Terrorism and hidden hands

Wednesday 28th October, 2020

The government is awaiting the final report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI), which is probing the Easter Sunday attacks, to effect changes to the national security apparatus, Education Minister Prof. G. L. Peiris has reportedly said. The yahapalana government neglected national security and jeopardised public safety as never before. Those who were at the helm of that administration are now blaming one another. The incumbent administration has apparently straightened up the defence establishment, but much more remains to be done.

Religious extremism is not the only threat Sri Lanka’s national security is faced with although it is a very grave one, which has to be tackled urgently. Security threats emanate from other quarters as well. Who actually masterminded the Easter Sunday attacks, which were carried out by the NTJ, is not known. It is claimed that there was an invisible hand behind those terror strikes. Who is responsible for the serious lapses that enabled the terrorists to strike with ease is now public knowledge. What needs to be found out is who was actually behind the carnage, which may have been part of a strategy to destabilise Sri Lanka.

SLMC leader and SJB MP Rauff Hakeem, testifying before the PCoI probing the Easter Sunday attacks, said in September that the NTJ had not masterminded the attack, and it had been only a pawn. When the commissioners asked him to reveal who had been behind the attacks, he said he would do so in camera. He should have made his findings known to the public.

Hakeem is not alone in suspecting a hidden hand behind the attacks. In July 2019, no less a person than Archbishop of Colombo, Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith said that the attacks were part of an international conspiracy, and the conspirators had used ‘misguided Muslim youth’ to carry them out.

The LTTE has not given up its struggle; its activists are all out to have its proscription lifted in the UK. Pressure is mounting on the British government to deproscribe the LTTE, and the pro-Tiger activists backed by their lawyers might succeed in preparing the ground for reviving the LTTE in Europe. There have been reports that the LTTE is active in Tamil Nadu; some of its activists have been arrested while trying to smuggle explosives here. In August 2018, the Rameswaram police took into custody seven suspects with 5,000 detonators which were to be smuggled to Sri Lanka by boat. In October 2019, a former LTTE cadre was nabbed by the army and handed over to the Serunuwara police, and a subsequent search of his house yielded several hand grenades, C4 explosives, 62 rounds of 9mm ammunition, a T-56 weapon, 154 rounds T-56 ammunition, one semi-automatic rifle, one magazine, two detonator cords, 62 different types of detonators, and a knife.

About 12,500 former LTTE combatants have been rehabilitated and released. However, there is no guarantee that all of them will never revert to their old habits simply because they have undergone rehabilitation. The former war zone is awash with lethal arms, ammunition and explosives. Worse, some politicians are openly espousing the LTTE’s cause and commemorating the dead Tiger leaders.

Sri Lanka has antagonised some powerful nations that do not hesitate to promote terrorism to further their geo-political interests. These countries did not want the LTTE defeated because the perpetuation of the war here would have served their interests; they even tried to throw a lifeline to a beleaguered Prabhakaran. Some of them went so far as to rush their foreign ministers here in a bid to stop the final battle and, thereby, save the LTTE leaders, albeit in vain.

In introducing national security reforms, the government ought to be mindful of the threats from not only the non-state actors but also the states that promote terrorism as an extension of their foreign policy.