Govt. boxes itself into a corner

Thursday 15th July, 2021

The yahapalana government found itself on the rack for its failure to prevent the Easter Sunday carnage, which became its undoing. The SLPP, which came into power, promising to bring the perpetrators of the savage attacks to justice, is also in dire straits; it is drawing heavy flak for its failure to have the carnage properly investigated. It may have thought a presidential commission of inquiry would help put the matter to rest, but the issue refuses to go away. The Catholic Church has given the government one month to provide answers to the questions it has raised, all these months, about the tragedy. It has, in a letter to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, called for legal action against SLPP MP Maithripala Sirisena, who was the President at the time of the 2019 terror attacks; it wants the mastermind behind the attacks traced. It has also faulted the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI), which probed the Easter Sunday attacks, for the absence of specific recommendations in its report as regards Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was the Prime Minister at the time

It is only natural that the Church leaders’ patience has been wearing thin; they undertook to ensure that all perpetrators of the attacks would be brought to justice, and thereby helped prevent a backlash. If the government fails to do as the Catholic priests say, it will have another wave of protests to contend with, and all right-thinking Sri Lankans will stand shoulder to shoulder with the disappointed prelates demanding justice.

Ironically, the present-day rulers have had to protect the very person who threw them out of power about six years ago. They must have been dreaming of having Sirisena thrown behind bars while he was the President, but today political expediency has taken precedence over their urge to take revenge, and they stand accused of having prevented legal action being taken against him.

Meanwhile, the government has not been able to convince the public and the Catholic Church that Moulavi Naufer was the mastermind behind the Easter Sunday bombings. It is widely believed that there was a foreign hand in the attacks. Not even the then Attorney General Dappula de Livera bought into the government’s claim in question. He said there had been a ‘grand conspiracy’ behind the tragedy.

The PCoI report hardly provides fresh insights or any individuated reading that can help clear doubts in people’s minds about the real masterminds behind the terror strikes, as we have argued in a previous comment. The PCoI seems to have dealt with the alleged foreign involvement in the Easter Sunday carnage perfunctorily. It has devoted only an eight-page chapter in its bulky report to the alleged foreign involvement. This section, in our book, lacks clarity and proper analysis. The witnesses who expressly testified that there had been ‘an external hand or conspiracy behind the attacks’ are Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, former President Sirisena, former Minister Rauf Hakeem, former Minister Rishad Bathiudeen, former Governor Azath Salley, SJB MP Mujibur Rahman, former SIS Director SDIG Nilantha Jayawardena, former STF Commandant M. R. Lateef, former Chief of Defence Staff Ravindra Wijegunaratne, former SDIG CID Ravi Seneviratne and former CID Director Shani Abeysekera. Dismissing their statements as mere ipse dixits (assertions made but not proven), the PCoI report says on page 472 that it did not find any such foreign link. It has, however, recommended that certain identified parties be further investigated.

The Church leaders have rightly pointed out that no serious effort has been made to trace Sarah, the widow of the Katuwapitiya bomber. She fled to India after the attacks and must be aware who the real masterminds behind the bombings are. One may recall that SDIG Jayawardena, who was the Director of SIS at the time of the attacks, told the PCoI that there could have been a foreign involvement. The PCoI report (page 218) quotes Jayawardena as having said that an Indian named Abu Hind ‘may have triggered the attacks’; it says, “He [Jayawardena] went on to imply that the intelligence agencies that provided him with the intelligence on 4th, 20th and 21st April 2019 may have had a hand in the attack.” According to the report, an ‘international expert on terrorism’, who testified in camera, said, “Abu Hind was a character created by a section of a provincial Indian intelligence apparatus, and the intelligence that the Director SIS received on the 4th, 20th and 21st April 2019 was from this operation, and the intelligence operative pretending to be one Abu Hind. Operatives of this outfit operate in social media pretending to be Islamic State figures. They are trained to run virtual persona.” (Emphasis added.) The report goes on to say, “The testimony was that Zahran believed Abu Hind was the Islamic State regional representative. Abu Hind was in touch with both Zahran and his brother, Rilwan, and had spoken to Naufer. This part of the evidence is confirmed by the testimony of Hadiya [wife of Zahran].” It is mentioned on page 220 of the report that according to the aforesaid international expert ‘the Indian Central Government was not aware of the intelligence obtained by the provincial outfit’.

Investigators have so far only scratched the surface of the alleged foreign involvement. There is a pressing need for this particular aspect of the attacks to be investigated throughly.

The government, which has boxed itself into a corner, is left with no alternative but to ensure that the PCoI recommendations are fully implemented and order a probe into the alleged foreign involvement in the carnage.

It is incumbent upon all aforementioned witnesses who have alleged a foreign hand to furnish more evidence to substantiate their claims. This, however, does not mean that the burden of proof lies entirely with them. The onus is on the government to get at the truth. After all, that is what it promised before the presidential and parliamentary elections. Unless the masterminds behind the terror strikes are identified and brought to justice, the country will not be safe despite the braggadocio of its leaders.