easter sunday attacks

Sri Lanka Elections: The SLPP’s Formidable Majority Doesn’t Bode Well for Pluralism

History reveals that a two-third majority for Sri Lanka’s Sinhala-centric parties have led to the introduction of new constitutions that centralised state power and created divisions amongst communities.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) has secured a landslide win in the general elections held last week. For an election held in Sri Lanka under the proportional representation system, this victory is an unprecedented one. With the support of its allies, the SLPP has crossed the two-third majority mark in the next parliament.

The United National Party (UNP), which contested under the leadership of former Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe, could not even poll 5% of the total votes in any of the electoral districts. The party won just one seat on the National List. An alliance led by a breakaway group from the UNP under the leadership of Sajith Premadasa, who lost to Gotabaya Rajapaksa in the presidential election in November last year, has come a distant second with 54 seats in the 225-member house. The Tamil National Alliance with a base among the Tamils in the North-East of the island has secured 10 seats.

The SLPP won the Sinhala-majority districts in the South by huge margins. Outside the North-East, nearly a dozen Muslim and Malaiyaha Thamil candidates representing a few minority parties who contested as part of the opposition alliance led by Sajith Premadasa have been elected to Parliament.

The failures of the previous regime to address the economic woes of the people contributed significantly to the emergence of the SLPP as a popular alternative. Governance and policy making were characterised by fissures and instability due to in-fighting between the UNP and the Sri Lankan Freedom Party, which attempted a coalition government between 2015 and 2018 under President Maithripala Sirisena. On the other hand, southern political leaders, civil society groups, student movements and trade unions could not challenge the entrenched Sinhala majoritarianism resolutely. The absence of a progressive alternative that could capture the imagination of the people made it easier for the chauvinistic SLPP to attract votes in large numbers in the Sinhala-majority districts in both the presidential election 2019 and now the general election.

TNA’s setback

In the Tamil-majority Northern Province, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) faced a major setback. The party secured 6 out of the 13 seats available in the region compared to the 9 seats it had won in the last general elections. A huge chunk of its Tamil voters within the province have voted for parties aligned with the SLPP which contested on a platform of development and jobs.

The TNA’s failure to address the socio-economic problems faced by its Northern and Eastern constituencies, negotiate a political solution to the national question with the previous regime in Colombo which the party supported on various occasions inside and outside of parliament, and make headway in finding justice for war-time excesses has cost the party dearly in the elections.

Also read: Explainer: Why Sri Lanka’s Election Results Are Crucial for the Rajapaksas

Within Jaffna district, a significant chunk of the TNA’s traditional voters appear to have moved towards the Tamil National People’s Front and Tamil Makkal Thesiya Kootani, parties that placed a stronger emphasis on the right to self-determination of Tamils in the North-East of the country and international investigation into the war crimes committed by the state during the last stages of the war. But their campaign, giving a central place to these issues, did not find much traction outside Jaffna. The vote share of the two parties together could not even rise above 3% in any of the three districts in the Eastern Province.

The TNA’s performance was weak in the Eastern Province too. The party won only two seats in Batticaloa and lost the single seat it had won in Ampara district in the last general elections. The shift among Tamil voters towards parties that are aligned with the government indicates that the economic concerns of the Tamil population in the North and East cannot be sidestepped by political actors who prioritise self-determination over development.

A Special Task Force member stands guard in front of a counting centre on the following day of the country’s parliamentary election in Colombo, Sri Lanka, August 6, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Dinuka Liyanawatte

Regime consolidation, militarism and the economy

Although the proportionate representation system has enabled minority communities, especially minority communities that live outside the North-East, to send their representatives to parliament in reasonable numbers, the massive victory of the SLPP, a party that occupies the far-right end of the Sinhala Buddhist ideological spectrum, poses a threat to the pluralistic cultural landscape of Sri Lanka and the peaceful coexistence of the different ethnic communities.

The country’s post-independence history reveals that the two-third majority that Sri Lanka’s Sinhala-centric parties secured in the past led to the introduction of new constitutions that centralised state power and created divisions among the communities. Such powerful regimes also crushed democratic protests and trade union activism.

With the electoral success last week, the regime consolidation which began in the early months of 2020 following Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s victory in the presidential is expected to go full swing. Since his inauguration, President Rajapaksa has permitted a greater role for the military in the governance of the country. Ex-military officials who backed him in his bid for the presidency were appointed to top administrative positions within various ministries and presidential task forces and committees.

Also read: Sri Lanka’s COVID-19 Response Is Proof That Demonisation of Minorities Has Been Normalised

The military has also played a major role in handling the COVID-19 pandemic, sometimes to the exclusion and marginalisation of medical professionals. With the victory in the parliamentary elections, an emboldened president might make new moves to expand the participation of the military in governance.

The COVID-19 crisis has created instability in the everyday lives of the people, although the government appears to have been successful in controlling the spread of the virus. The government’s economic relief to the poor during this crisis has not been adequate. Educational activities at schools and some universities have resumed only for a segment of the student population. Students from economically marginalised families and rural areas with limited or no access to the internet find it difficult to participate in classes conducted online. The tourism and hotel industries have suffered huge losses. The country might face a major economic crisis in the next few months. How will the government handle this crisis? Will it introduce welfare measures through re-distribution of wealth and resources? Will it resort to repression and authoritarianism as what Sri Lanka experienced during the previous Rajapaksa regime?

The previous Rajapaksa regime

A man wearing a protective mask walks along a painted wall in Colombo, Sri Lanka, April 8, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte

The Mahinda Rajapaksa regime that ruled Sri Lanka between 2005 and 2015, especially during its second term that started in 2010, adopted neoliberal economic policies that widened the faultlines with the Sinhala community. Waves of protests by workers in free trade zones, fishermen’s associations, students and university teachers exposed the government’s failures on the economic front. The government and its chauvinistic allies like the Bodu Bala Sena tried to deflect people’s attention from the economic miseries they faced towards divisive campaigns that demonised the Muslims. However, this trend could not be sustained for long.

In the North and East, the regime failed to address the political and economic concerns of the war-affected populations. Rural indebtedness increased due to microfinance schemes introduced by predatory companies. The people in the region had little or no control over the mega-development schemes designed and implemented in a centralized manner.

Also read: Sri Lanka’s New President Gotabaya: The View From New Delhi

Tamil groups in the North launched protests against militarisation and land grab. Tamils’ attempts to memorialize the end of the civil war and militants who died during the armed struggle were often crushed by the military. Mahinda Rajapaksa’s defeat in 2015 happened mainly due to the economic failures of his regime, protests led by workers and minorities and a consolidation of democratic forces from all communities.

What does the future look like?

While some of the problems that bedevilled Sri Lanka during the previous Rajapaksa regime may re-emerge following the SLPP’s victory, the statements made by the current President and his top officers and some of the measures his government has taken so far to address important economic and political issues indicate that the new regime will move in a more militaristic and technocratic direction with moves to strengthen the power bloc comprising military officers and Buddhist monks who back the President.

The government appears to be keen to introduce key amendments to the constitution that might empower the executive president, dismantle the constitutional council which was created with a view to reducing political interference in the appointment members to various important commissions and even abolish the 13th amendment introduced via the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987, which allows a small measure of autonomy to the nine provinces.

The militaristic, centralised approach to governance that the new dispensation is expected to adopt will not help the economic revival of the communities affected by the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. It is feared that the state might resort to authoritarianism in responding to protests and social unrest that an economic crisis might trigger. The surveillance mechanisms of the state have already expanded. Recent witch-hunts against activists from the Muslim community and dissidents, fund-cuts to the Open University of Sri Lanka, attempts to slash the independence of higher educational institutions, and increased Buddhist symbolism in the activities of the government all suggest that the state might take a more authoritarian and Sinhala nationalist turn in the future rather than support the welfare of the people.

Tamils and Muslims in the Northern and Eastern Provinces are anxious that Buddhisization of these two provinces may take an aggressive turn under the new regime. Tamil activists in the region also worry that the ultranationalist SLPP may even try to settle Sinhalese from the South in the two provinces in order to weaken the Tamils’ demand for self-rule in the region. Following the Easter Sunday attacks, the Muslim community all across the island has been facing increased threats from chauvinistic elements.

Also read: Sri Lanka, India and China: Here’s What Keeps Neighbours Friendly – and What Doesn’t

In order to challenge the existent and emerging forms of majoritarianism and authoritarianism, all forces that uphold democracy, pluralism and social justice in the island should work together. With the regime enjoying a two-third majority in parliament, key battles around economy, pluralism, independence of institutions and autonomy for the Northern and Eastern Provinces will have to be waged outside parliament. A consolidation of democratic forces and working people cutting across ethnic divides is going to be crucial in charting our resistance to the majoritarian, militaristic populism that Sri Lanka has now firmly been pushed into.

Mahendran Thiruvarangan is attached to the Department of Linguistics & English at the University of Jaffna.

Sri Lanka Should Not Turn a Blind Eye to the Ascent of Wahabi Extremism

In the aftermath of the Easter bombings, factors fuelling the gradual rise of Wahhabi extremism in Sri Lanka are at the forefront.

Investigations have identified the National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ) – a Wahabi faction from Kattankudy, near Batticaloa – as the perpetrators of Sri Lanka’s Easter terror attacks.

The story of the advance of Wahabi terror within the Muslim community is closely linked to the transformation of urbane Tamil nationalism of the educated middle class which demands language and territorial rights – an issue on which Muslims in the Eastern Province shared common aspirations.

In both instances, the infliction of communal violence (against the Muslims particularly in 2014 and 2018) with casual impunity, played an important role in the transformation,

Once the LTTE asserted sole dominance of the Tamil struggle through ruthless terror, the democratic aspirations of the early Tamil militancy drawn from other liberation struggles, died; and with it the prospect of resolving local differences with Muslims by democratic means. The LTTE’s approach to Muslims through force and arrogance culminated in its Kattankudy mosque and the Eravur massacres in August 1990.

The government quickly set up the Muslim home guards, which became a paramilitary arm of the Defence Ministry and a nuisance to local Muslim civilians. The LTTE’s ruthlessness and success, albeit transient, was a model, not lost on its detractors. Its practice of branding opponents as traitors matched well with the progress of Wahabi influence in Muslim areas from the 1980s.

In Tamil society, its nationalist politicians found in the militant youth, extra-legal means to secure parliamentary seats, as exemplified in the 1975 murder of Alfred Duraiappa. Similarly, the moderate Muslim politicians and the Wahabi religious elders came to depend on thuggery by their youthful followers to secure places in the parliament or to forcibly take over mosques of the traditional Sufi sects. There was no escape from the sinews of such unholy dependences.

A Muslim man stands inside the Abbraar Masjid mosque after a mob attack in Kiniyama, Sri Lanka May 13, 2019. Credit: Reuters/Dinuka Liyanawatte

These are conditions under which dissent is crushed and dishonoured. We begin our inquiry from the standpoint of Muslim women who have challenged the advance of Wahabism on the ground.

Also read: Tracing the Roots of Tamil Muslims

The ground report on extremism

Sabina (name changed), a Muslim who worked tirelessly for Tamil victims of the long drawn conflict, remarked of her apprehension of the imminent havoc around extremism:

“We saw the monster growing before our eyes. Many moderate Muslims complained to the authorities, as several leaders in Kattankudy did last August and again in February. We shared on February 10, a video clip of Zahran, in which he called for the killing of oppressors of Muslims, through Whatsapp with several individuals linked to the government and the opposition. Nothing happened. We learnt that when a person at the Prime Minister’s office apprised a trusted moderate Muslim leader of this video, the latter dismissed it as nothing very serious.”

She also said that she sent this video to Facebook and she understood that Facebook, in turn, had informed the Sri Lankan authorities.

On the proliferation of hate through narrow religious interpretations, Sabina said that in the run-up to the 2018 local council elections, Moulavi Siddeq Niyas from the Sri Lanka Thawheed Jamath (SLTJ) had taken issue with the uncovered faces of women contestants on posters (Hoole). He had also given the names of several Muslim women who had demonstrated before the Parliament for reform in September 2017, including Sabina’s, and said that they should be killed in order for Islam to progress.

The Elections Commission could have called for his arrest under election laws but failed to do so. Zahran who split from the SLTJ to form the All Ceylon Thowheed Jamath in 2014, again split to form the National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ).

Sabina further said,

“In the development of an oppressive ideology, the first target is to control of women and forcing upon them norms of dressing and behaviour that would make them strangers to the people they have long lived among. In turn, their children are brainwashed into xenophobia by the same moulavis. You saw what the LTTE did among Tamils through ideological control. When it suited them they used women as suicide bombers. At other times they merely wanted them to be instrumental bearers of fighters.”

The Easter bombings left the island’s Muslim clerical establishment in a tizzy. Responding to the attack on Muslims on May 5, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith went to Negombo and held the hand of Rizwi Mufti, the President of the All-Ceylon Jammatul Ulema (ACJU) and said that they both worshipped the same God.

A mosque is seen at Center for Islamic Guidance in Kattankudy in Kattankudy, Sri Lanka, May 4, 2019. Credit: Reuters/Danish Siddiqui

It was a culmination of conciliatory attitudes by churches – the main targets of the Easter violence – which restored a measure of calm to the Island.

Muslim women, who have fought the ACJU regarding the reform of laws relating to women, see in this development, the entrenchment of the Wahabi establishment represented by the ACJU, whose ideological offspring was the Easter bombers.

Also read: Transnational Sunnism and Saudi Arabia’s Influence

Deep State or bungling state?

The militancy of the Thowheed Jamath has its origins in a fatwa issued by the ACJU in 1989 against the popular Sufi teacher Abdullah (Pailwan) of Maruthamunai in the East, declaring him and his followers as apostates; and the setting up of Muslim home guard units in 1990.

The fatwa was evidently based on a biased reading of Abdullah’s book in Tamil Do You Know the Truth of Iman?, and after many court hearings, the ACJU in 1996, revoked the fatwa (Schwartz). However, the original fatwa served as a licence for violence and persecution against Pailwan and his followers. The ACJU appears to have done little to support the victims.

On mid-day October 31, 2004, 500 Wahabis organised under the title “Jihad” again set the Meditation Centre of Pailvan’s followers in the centre of Kattankudy ablaze, destroying 117 buildings owned by Sufis and one Sufi was shot and killed by gunfire.

The alleged mastermind of the Easter carnage makes his photographic appearance in the Sunday Times feature of August 16, 2009 (Kamalendran), dealing with Wahabi violence against Sufi groups, as Moulavi M.C. (Mohammed Cassim) Zahran, Propaganda Secretary of the Thowheed group in Kattankudy.

He denied that they were an armed group with external funding. Another Thowheed follower M.P. Azmi said, “We have a duty to correct the Muslims who are going on the wrong path. That is what we are doing.”

Muslims pray inside a mosque in Kattankudy, Sri Lanka, May 4, 2019. Credit: Reuters

The same report also said that an unspecified number of Muslim home guards had deserted their ranks with their weapons, and sections had started calling themselves Jihadis. The report quoted the Saudi Embassy Counsellor Mr Al Khenene as saying that while the Saudi Government was not helping Islamic groups in the country, “certain wealthy persons” were aiding the construction of mosques.

While up to a point the localised thuggery of the Thowheed suited the Wahabi controlled ACJU, by 2014 its aggressive zeal and growing splits had the ACJU worried.

The Tamil daily Veerakesari on March 15, 2017, reported a meeting of the NTJ in Kattankudy where pro-ISIS slogans were shouted, leading to a clash. We verified that it was an attack on the Sufi mosque of Moulavi Rauff led by Zahran on March 10 2017. A clash ensued when others came to the defence of the mosque.

Zahran was among those the police arrested, who despite having caused injuries with swords, were soon released due to political influence. Among them was Mohamed Niyas, who is said to have left for the Middle East and was seen again just before the Easter attack. He was among those who committed suicide when the security forces went to his hideout in Sainthamaruthu, south of Kattankudy.

Also read: Review: Why Buddhists Are Violent

Women who were campaigning for reform had filed a case against Mohamed Niyas for defamation, which was scheduled to be heard on March 14, 2017. They learnt that, all of a sudden, he and his brother had plenty of money.

Soon after the Easter bombings, Rizwi Mufti told a meeting of religious leaders at the Parliamentary Complex (on April 28, 2019) that in June 2014, he had given “all the documents” on ISIS activity, to Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. He wanted him to have certain persons arrested. His warnings, he said were ignored by the Rajapaksa and its successor government (Rizwi).

However, the Defence Ministry had routinely infiltrated the parent Sri Lanka Thowfeed Jamath (SLTJ). Its agent was the Secretary Moulavi Razik, also known for his fiery Wahabi sermons, and as Gotabhaya’s man.

R. Abdul Razik, a leader of the moderate Ceylon Thowheed Jama’ath (CTJ) told CBS on May 3, 2019, that:

“We asked the intelligence agencies to take down the Facebook page of Zahran because he was polluting the minds of Sri Lankan Muslims. We were told it is better to allow him to have the page so that the authorities could keep an eye on [him].”

The government spokesman Minister Rajitha Senaratne used Razik’s assertion to claim that Gotabhaya Rajapaksa (GR) had supported Muslim and Buddhist extremism and had funded them using a “secret Defence Ministry account”.

Thowheed Jamath pointed to several fractious outfits and it was the Defence Secretary’s job to pay spies, even in the BBS.

Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has to answer a more apposite question. There was copious information about the incendiary activity and the hateful rhetoric of Wahabi militants in Kattankudy, and their receipt of large funds. How did the defence secretary allow the grass of Wahabi terror to grow under his feet?

Security forces patrol a street, days after a string of suicide bomb attacks across the island on Easter Sunday, in central Colombo, Sri Lanka April 27, 2019. Credit: Reuters/Thomas Peter

Moreover, has not the Bodu Bala Sena, whose anti-Muslim terror has begotten much mischief, and to which GR has well-publicised links, been a major cause of the pain forcing on Muslims the yoke of Wahabi extremism?

Zahran’s video address of early 2019 February raises questions that have puzzled observers. The resemblance to LTTE is striking, as the injunction to kill traitors instantly without pity. But the thrust of the message was the consignment to hell of the droves of Buddhist extremists, who have killed Muslims and vandalised their mosques and businesses.

Then why attack churches? Once the video was out, time was running out for Zahran. Unlike the LTTE, Zahran’s followers had to function in urban settings with hostile rival Thowheeds infiltrated by state intelligence. He used brainwashed family units as his operational cover.

Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has announced his presidential candidacy for the coming elections as the man to rid the country of Islamic terrorism, after his record of championing Buddhist extremism while being imperiously blind to its effect on Muslims. He spent his years as defence secretary crying wolf about an armed LTTE revival.

The eight or so intelligence agencies he left behind slumbered through the impending danger. When two policemen were killed last November in Vavunativu, three miles through lagoon and scrubland from Kattankudy, the police arrested two former LTTE cadres under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Only later investigations in the aftermath of the Easter attacks confirmed that it was the NTJ.

Also read: Diplomats Pressure Sri Lanka to Stop Hate Crime Against Muslims

The tragedy of a non-secular state

Sri Lanka’s non-secular state, obliged since the 1972 Constitution to protect and foster Buddhism, has encouraged other major religious establishments to demand and successfully carve out their own small kingdoms, to include even nominally secular universities.

This milieu has been the basis for the ACJU’s tyranny over groups of increasingly educated and articulate Muslim women who have for thirty years agitated for the reform of the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act (MMDA) that would bring the rights of Muslim women in line with those of women of other communities.

These women point out that reform is necessary not just for the Muslim community, but for peace in the country. The cracks and the bereavements of Easter will be papered over, the leaders of civil society and the muftis will shake hands amidst smiles and go away. But the real problem, which is Wahabi ascendancy and xenophobia, will remain hidden. The alienation and isolation of the Muslim community, which was at the root of the Easter tragedy, will continue.

The reforms demanded are very basic and include a ban on child marriage, mandatory registration of Muslim marriages and to raise the age of marriage for Muslim women from 12 to 18. Spearheading the resistance to such reform is the ACJU, and this has become the ground for extremist abuse of women demanding reform.

Pakistan refugees rest inside a mosque in Negombo, Sri Lanka, April 25, 2019.
Credit: Reuters

These women point out that the effect of the Easter carnage, by temporarily at least undermining the terrorist extremists, has entrenched the power of the ACJU over Muslims despite some embarrassment. They point out that its head, Rizwi Mufti, who had earlier called women who did not wear the veil prostitutes, has now asked them to remove the veil.

Their main fear is the ACJU’s perpetuation of the Wahabi stranglehold: which will not countenance reform particularly of the MMDA; which is essential to free Muslim women from their present isolation; which opens the floodgates to unsubstantiated propaganda, presenting the community as conspiratorially expanding their influence through high birth rates.

Also read: ‘Security Forces in Sri Lanka Continue to Operate With Impunity’

Association of a community’s strength with mere numbers is an illusion fostered by the electoral system. It is not a symbol of strength when a Muslim girl from the East says at a demonstration for reform before Parliament:

“I was forced to become a mother of twins at 13, when I should have been bearing schoolbooks. It was with a sense of nausea that I beheld my infants calling me Umma (Mother). My husband left me and I do not have support from anyone.”

An important reason why the MMDA reform is stuck, the women reformers say, is because, most Muslim men who have reached the pinnacle of their careers, especially in public service, will not go against the ACJU’s dictates. Conservatism is reinforced by direct Saudi influence.

This writer was reliably told by persons in authority that in the Muslim Fatwa Council of about 45 headed by Rizwi Mufti, up to a dozen are paid by the Saudi Government.

An associated issue, which lies at the back of Sri Lanka’s tragedy, is the politicisation and collapse of law enforcement, where politicians have usurped the roles of an independent police and judiciary. The independence of religious establishments, too, is open to question. The effects are seen in the failures of law enforcement above and in the ineffectiveness of protection afforded to the minority that stands up for principles.

Rajan Hoole is a member of the Science Faculty Board at Jaffna University.

Sri Lanka: 15 Dead in Overnight Gun Battle With Suspected Islamic Militants

The shootout between troops and the suspected militants broke out on Friday evening, in Ampara.

Colombo: The bodies of 15 people, including six children, were discovered at the site of a fierce overnight gun battle on the east coast of Sri Lanka, a military spokesman said on Saturday, six days after suicide bombers killed more than 250 people.

The shootout between troops and suspected Islamist militants erupted on Friday evening in Sainthamaruthu in Ampara, to the south of the town of Batticaloa, site of one of the Easter Sunday blasts at three churches and four luxury hotels.

A police spokesman said that three suspected suicide bombers were among the 15 dead after the shoot out.

One child caught in the crossfire was admitted to hospital.

Military spokesman Sumith Atapattu said in a statement that as troops headed towards the safe house, three explosions were triggered and gunfire began.

“Troops retaliated and raided the safe house where a large cache of explosives had been stored,” he said in a statement.

He said that the militants were suspected members of the domestic Islamist group National Tawheed Jama’at (NTJ), which has been blamed for last Sunday’s attacks.

Bomb-making material, dozens of gelignite sticks and thousands of metal balls were found in a search of a separate house in the same area, the military said.

The government has said nine homegrown, well-educated suicide bombers carried out the Easter Sunday attacks, eight of whom have been identified. One was a woman.

Police said on Friday they were trying to track down the 140 people they believe have links with Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the suicide bombings.

Police have detained at least 76 people, including foreigners from Syria and Egypt, in their investigations so far. Twenty were arrested in the past 24 hours alone, they said.

Authorities warn of more attacks

Islamic State provided no evidence to back its claim that it was behind the attacks. If true, it would be one of the worst attacks carried out by the group outside Iraq and Syria.

The extremist group released a video on Tuesday showing eight men, all but one with their faces covered, standing under a black Islamic State flag and declaring their loyalty to its leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

Muslims in Sri Lanka were urged to pray at home on Friday after the State Intelligence Services warned of possible car bomb attacks, amid fears of retaliatory violence.

Also Read: Muslims ‘Urged’ to Pray At Home Amid Fear of Possible Retaliatory Attacks: Sri Lanka

Fears of retaliatory sectarian violence have already caused Muslim communities to flee their homes amid bomb scares, lockdowns and security sweeps.

The US Embassy in Sri Lanka urged its citizens to avoid places of worship over the weekend after authorities reported there could be more attacks targeting religious centres.

Archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith told reporters he had seen a leaked internal security document warning of further attacks on churches and there would be no Catholic masses this Sunday anywhere on the island.

Nearly 10,000 soldiers were deployed across the Indian Ocean island state to carry out searches and provide security for religious centres, the military said.

Authorities have so far focused their investigations on international links to two domestic groups they believe carried out the attacks, NTJ and Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim.

Intelligence failure

Officials have acknowledged a major lapse in not widely sharing intelligence warnings from India of possible attacks.

President Maithripala Sirisena said on Friday that top defence and police chiefs had not shared information with him about the impending attacks.

He blamed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government for weakening the intelligence system by focusing on prosecution of military officers over alleged war crimes during a decades-long civil war with Tamil separatists that ended in 2009.

Sirisena fired Wickremesinghe in October over political differences, only to reinstate him weeks later under pressure from the Supreme Court.

Opposing factions aligned to Wickremesinghe and Sirisena have often refused to communicate with each other and blame any setbacks on their opponents, government sources say.

The Easter Sunday bombings shattered the relative calm that had existed in Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka since the civil war against mostly Hindu ethnic Tamil separatists ended.

Sri Lanka‘s 22 million people include minority Christians, Muslims and Hindus. Until now, Christians had largely managed to avoid the worst of the island’s conflict and communal tensions.

Most of the victims were Sri Lankans, although authorities said at least 40 foreigners were also killed, many of them tourists sitting down to breakfast at top-end hotels when the bombers struck.

They included British, US, Australian, Turkish, Indian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch and Portuguese nationals. Britain warned its nationals this week to avoid Sri Lanka unless it was absolutely necessary.

(Reuters)

Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Says Govt Did Not Expect Attack of Such Magnitude

Hemasiri Fernando said it would have been “impossible” to protect a large number of churches in the country despite receiving prior intelligence about the attacks.

Colombo: The Sri Lankan government never expected the Easter Sunday bombings to be of such magnitude, defence secretary Hemasiri Fernando said on Tuesday. He added that it would have been “impossible” to protect a large number of churches in the country despite receiving prior intelligence about the attacks which killed 290 people, including eight Indians.

Seven suicide bombers, believed to be members of local Islamist extremist group National Tawheed Jamath (NTJ), carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, in the country’s worst terror attack.

No group has claimed responsibility for Sunday’s attacks, but police have arrested 24 people – mostly members of the Islamist extremist group – in connection with the blasts that also killed 31 foreigners.

“It was quite impossible to protect a large number of churches last Sunday despite receiving prior information about these attacks,” Fernando told reporters.

He said that the government did not expect an attack of such magnitude to occur and the extensive measures to prevent the bombings would have been impossible.

“An emergency law is non-functional in this country since Sri Lanka is a democratic country. Therefore, there is very little I can do” the defence secretary was quoted as saying by the Sunday Times.

Fernando noted that the state intelligence service had already informed the government of a small but organised and powerful criminal group operating in the country.

Also Read: Sri Lanka Failed to Act on Intelligence About Attack on ‘Prominent Churches’

He said that the FBI has already commenced investigations into the incident while the Interpol is expected to arrive in the country on Tuesday.

The defence secretary also said the government will not provide protection to hotels as it is an aspect which must be looked after by their respective security officials.

Fernando said the government had not provided security to hotels even during the civil war.

Interpol secretary-general Jurgen Stock in a Twitter message offered full support to the investigation being conducted by Sri Lankan authorities.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s president Maithripala Sirisena Tuesday gave the military sweeping police powers in the wake of the Easter bombings.

The military was given a wider berth to detain and arrest suspects, powers that were used during the civil war but withdrawn when it ended.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said he feared the massacre could unleash instability and pledged to “vest all necessary powers with the defence forces” to act against those responsible.

The suicide bombings struck three churches and three luxury hotels Sunday in the island nation’s deadliest violence since a devastating civil war ended in 2009.

The blasts shattered a decade of peace in the island nation since the end of the brutal civil war with the LTTE.

The civil war ended with the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which ran a military campaign for a separate Tamil homeland in the northern and eastern provinces of the island nation for nearly 30 years.

The LTTE collapsed in 2009 after the Lankan army killed its supreme leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. The war is thought to have killed between 70,000 and 80,000 people.