Name that evil foreign power!

Saturday 28th November, 2020

Mystery surrounds some vital aspects of the Easter Sunday attacks although those who carried them out have been identified and their confederates arrested. That a group of National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ) terrorists, led by Zahran Hashim, carried out a series of suicide bombings, on 21 April 2019, is known to one and all, but who actually handled them has not yet been found out. The police have confirmed that the NTJ had planned a second wave of attacks on places of Buddhist worship and the Kandy Dalada Perahera. So, if Zahran had been the real terror mastermind, he would not have chosen to die in the first wave of terror without waiting to ensure that his outfit would be able to carry out the second wave of bombings, as we argued in a previous column. Former DIG CID Ravi Seneviratne, has recently told the Presidential Commission of Inquiry, probing the Easter Sunday carnage, that someone handled Zahran, and he had to be traced if threats to Sri Lanka’s national security are be neutralised effectively.

Now, no less a person than Maithripala Sirisena, who was the President, at the time of the Easter Sunday attacks, has confirmed that there was a foreign hand behind the carnage. On Wednesday, testifying before the PCoI probing the Easter Sunday terror, he declared that there had been a foreign power behind the terror attacks. All information about the terrorist bombings at issue was available to him as the President and Minister of Defence, and his statement must, therefore, be based on credible intelligence. He should name the foreign power; not only the Sri Lankan public but also the whole world have a right to know what that evil force is. It may be responsible for terror strikes in other parts of the world as well.

On an earlier occasion, Leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and former Justice Minister, Rauff Hakeem, made a similar statement before the PCoI. He said the NTJ and its leader Zahran were only pawns, and there had been a hidden hand behind the Easter Sunday attacks, which, he said, had been aimed at destabilising the country. Asked by the commission to name names, he did so in camera.

Archbishop of Colombo Malcolm Cardinal Ranjtih, however, was the first to state, in public, that the Easter Sunday attacks had been part of an ‘international conspiracy’ to destabilise the country. He said so, in July 2019, addressing a congregation at the Katuwapitiya St. Sebastian’s Church, where as many as 118 people had been killed by an NTJ bomber only three months back.

SLPP MP Mahinda Samarasinghe revealed, in Parliament, the other day, that during the closing stages of Eelam war IV, a foreign power had sought to remove Prabhakaran to safety, and one of its ships had been waiting in international waters, for the mission. He said the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa had not given permission for the vessel to enter the Sri Lankan waters. He should have named the country.

Foreign powers move resolutions against Sri Lanka on the basis of unsubstantiated allegations, but the Sri Lankan politicians lack the courage to name and shame the countries that tried to save terrorists and were behind the Easter Sunday bombings, according to them.

Now that former President Sirisena has revealed that there was a foreign involvement in the Easter Sunday bombings, Sri Lanka must seek international assistance to trace the terror mastermind. The UN could be of help in this regard. First of all, let Sirisena be urged to name the foreign power concerned. Having pathetically failed to prevent the Easter Sunday terror strikes, despite intelligence warnings, he should, at least, make public information about the perpetrators of the attacks. He must do so for the sake of the families of those who died on his watch as the President. On the other hand, the act of suppressing information about a crime is a punishable offence.