Three long years without justice

It has been three long years since the devastating Easter Sunday attacks on 21 April 2019 which shattered the very core of Sri Lanka’s post-conflict aura of peace. To date, not a single individual who perpetrated the crime or those who ought to have prevented the crime have been held accountable. The Easter Sunday episode remains a painful and damning episode in our country’s history.

Even though there is no evidence to directly link President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to the crime, there is no doubt that he was the biggest beneficiary of the atrocity. Within a week of the attacks that killed over 260 innocent civilians, the former secretary of defence announced his candidacy for president. The whole campaign of candidate Rajapaksa was divisive, ethno-nationalist and based on a fear psychosis of a threat to national security in the wake of Easter attacks. One of the pivotal pillars of the mandate received by President Rajapaksa was to bring the perpetrators of that crime to justice. 

Having been elected on a national security and law and order ticket, after two and a half years in office President Rajapaksa has delivered neither. Despite numerous commissions of inquiry, investigations by law enforcement authorities and a few indictments, no one, directly responsible for the crime or those who were criminally negligent have yet been held accountable in a court of law over the Easter terror attacks. 

Even more damning is the credible accusation that State agencies were involved in this atrocity. In a fundamental rights petition to the Supreme Court in February, former director of the Criminal Investigation Division (CID), SSP Abeysekera made several chilling revelations that directly imply links between the Easter Sunday bombers and several state intelligence agencies. He also claims that there was serious interference by these agencies into the CID investigations into the terrorist group’s operations in the lead up to the Easter attacks. If SSP Abeysekera is proven wrong he faces the crime of perjury having lied to the Supreme Court. Yet none of his claims have yet been refuted by the Government. Instead of seeking the truth and offering a semblance of justice to the victims, the administration of Gotabaya Rajapaksa has been involved in a systematic effort to silence those who are demanding a reckoning. Shehan Malaka Gamage, an activist demanding justice for the victims of the Easter Sunday attacks, was arrested by the CID on 14 February in a Mafia-style abduction. Previously the CID questioned at length Rev. Cyril Gamini Fernando, a Catholic priest over a statement he is alleged to have made at a webinar. 

Such intimidation and harassment of individuals who are demanding the truth and seeking justice for victims will only cement the notion that the current Government and its military and security apparatus are involved in a grand conspiracy to cover up the true motives behind the incident. The abysmal failure of the Sri Lankan judiciary to deliver justice to the victims of this crime has now forced the Archbishop of Colombo, Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith to seek international intervention. It remains a crying shame that the law enforcement and judicial officials have failed to successfully investigate and prosecute those responsible even after three years. The fact that there are many unanswered questions, especially regarding links to State intelligence agencies, leaves room for speculation about the true motives of these attacks. It is in the Government’s interest to reveal the whole truth concerning these incidents, irrespective of consequences. Only the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth will allow Sri Lanka to put this painful incident to rest, deliver justice for the victims and allow for healing. Leaving justice to be delivered in the divine realm would not suffice. The perpetrators and those who were criminally negligent in preventing this crime must be held accountable. In this regard if the local judiciary continues to fail in its duty there is no other choice but to seek international jurisdiction in the quest for justice.