u201d the statement\nargued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nstatement added: It is known that the CIA and USA think tanks are operating\nhere with the support of the Government. With the blue print for a police\nstate, the diabolical Counter Terrorist Act (CTA) available, to ensure that the\nUNF (governing alliance) can stay in power, without holding elections, the path\nto becoming a neo-colony of the USA can go ahead without interruption.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, what happened on Easter Sunday, may not be merely a jihadist attack on Christians and Western tourists to take revenge on the New Zealand Christchurch massacre in March 2019. This could well be part of the dirty geo-political wars being fought around the world by major powers with young brainwashed religious zealots as fodder. [IDN-InDepthNews \u2013 25 April 2019]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.indepthnews.net\/index.php\/the-world\/asia-pacific\/2645-sri-lanka-easter-sunday-attacks-possibly-more-than-a-religious-conflict?fbclid=IwAR28lOnKGEmnwynp4TOWhfmO-C-hxfQrsaXPTmFzD3yglftrMAvqv2MlbIU<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kalinga Seneviratne SINGAPORE (IDN) \u2013 I gave leadership to the government that defeated the terrorists that no one thought could ever be defeated. From the moment this government came into power in January 2015, they have been persecuting the members of the armed forces and the intelligence services that ended that war,\u201d said former […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87811\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}