Elimination of factors which contributed to terrorist attacks vital to prevent future attacks

Bashing the Muslim community, its rich heritage or its educational and civil institutions under cover of 21/4 will only alienate the Muslims and create more extremists 

Two parliamentary committees appointed during the previous government have failed to probe into certain significant disclosures made in Parliament on 31 July 2019 by the then State Minister of Defence at the debate on the extension of the Emergency. The disclosures, though skimpy touched on a few, hitherto publicly unknown reasons alleged by a suicide bomber for launching the 21/4 attacks, as per the minister’s revelations. 

More importantly, recent investigations unearthed by the present government and disclosed by a senior Terrorist Investigations Division (TID) police officer and widely published in the media of 1 June refer to 13 reasons alleged by some of the bombers as the motivational factors for the reprehensible attacks. A deeper, transparent study and elimination of the reasons and the factors which contributed to the terrorist attacks on the innocent worshippers and tourists is vital to prevent a recurrence of the universally condemned killings.

What is regrettable is that both parliamentary committees did not delve into these critically important factors that are alleged to have prompted the attacks. Appropriate handling of these motivational factors, if found to be complete, would become absolutely necessary to be addressed and eliminated to prevent future attacks. 

The Minister’s disclosures in Parliament and the 13 reasons presented by the TID taken together bring out the submerged current of deep discontent, perceived injustices and sense of helplessness that may have prompted the eight educated, well to do youth in the prime time of their life to foolishly end their lives and to ridiculously kill hundreds of innocent persons. Nothing however justifies the killing of innocents. 

Can we as part of the victimised society say we have discharged our responsibilities without fully evaluating the stated causes against minorities that emerged in an organised scale post-2012, to which the Minister’s and TID disclosures point to.  

The Select Committee appointed by Parliament on 22 May 2019 to probe inter-alia “factors which contributed to such terrorist attacks” and “what action should be taken to prevent such attacks in the future” had nine meetings after 31 July 2019 disclosures by the State Minister of Defence. 

In fact the State Minister himself was questioned by the Committee. But why is there no analysis in the Select Committee report of the bomber’s reasons for ‘why they did, what they did’? Furthermore, why did the Committee not direct further investigations into the disclosures as well as further study of the taped claims of the other bombers? 

Did not the Committee of nine members, six of whom were from the then government including one from the SLMC and one each from the then ‘government-supportive’ TNA and the JVP, comprising president’s counsels, professors, doctors and lawyers think it necessary to at least consider the bombers’ reasons for doing what they did? Should not the public have been made aware of these matters?

The answers to these questions, with all respect to the members of the select committee, could have helped resolve the future security issues of the people and the State. It is to be noted that the UPFA announced on 23 May 2019 that it will not participate in the proceedings of this Committee. The then effective opposition’s failure to participate in this Committee is a serious lapse! Anyhow the Committee’s failure to address the reasons that had already been made public in Parliament but avoided by the parliamentary committee is beyond comprehension. This matter is fundamental to ascertain a vital part of the true reasons that led to the 21/4 attack. The failure has rendered the report regretfully unworthy of the worthy parliamentarians who constituted the Committee. 

The other committee, the Sectoral Oversight Committee on National Security comprised 17 members, 10 of whom including two from the SLMC were all officially designated as UNP-before the party’s split. This, former government-dominated committee’s recommendations appear to blame the entire Muslim community of Sri Lanka for the 21/4 attacks carried out by a few deviant Muslims. This is evident from this Committee’s recommendations. 

The report of this Committee released on 19 February, after the outbreak of the coronavirus COVID-19 in Wuhan, China recommended the banning of face covers in Sri Lanka! They had missed the trees for the wood!

The committee had also recommended inter alia that the Islamic madrasa education must be revisited and that madrasa education must be prohibited for those below 14 years of age! The time tested and well-established Muslim personal laws of marriage and divorce with an 800-year prevalence in Sri Lanka are to be overhauled! The 91-year-old Muslim Marriage and Divorce Ordinance as subsequently amended in 1951, the 89-year-old Wakf Act and the 64-year-old Mosques Act have been brought under the hammer in the name of 21/4! Then they also want the Halal certification process to be revisited, the electronic and print media in the country brought under control, etc. 

But what have these valuable institutions got to do with the 21/4 attacks? The answer could have been found if they had evaluated the State Minister’s disclosures and probed deeper as the present investigators had done bringing out 13 clear reasons. 

Bashing the Muslim community, its rich heritage or its educational and civil institutions under cover of 21/4 will only alienate the Muslims and create more extremists. It will enhance the threats to national security. 

It will not unite and integrate the different communities but distance them. It will unfortunately further radicalise disgruntled elements in the country. 

That is exactly the objective of international arms producers. It is just the opposite of what Sri Lanka should and wants to achieve.

The report does not show any credible reasons as to why the entire Muslim community ought to be punished for the madness of an un-Islamic few deviants! None of the recommended onslaughts on the Muslims has anything to do with the dastardly attacks on Christian churches and tourist hotels. But there are other factors which do. 

These ‘root causes’ must be effectively addressed so that Sri Lanka will not be fertile grounds for terror attacks in the future. 

The reasons for the attacks as disclosed by the State Minister of Defence do not appear to have been even looked at by the two committees! These reasons included foreign invasion of Muslim countries and persistent anti-minority violence here. Fuller details of these reasons can be seen in the dailies of 1 June and my response thereto, (http://www.ft.lk/news/21-4-attacks-relate-to-foreign-invasions-of-Muslim-countries-persistent-anti-minority-violence-here/56-701578). 

The TID officer’s recent disclosures publicised in the media on 1 June giving 13 reasons for the attacks attributed to a bomber confirmed in greater detail what the then State Minister had disclosed. 

The Select Committee on the other hand did refer in two separate chapters to ‘Buddhist extremism’, ‘Rise of Buddhist Extremism’ and to ‘Islamic extremism’. 

 The titles apologetically introduced by the Committee are a total misnomer. Anti-minority hate speeches and violence that this country saw from 2012 had nothing to do with Buddhism or its teachings per se. 

Though an extreme minority, the majoritarian extremism headed by an organisation unheard of during the 30-year war but unleashed after its leader’s visit to Norway in 2011 is nothing but a racist onslaught, hijacking a 2,500 year-old pacifist ideology for the collateral purpose of foreign war mongers. 

The 13 alleged reasons presently in the public domain are central to ending a recurrence of the ignominious 21/4 debacle. Ignoring them will be at the cost of the national security of the country. The oversight committee’s recommendations and some of the recommendations of the other committees of the then undivided UNP, will divide and distance the communities as none of them address the perceived injustices, as disclosed by the bombers – that drove some youth to kill themselves and innocent worshippers and holiday-makers. 

We need to be mindful of the bigger picture. External forces failed to divide the country. But they have not given up on their mission. 

Now they want to divide the communities. They will not give up the opportunity that they got following the occurrence of 21/4. We should understand as to why as early as 21 July 2019 Archbishop of Colombo Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith said at the re-consecration of the Katuwapitiya St. Sebastian’s Church in Negombo that he did not have any faith in any of the then ongoing probes on the Easter Sunday attacks. 

(The writer is a President’s Counsel and a former Member of Parliament.)