Seeking justice: Church sets example

Saturday 5th February, 2022

Archbishop of Colombo His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith was conspicuous by his absence at yesterday’s Independence Day ceremony. Opinion may be divided on his boycott of the event as well as his decision against conducting religious functions to mark the Independence Day, but can he and other church leaders be faulted for doing so? They were instrumental in preventing a backlash in the aftermath of the Easter Sunder terror strikes in April 2019; they made a solemn pledge to the Catholic community that they would pursue justice tenaciously, and do everything in their power to achieve their goal in a peaceful manner.

Catholic leaders have been seeking justice for nearly three years without success. Let down by the incumbent government, they are at their tether’s end. Before the last presidential election, the present-day leaders publicly undertook to bring all those responsible for the Easter Sunday terror attacks to justice fast, and gained a turbo boost for their polls campaign, but they followed Machiavelli’s advice after being ensconced in power; they did not care to carry out their promise. The mastermind behind the Easter Sunday bombings has not yet been traced although the government insists that he is Naufer Moulavi, who is already facing legal action.

The Cardinal and other Catholic prelates have set an example to others as regards seeking justice for terror victims. On seeing a large number of police personnel taking part in yesterday’s parade with the IGP flanking President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, one remembered the massacre of 600 policemen who surrendered to the LTTE on the orders of the late President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1990. Those hapless police personnel would have survived if they had fought back, but they had to follow orders in the name of ‘peace’ and perish. The LTTE bundled them into vehicles, took them into the jungle and executed them. Have the police ever conducted a special commemorative ceremony for those slain personnel? How could such a police force be expected to help others have justice done for terror victims?

The police are not alone in having forgotten terror victims. The LTTE carried out numerous other carnages. It massacred 146 Buddhist devotees near Sri Maha Bodhi, Anuradhapura in 1985, and 33 Buddhist monks at Arantalawa in 1987 and bombed the Dalada Maligawa in 1998, killing 17 people and inflicting extensive damage to the most sacred Buddhist shrine in the country. There were many other LTTE attacks on civilian targets, including the massacres of 147 Muslims in the Kattankudy mosque in 1990 and 107 Muslims in the Palliyagodella mosque the following year.

Politicians representing the Sinhala and Muslim communities even negotiated peace with Prabhakaran despite such heinous crimes against civilians; Karuna Amman (V. Muralitharan), who was the LTTE commander in the Eastern Province when attacks were carried out on Buddhist monks and mosques, became a minister in the previous Rajapaksa administration after leaving the LTTE! These leaders’ silence enabled the US, the UK, Norway, etc., to coerce Sri Lankan governments into negotiating with the LTTE, which gained a great deal of international recognition and made preparations for war during ‘peace’ talks. They are remaining silent while the TNA leaders are making a determined bid to have an international war crimes tribunal set up here to probe allegations against the Sri Lankan armed forces who ended LTTE terror. The TNA’s campaign has been so effective that some Sri Lankan military officers are prevented from entering the US. The TNA MPs who openly endorsed the LTTE’s terror, acted as Prabhakaran’s spokesmen both in and outside Parliament, and even announced the LTTE’s call for boycotting the 2005 presidential election, are free to travel to the US! Senior LTTE leader, Adele Balasingham, who brainwashed abducted children and turned them into suicide bombers is living in London!

The Catholic church has shown that justice for victims of terror must be pursued relentlessly. Its example is worthy of emulation. One can only hope that the Sri Lanka police will care to probe the massacre of their own men and officers in the East and thereby prove that they are serious about justice for terror victims.