‘We Knew What Was Coming’: Sri Lanka Sees ISIS’ Hand in Attacks

The burial of a victim of the Easter Sunday bomb blasts at Sellakanda Catholic Cemetery in Negombo, Sri Lanka, last month.CreditCreditAdam Dean for The New York Times

By Jeffrey Gettleman, Dharisha Bastians and Hannah Beech-May 3, 2019

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The suicide bombs were packed with ball bearings, iron nails and the explosive TATP, all hallmarks of the way the Islamic State likes to commit mass murder.

One of the bombers had traveled to Syria. Another trained in Turkey. One man arrested hours after the attacks had commuted between Sri Lanka and Syria, leading investigators to identify him as a possible middleman between the Islamic State and Sri Lankan militants.

As Sri Lankan investigators reveal key details from the suicide blasts that killed more than 250 people in churches and hotels across the island on Easter Sunday, more evidence points to a role by the Islamic State in inspiring — and perhaps directing — the slaughter.

Even as the Islamic State has been routed from territories in Iraq and Syria where its black flag once flew with impunity, the Sri Lanka attacks show the group is still capable of orchestrating carnage through loyalists in far-flung countries.

Few outside counterterrorism experts believed Sri Lanka was in imminent danger. But many Sri Lankans knew that the Islamic State was eyeing them. And some are furious that multiple warnings went unheeded. They feel their government essentially allowed more than 250 lives to slip between the cracks.

 

Firemen hosing down the damaged and bloodstained interior of St. Anthony’s Shrine in Colombo.CreditAdam Dean for The New York Times

Firemen hosing down the damaged and bloodstained interior of St. Anthony’s Shrine in Colombo.CreditAdam Dean for The New York Times

In November 2016, the justice minister told Parliament that more than two dozen Sri Lankans had recently joined the Islamic State, which he said was becoming a “grave problem.”

A few months later, a group of moderate Muslims presented police officials with 11 dossiers on local Islamist extremists, including Zaharan Hashim, whom they identified as the “leader of ISIS team in Sri Lanka.”

Officials have identified Mr. Zaharan as one of the suicide bombers and possibly the ringleader. For years, moderate Muslims had expressed concern that Mr. Zaharan was tearing at Sri Lanka’s delicate fabric that spans its Muslim, Buddhist and Christian communities. They unsuccessfully urged the police to arrest him.

Sri Lankan officials have blamed one another for dismissing detailed warnings about these threats. The fact that no one acted on the information about a growing Islamic State presence, just as no one acted in the weeks before the attacks on specific intelligence about possible suicide bombings, has compounded the grief and anger.

“I’m frustrated, but more than that, I am pained,” said Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, the former justice minister, who had spoken in Parliament more than two years ago about the Islamic State’s foothold. “I was carefully watching their movements. I knew the Islamic State was preparing for an attack here. Nobody listened.”

Sri Lankan officials say they are “95 percent finished” with the investigation and feel confident that they have arrested nearlyall the accomplices — 140 people have been identified as suspects — and have recovered their explosives, found during several raids.

Investigators say that Achchi Mohamed Mohamadu Hassthun, shown in video footage walking into St. Sebastian’s Church in Negombo on Easter Sunday, was the bomb maker.Creditvia Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Many new details of the attacks, including some that suggest a more active role by the Islamic State than just inspiration from afar, were told to The New York Times by a senior official involved in the investigation who has also been briefed about foreign intelligence on the Islamic State. The senior official, like several others interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing.

All the bombers were identified by officials as Sri Lankan. And investigators said that Achchi Mohamed Mohamadu Hassthun, seen on video footage coolly walking into St. Sebastian’s Church on Easter Sunday wearing a large backpack, was the bomb maker.

Investigators said that they had found bomb-making manuals on his computer and that he may have trained in Turkey. According to the senior Sri Lankan official, Mr. Hassthun built 11 TATP bombs in a garage in a suburb south of the capital, Colombo, using ordinary household materials, including huge bottles of glue. Triacetone triperoxide, commonly known as TATP, is the explosive of choice for ISIS bombers, including those behind the deadly attacks in Paris in November 2015.

Another bomber, Abdul Latheef Jamil, had traveled to Syria. But investigators suspect he might have been radicalized earlier in Australia, where he studied aeronautical engineering.

The authorities believe that Inshaf and Ilham Ibrahim, sons of one of Sri Lanka’s wealthiest spice traders, possibly financed the whole plot. In a final voice mail to his wife, the authorities said, Inshaf listed the money owed to him from various people, provided advice on which of the couple’s cars to sell, and told her, “I am going to God.”

Sri Lankans remain puzzled why some of their most privileged young men would do this. But the Islamic State ideology’s allure to some of Sri Lanka’s most well-to-do families has been known for years.

 

A photograph on the Facebook page of Sujeewa Senasinghe, a Sri Lankan minister, in 2016 showed Inshaf Ibrahim, right, as he and his father, center, accepted an award. The authorities believe that Inshaf and his brother, Ilham, possibly financed the plot.

A photograph on the Facebook page of Sujeewa Senasinghe, a Sri Lankan minister, in 2016 showed Inshaf Ibrahim, right, as he and his father, center, accepted an award. The authorities believe that Inshaf and his brother, Ilham, possibly financed the plot.

“These are not individuals from normal Muslim families,” Mr. Rajapakshe told Parliament in his 2016 speech.

Mr. Rajapakshe said he had based his claims on detailed information provided by moderate Muslims and government intelligence officers. He and others said it made sense because affluent Sri Lankans had more time and resources to surf the internet and find extremist material than those who had to devote all their energies to making ends meet.

Still, Mr. Rajapakshe said, after he gave his speech, he was ridiculed as an anti-Muslim bigot.

Sri Lankan officials said the first Sri Lankans joined the Islamic State in 2013 or 2014, around the time the group declared its caliphate straddling Syria and Iraq.

Back then, Daya Ratnayake was Sri Lanka’s army chief, and he said the military and intelligence establishment was paying close attention.

“We knew what was coming,” he said.

He said that the military established special groups to follow radical university students and online postings. He said the government deported more than 100 radical Islamist preachers, many from Pakistan. And he was aware that Mr. Zaharan’s group on Sri Lanka’s eastern coast was alienating moderates and conservatives alike.

“Our message to the moderates was to keep these radicals with you, don’t kick them out, don’t isolate them,” he said.

 

Zaharan Hashim, the possible ringleader of the plot, once preached in Kattankudy, on Sri Lanka’s eastern coast, before being run out of town by moderate Sufi Muslims.CreditAdam Dean for The New York Times

Zaharan Hashim, the possible ringleader of the plot, once preached in Kattankudy, on Sri Lanka’s eastern coast, before being run out of town by moderate Sufi Muslims.CreditAdam Dean for The New York Times

But that’s exactly what happened. After Mr. Zaharan’s followers attacked worshipers of the Sufi sect, he evaded arrest and disappeared.

In 2015, the Sri Lankan government confirmed its first case of a homegrown Islamic State fighter. Mohamed Muhsin Sharhaz Nilam, a well-respected school principal and karate instructor from central Sri Lanka, was killed in a coalition airstrike in Syria.

Around this time, Sri Lanka’s politics were in upheaval. Voters threw out President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the strongman who brought Sri Lanka’s decades-long civil war to a brutal end in 2009, and elected Maithripala Sirisena, a career politician from humble roots who presented himself as a democratic reformer.

Independent analysts say that Mr. Sirisena was too quick to move Sri Lanka off its military footing and that he sidelined many good intelligence officers.

Experts who track the Islamic State’s media operations said they had seen few if any specific mentions of Sri Lanka before the Easter attacks. The Islamic State had said plenty about slaughtering Christians, but its focus was the Middle East, Europe and, more recently, West Africa.

The Islamic State’s claim of responsibility for the Sri Lanka attacks, and its release of a video showing Mr. Zaharan pledging allegiance to the group’s leader, seemed to prove that they at least had maintained contact.

 

Security personnel in front of St. Anthony’s Shrine last month.CreditAdam Dean for The New York Times

Security personnel in front of St. Anthony’s Shrine last month.CreditAdam Dean for The New York Times

Further, to make the devastating bombs used in Sri Lanka, most experts believe that experienced Islamic State operatives must have helped.

“You need expertise to make the bomb, expertise for the detonators, expertise for the selection of the sites and how to indoctrinate people to kill themselves,” said Sidney Jones, the director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict in Jakarta, Indonesia.

“All that,” she said, “takes face-to-face training.”

Sri Lankan investigators say they are still trying to determine how that might have happened.

Officials believe that a Sri Lankan man named Sadiq, who has been arrested, traveled to Syria several times and served as Mr. Zaharan’s right-hand man. They also suspect that the Islamic State encouraged or directed the local group to attack churches. Before the Easter attacks, there had been little Muslim-Christian strife in Sri Lanka. Adherents of both religions are small minorities compared with the country’s Buddhist majority.

Investigators say that all the bombs in packs worn by the attackers were triggered by pulling a strap. Another bomb had been placed outside one of the churches, timed to explode around 90 minutes after the first explosions, for the purpose of killing the emergency teams and officials who rushed to the scene.

It failed to detonate.

 

Mujib Mashal and Kai Schultz contributed reporting from Colombo, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.

Dealing With The Devil

By Kasun Kamaladasa –MAY 4, 2019

Kasun Kamaladasa

When I first started to write to Colombo telegraph I thought I will never write an article which includes politicians directly. The main reason being Sri Lanka lacks unbiased political analysts and historians to get a fool proof picture and hence without doing immense amount of research on the subject it would be difficult to do justice to such an article. Secondly people are stuck within their own narratives with conspiracy theories and completely blinded to the faults of their “faith” (Political Party). But here I am today with no better choice.

This is a plea to protect freedoms of this country and not to sell your independence out of fear because of a few failed and irresponsible individuals. This is a plea to try to think clearly and seek long term goals within and after this chaos. This is a plea to start building trust as professionals so Sri Lankans have some place to turn instead of turning towards fake heroes and politicians when the next storm hits.

There is no excuse for anyone in the political hierarchy including the prime minister to evade blame to this situation, though it is argued that he has not been not informed. A country is not a school playground where a presidents and prime ministers’ personal relationship should in anyway matter to any decision making, may it be national security or otherwise. If there were laws prohibiting and preventing action the public should have been informed and necessary laws implemented with the help of relevant people so that action could be taken instead of providing excuses.

Even after the bomb blast I had some hope that the government would disclose what really happened and why such a disaster was not contained, if not possible to avoid. But instead I got a bunch of ministers laughing and accusing whoever was not present. I was even more disappointed that the health minister of the country, to whom I had a certain respect due to all that he achieved in the past few years against all odds, had no idea how to act appropriately or at least acknowledge the failings of those who should have been responsible.

The president of course has been irrelevant to Sri Lanka for several years now, all his speeches and acts just being gallery shows. His thirst for blood was reflected by bringing back death sentence cowardly as much as any terrorist who would try to take away another life. His superstitions far beyond the average Sri Lankan fool who buys trinkets for protection and the president’s attention to Sri Lankan problems limited to Facebook posts and news headlines.

When we open Facebook we see opportunistic politicians advertising their presidency, (sponsored by whom I do not know) and people who would benefit from their rise sharing false hope claiming that if they were here this would have never happened. Yet there were more than 6 suicide bombings when they were in power and had military checkpoints every 2 km, more shootings including a shooting that killed inmates in a prison (a place that was already guarded by armed forces) and even worse, individuals targeted and killed. They were unable to find any culprits who carried out these excesses. Most importantly they too were informed of this recent intelligence with regards to the suicide attacks on churches, yet waited like everyone else and denied of knowing anything afterwards.

But this collective failure of authorities in this event is just the tip of the iceberg of failing Sri Lankan politicians.

Religious hate groups are in the rise again and are more convinced that they were right to spread hatred and more people seem to be supporting its movement than ever before.  They assume if the hatred was spread more and if people had the power to kill or drive away others, who they deemed unsuitable (with their primitive tribal logic) that they would have been saved from this tragedy.

The police that has without a doubt have been tax payer sponsored henchmen of politicians for decades who seems to be only able to arrest couples kissing in beaches or parks. They were hunting wild goose chase and collecting points for president’s reelection with a drug war spectacle (police restructuring, reeducating and rebranding has been turned downed for many years and updating laws ignored for decades because people involved fear change.)

To add a little positivity to this article I must say I am grateful that the Army of Sri Lanka, for all these years I have known them, have been unbiased to most political and religious squabbles to a greater extent. They were able to distinguish between lawful and unlawful soldiers/officers most of the time (and take necessary action) even though most politicians and general public were unable to see beyond petty political slogans. They have done their utmost to defend our country peacefully even in our darkest hours (at least in recent history). I am also grateful for all the religious leaders who in these trying times try to keep their flock from acts of revenge and hatred. This has been far effective than weapons against the terrorist ideology instead of feeding into the fear and breeding a whole new generation of different terrorists.

Read More

Hizbullah’s connection to NTJ - Sumanthiran

ANANTH PALAKIDNAR & METHMALIE DISSANAYAKE-APR 24 2019

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian, President’s Counsel M.A. Sumanthiran said today (24) that Eastern Province Governor M.L.A.M. Hizbullah’s alleged connections to the National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ) must be investigated along with all connections this group has had with various other politicians and previous defence officials.

Sumanthiran was addressing the Parliament on the Easter Sunday carnage.

He said: “The Muslim people, to their credit, have repeatedly complained about these miscreants. Years ago, Muslim groups raised the issue of radicalisation with Government Intelligence officials, and appealed that steps be taken to halt this process. Further, in 2017 itself, they even held a demonstration in Kattankudy and asked that Zahran (suspected Leader of the NTJ) be arrested. I must, in this respect, commend the brave conduct of Minister Kabir Hashim, who has set a great example for all of us. There are many serious questions that are being asked about Hizbullah and his connections to the NTJ. This must be investigated along with all connections this group has had with various other politicians and previous defence officials.”

Meanwhile, TNA Leader R. Sampanthan, speaking in Parliament on the same day, said that there should be an investigation to determine whether there was a foreign link in the recent terror attacks.
He also said that an independent investigation should be carried out to find out why the authorities failed to act to prevent the tragedy when they had all the intelligence information.

“Findings of this investigation should be made public because people deserve the truth,” he said.
“Another important question is why the terrorists chose Sri Lanka for this attack. Is it that we are divided politically? Is it that we are weak in the economic perspective? We should find out that as well. We should turn this situation around. This Parliament unanimously agreed to pass a new Constitution. We should go forward with that for the sake of our country. We shouldn’t be a divided country. We should be united. For that a new Constitution should be implemented. Then everyone will feel that Sri Lanka is going on a new path. So everyone should commit to achieve that.

Otherwise we won’t be able to survive. We should keep to our commitment without any interruption,” he said.

SRI LANKA URGED NOT TO VIOLATE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS IN THE NAME OF COMBATING TERROR

Image: Top row (from left): Sima Samar, Kanak Mani Dixit, Hamida Hossain. Bottom row (from left): Uma Chakravarti, Shahidul Alam, Pamela Philipose, Beena Sarwar.

04/05/2019

Activists, academics and journalists from across South Asia have issued a statement in solidarity with the artists, thinkers and ordinary people of Sri Lanka.

New Delhi: In view of the recent wave of bombings in Sri Lanka, in which over 250 people were killed, a group of 243 activists, academics and journalists from all across South Asia have issued a statement in solidarity with the artists, thinkers and ordinary people of Sri Lanka.The signatories, as the statement says, have been at the forefront of facing the wrath of similar realities in their respective nation-states for decades.They include human rights activists from Afghanistan and Bangladesh, journalists from Nepal, Pakistan and India, and historians and feminists from India and Pakistan, among many others.

Read the full text below:

We the undersigned, who are from and live in the various nation-states of South Asia, express our deepest condolences to all those who have lost loved ones in the serial bomb blasts in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday. We express our solidarity with those working tirelessly to address the needs of the injured in the aftermath of this carnage and to sustain interfaith and community relationships.

While we support all justice efforts that seek to hold the perpetrators of violence accountable, we also urge the Government of Sri Lanka to ensure that, in the name of combating terror and ensuring national security, fundamental human rights and dignity of all concerned are not violated.

We say this because in all our countries, investigations into terror and anti-terror legislation have been accompanied by consistent and continuing violation of civil and democratic rights. Furthermore, in the name of ensuring national security, successive governments in the region have sought to legitimise their various acts of impunity – directed against not only purported or possible suspects but entire sections of the civilian population. This has led to unaccountable loss of life and a steady erosion of democratic guarantees and institutions, including unaccounted for deaths and disappearances.

We note with concern that media reports and remarks by state officials and political leaders in Sri Lanka have pointed to State inaction with respect to warnings by intelligence agencies about possible acts of terror. Such inaction and indifference, we regret to note, amounts to State complicity with the violence that subsequently unfolded.We are also concerned that the ‘owning up’ to these acts by the so-called ‘Islamic State’ (Daesh) might encourage Islamophobic attitudes and expressions, both on the part of the Sri Lankan Government and sections of civil society. Should this happen, Sri Lanka would be tragically drawn in to a familiar international discourse and practice to do with ‘Islamic terror’ with all the resultant tragedies, as we have witnessed across Asia. In a country that has barely recovered from decades of civil mistrust, war and violence, this cannot bode well for its sovereignty, civil peace and economic and social life.

We wish to point out that the so-called war on ‘Islamic terror’ has resulted in large numbers of the Islamic faith being persecuted, both in their countries and across the world – and this sadly only enhances the appeal of those who seek to wage war in the name of Islam and what they perceive as Islamic concerns and interests. Thus is set in motion a cycle of violence that benefits no one but the arms trade and industries, and political powers that seek to establish their hegemony in the region at all costs.

In this context:

nWe support all struggles to ensure transparent and fair pursuit of justice for the victims of the blast. At the same time, we stand with those who are against undemocratic anti-terror laws in Sri Lanka, even if they are purportedly deployed for purposes of investigation and national security.

nWe protest attempts to target or persecute those of the Islamic faith, in the name of countering terror, whether by the state or vigilante groups.

nWe support Muslim communities in the region that have called for peace and are critical of voices from within that endorse extremist religious positions, which polarise everyday life and interactions, and vitiate meaningful dissent and dialogue.

nWe affirm the resilience of diverse cultural and religious traditions in the region that have fostered longstanding habits of mutuality, trust and co-existence. We do not wish for the specificity of local beliefs and traditions, of all faiths, to be drawn into polarising global discourses of religious ‘unity’ and ‘singularity’ imposed from above.

List of signatories:

Afghanistan

Massihullah, Kabul Afghanistan
Sima Samar, Afghanistan
Nepal
Anju Kandel, Nepal
Deepa Gurung, Nepal
Hari Sharma, Kathmandu, Nepal
Kaalo.101, Nepal
Kanak Mani Dixit, Kathmandu
Kunda Dixit, Kathmandu, Nepal
NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati, Kathmandu, Nepal
Niranjan Kunwar, Kathmandu, Nepal
Sarita K.C, Nepal
India
Mangai, India
Abha Bhaiya, India
Abirami Jotheeswaran, India
Amar Kanwar, New Delhi, India
Anuradha Bhasin, Kashmir Times, India
Anuradha Kapoor, India
Arundathi V, India
Ashish kumar Dey, India
Bindu Doddahatti, India
Deepti Sharma, New Delhi, India
Dia Da Costa, India
Dipta Bhog, India
Farida Khan, India
Forum Against Oppression of Women, India
Geetha V, India
Huma Ahmed-Ghosh, India
Indu Vashist, India/Canada
Iram Saeed, India
Jinee Lokaneeta, India/USA
K, Lalita, India
Kamla Bhasin, India
Khalida Saleem, India
Madhu Mehra, India
Mamta Singh, Women Right Activist, India
Mary John, India
Maya Sharma Vikalp (Women’s Group), India
Meena Gopal, India
Meera Velayudhan, India
Mohan Rao, India
Mrinalini R, India
Nandini Manjrekar, India
Nandita Shah, India
Nastasia Paul Gera, India
Neelanjana Mukhia, India
Neeraj Malik, India
Nupur Basu, India
Pam Philipose, India
Panchali Ray, New Delhi, India
Ponni Arasu, India
Poonam Batra, India
Prathama Raghavan, Hyderabad, India
Rafiul Alom Rahman, India
Ramakant Agnohotri, India
Rita Manchanda, India
Ritu Dewan, India
Ritu Menon, India
Roshmi Goswami, India
Sabeena Gadihoke, India
Sahba Hussain, India
Saheli Women’s Resource Centre, New Delhi, India
Sameera Iyengar, India
Sara Abraham, India
Shohini Ghosh, India
Shrimoyee N, Ghosh, India
Snigdha Chakraborty, India
Sujata Patel, India
Svati Shah, India/USA
Swarna Rajagopalan, India
Tanvi Mishra, New Delhi, India
The Queer Muslim Project, India
Uma Chakravarty, India
Vanita Nayak Mukherjee, India
Veena Shatrughna, India
Mamatha Karollil, India
Afshana Bano, India
Supriya Madangarli, India
Pakistan
Abeera Tanveer, Pakistan
Ailya Khan, Pakistan
Ajwah Nadeem, Pakistan
Aminah Waheed Chaudhry, Pakistan
Ammar Ali Jan, Pakistan
Amna Durrani, Pakistan
Amna Iqbal, Pakistan
Amna Mawaz, Pakistan
Anis Haroon, Pakistan
Anoosha Shaigan, Pakistan
Arooj Aurangzeb, Pakistan
Asma Malik, Pakistan
Awami Workers Party, Punjab
Ayra Indrias, Pakistan
Baila Anjum, Lahore, Pakistan
Basmina, Pakistan-Afghan Border
Beena Sarwar, Pakistan
Beenish Muhammad Ali, Pakistan
Bonnie Mende
Candas Anjum, Pakistan
Qasim Iqbal, NAZ Pakistan
Faiz Younas, Pakistan
Farida Batool, Pakistan
Farida Shaheed, Pakistan
Fatema Bhaiji, Pakistan
Fatima A. Athar, Pakistan
Fatima Butt, Pakistan
FemSoc at LUMS, Pakistan
Feroza Batool, Pakistan
Fiza Khatri, Pakistan
Furhan Hussain, Pakistan
Ghausia Rashid Salam, Pakistan
Ghazala Anwar, Pakistan
Gwendolyn S. Kirk, USA/Pakistan
Hadi Hussain, Pakistan
Hameeda Hossain, Pakistan
Have Only Positive Expectations – HOPE, Pakistan
Hiba Akbar, Pakistan
Hira Mohmand, Pakistan-Afghan Border
Huma Fouladi, Pakistan
Huma Majeed, Pakistan
Humraz society, Karachi, Pakistan
Jamaima Afridi, Pakistan-Afghan Border
Jawad Anwar, Pakistan
Kashmala Dilawar, Pakistan-Afghan Border
Khawar Mumtaz, Pakistan
Khushbakht Memon, Pakistan
Kishwar Sultana, Pakistan
Kyla Pasha, Pakistan
Lubna Chaudhry
Madiha Latif, Pakistan
Maheen Asif Khan, Pakistan
Malik Moeed, Pakistan
Manal Yousuf, Pakistan
Mani AQ, Pakistan
Maria Rashid, Pakistan
Maryam Hussain, Pakistan
Maryum Orakzai, Pakistan-Afghan Border
Masooma Fatima, Pakistan
Mehlab Jameel, Pakistan
Melanie D’souza, Pakistan
Momina Jahan, Pakistan
Momina Pasha, Pakistan
Muaaz Ali, Pakistan
Naazish Ata-Ullah, Pakistan
Nabiha Meher Shaikh, Pakistan
Nageen Hyat, Pakistan
Naheed Aziz, Pakistan
Naila Naz, Pakistan
Nasim Begum, Pakistan-Afghan Border
Nasreen Rahman, Pakistan
Neelam Hussain, Pakistan
Nighat Dad, Pakistan
Nighat Said Khan, Pakistan
Nimra Akram, Pakistan
Noreen Naseer Pakistan
O Collective, Pakistan
Omer Arshad, Pakistan
Outcast Magazine, Pakistan
Palvashay Sethi, Pakistan
Queer Karachi, Pakistan
Quratulain Faraz, Pakistan
Rafia Asim, Pakistan
Rahma Muhammad Mian, Karachi
Roohi Khan, Pakistan
Rubina Saigol, Pakistan
Rukhsana Rashid, Pakistan
Saadia Haq, Pakistan
Saadia Toor, USA/Pakistan
Saba Gul Khattak, Pakistan-Afghan Border
Sabeen Andleeb, Pakistan
Sadaf Aziz, Pakistan
Sadia Afridi, Pakistan-Afghan Border
Sadia Khatri, Karachi, Pakistan
Saima Jasam, Pakistan
Saima Munir, Pakistan
Saleha Rauf, Pakistan
Saman Rizvi, Pakistan
Samavia Malik, Pakistan
Samina Orakzai, Pakistan
Samina Orakzai, Pakistan-Afghan Border
Sana Naeem, Pakistan
Sarah Humayun, Pakistan
Sarah Suhail, Pakistan
Sarah Zaman, Pakistan
Sehrish Tariq, Pakistan
Shafeeq Gigyani, Peshawar Pakistan
Shagufta Rehmat, Pakistan
Shazia Shaheen, Pakistan
Shirkat Gah – Women’s Resource Centre, Pakistan
Shmyla Khan, Pakistan
Shumaila Kausar, Pakistan
Shumaila Shahani, Pakistan
Syed Raza Haider, Pakistan
Tabitha Spence, Pakistan
Tahira Kaleem, Peshawar, Pakistan
Tehreem Azeem, Pakistan
The Enlight Lab, Pakistan
Wafa Asher, Pakistan
Women’s Action Forum, Pakistan
Yusra, Pakistan-Afghan Border
Zahra Durrani, Pakistan
Zakia Majid, Pakistan
Zeenat Afridi, Pakistan – Afghan Border
Zeenia Shaukat, Pakistan
Zehra Keshf, Pakistan
Ambreen Ahmad, Pakistan
Bangladesh
Amena Mohsin, Dhaka Bangladesh
Anusheh Anadil, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Arup Rahee, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Adilur Rahman Khan, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Dr Asif Nazrul, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Dr Hameeda Hossain, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Dr Ridwanul Hoque, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Faustina Pereira, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Shahidul Alam, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Shahnaz Huda, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Fahmidul Haq, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Firdous Azim, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Galiba Rabbani, Bangladesh
Gitiara Nasreen, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Hana Shams Ahmed, Bangladesh/Canada
Inclusive Bangladesh, Bangladesh
Khushi Kabir, Bangladesh
Nur Khan, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Meghna Guhathakurta, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Mirza Taslima Sultana, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Mohammad Tanzimuddin Khan, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Mohammed Iqbal Hossaion, Bangladesh
Monika Biswas, Bangladesh
Perween Hasan, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Rahnuma Ahmed, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Reetu Sattar, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Rezaur Rahman Lenin, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Rina Roy, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Selima Sara Kabir, Bangladesh
Shaheen Anam, Bangladesh
Shamsul Huda, Bangladesh
Sharnila Nuzhat Kabir, Bangladesh
Shireen P Huq, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Sultana Kamal, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Zareen Mahmud Hosein, Bangladesh
Others
Aurangzaib Alizai, Thailand
Kumkum Dey, New Jersey
Rumah Pelangi Indonesia
(Source: https://thewire.in/south-asia/sri-lanka-urged-not-to-violate-fundamental-rights-in-the-name-of-combating-terror.)

How our people’s security came to be sacrificed at the altar of political power-play

“…it is not the doctrine of the founder per se but the socio-politico milieu which a religious

doctrine inhabits that can give it the horrible

potential for intolerance and violence…”
Power game resumes

Saturday, 4 May 2019

The horrifying sadness engulfing our nation notwithstanding, we observe, once again, the ruthless play of the power game by our senior politicians. In a country like where I live (Australia) competing political parties would have come together, eschewed the blame game and united themselves to collectively find an agreed strategy in order to prevent this from ever happening again. Not so in Sri Lanka.

To begin with, the power game offered fertile ground for the emergence of Muslim radicalism in Sri Lanka and it resumes even today unashamedly in the face of the Easter Sunday human onslaught that killed nearly 300 persons while in prayer and Western tourists while having breakfast, leaving many more in hospital battling for their lives.

Rajapaksa brothers acting


Mahinda Rajapaksa rushed to the scene, visiting dead bodies along with TV cameras. Acting outraged, he exclaimed that this would not have happened had they been in power. His once powerful brother, former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who has been for months grooming himself to be presidential candidate in the forthcoming elections, made a pre-election promise that if he comes to power he would ensure that Islamic radicalism will be banished forever.

Foolish and gullible persons (both ‘educated,’ and illiterate) who have bought the Rajapaksa-created myth that the brothers had won the war with the Army General playing only a disposable and supporting role, nods a chorus, “Yes. Indeed, true”!

In Nadagam style, Sinhalese call this an “athwel gaayana.” How familiar I am since playing decades ago in the Maname original cast! The Rajapaksa chorus is observed in the diaspora, too, where otherwise respectable professionals are observed performing that.

Global radical Islam

A global force of an onward-march of radical Islam lies at the depths of the tragedy we saw on Easter Sunday. One cannot properly comprehend the Easter human disaster without knowing what this aggressive march of monstrosity is. It isn’t, plainly, Islam. That’s is for sure. Islam is a doctrine of peace. However, doctrines of all religions are one thing and the religious manifestations are another – variedly another.

The problem of religion is that it is built on unquestionable faith; there is no search for evidence or resort to reasoned argument possible in any discourse pertaining to any religion. Faith offers a dangerous leap because it is a slippery ground for many a crazy adventure in the name of religion. Christianity has had a violent history of intolerance. Even Buddhism – reputed as the world’s most peaceful religion – is now showing bigotry and savagery.

Atheists like me advocate the end of all religion and we love John Lennon’s memorable and awe-inspiring song, ‘Imagine,’ which invokes us to imagine (among other things) there is no religion and “all the people living in peace.”

Socio-political milieu

This points out to one solid reality, namely, it is the doctrine of the founder per se but the socio-politico milieu which a religious doctrine inhabits that can give it the horrible potential for intolerance and violence.

In the global context it is geopolitics. Western imperialism needed the input of the Christian religion to give it justification and driving power. That imperialism is now over. Radical Islam is also driven by geopolitics. The Arab states have a vital economic hold on the rest of the world in the supply of oil. Yet, looking around, they feel they are under threat from the Western political forces and the Western modernising cultural forces that threaten their whole way of life.

They recall the glorious days when Prophet Muhammed went conquering lands of heathen or unbelievers and expanded into a kind empire. Although in a different world context altogether, modern Muslim geopolitics is driven on this same ideology of expansion and conquest; the missionary objective of religious conversion is only the justifying and energising emotional drive.

Any religion can always find some apparent justification from a perception on the part of believers of the founder’s intention.

Osama Bin Laden was the prophet of radical Islam. Today’s radicalists take their cue from him. Born in a wealthy Yemeni family Osama was extremely wealthy himself-owning billions worth at the time of his death. Osama bin Laden mocked the Americans and the West in general as sworn enemies of Islam and the Islamic way of life. Since Christianity provides the foundation of the Western civilisation, so Christians everywhere are potential victims of their wrath. Bin Laden’s own destruction by US power is a constant stimulus for anger and hate among fundamentalists.

Emergence of radical Islam in Sri Lanka

The above brief gives some indication of the considerably potential danger of radical Islamists. Hence, Sri Lanka cannot afford but to wipe out this menace and have a constant eye on local developments. This is not something our political leaders ever sensed. Their power game was more important. Muslims, to them, formed a significant vote bank. Why not pacify that?

Sharmila Syyad writing recently to the Colombo Telegraph (‘Easter Sunday Monstrosity’) points out how these radicalists had surfaced in the island as far back as 2002. She observed in her village how these bands of youth went about brainwashing other youth and compelling girls and women to wear the abaya and long gown.

Muslim merchants made good money from that, she suggests. “The abayas and other masks took root as default symbols of our ‘culture,’” says the writer.

Even the Quran which had previously cost only Rs. 300 was soon sold for Rs. 3,000 plus, the writer says. Gradually this trend kept growing. Soon, schools came up out of oil funds from Gulf States and kids became indoctrinated in a violence-prone version of the faith.

Both major parties wouldn’t touch these elements because they would lose votes. The majority Sinhala vote bank being highly competitive, the votes of Muslims and Tamils became vital for victory. In this way, the movement that caused our Easter genocide grew and grew.

Some moderate Muslim leaders who met President Sirisena at a meeting of all religious leaders held recently in his office pointed out how they had repeatedly informed the former Rajapaksa Government about the threat of radical Islam and how nothing had been done.

Azad Ali, Governor of the Western Province, in a recent TV interview charged that Gotabaya Rajapaksa was protecting and strengthening the radicalist leader of Thoweed Jamaat, the terrorist organisation which coordinated the Easter bombings.

Now, a different song

We know that President Maithripala Sirisena kept the Prime Minister out of Security Council meetings since the failed constitutional coup on 26 October; nor was the State Minister of Defence in the council. This was a different manifestation of the political power game screaming, as it was, with stupidity and catastrophe only.

One online paper said, “He took away all power of security along with him like a Grama Sevaka taking all files along with him.” Our President made a beeline to God Tirupathi. Comrade Tirupathi should have warned him, “Get back! A calamity is about to fall on your people”!

The comic element is hard to un-see. Sirisena needs to vacate, asap. On the other hand, the attempted re-entry of the Rajapaksa brothers into the political arena on the graves of corpses represents a sordid kind of duality characterised by both catastrophe and hilarity.

The newspapers reported on 30 April that Mahinda is locked up in meetings with Gota and former defence personal, in a kind of Security Council of his own making. The 52-day fake Prime Minister seems in the process of becoming a fake President.
(The writer can be reached via sjturaus@optusnet.com.au.)

Saudi Arabia arrests 2 for links to Lanka bombing plotter on Indian intel

Officers in Indian security agencies say they are already in touch with their Saudi Arabian counterparts to find out on any links between the IS cadres responsible for the Sri Lanka attacks and Kasargode (Kerala)-Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu) module in India, with Colombo on the verge of sending a team to Saudi Arabia.

After the Easter Day bombing, Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale is believed to have called up the top-brass of the Tata owned Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL) to ask them to install security scanners and metal detectors at their three properties in Sri Lanka because all the suicide bombers are still not accounted for.(REUTERS)

Shishir Gupta - May 04, 2019
Hindustan Times, New Delhi

Saudi Arabia is learnt to have arrested Maulana Rila, brother-in-law of the Islamic State inspired Shangri-La hotel bomber Zahran Hashim, and a colleague of his, who just goes by the name Shahnawaj, last week on the basis of inputs from Indian intelligence. Hashim was the leader of National Towheed Jama’at and chief radicaliser of the hardline salafi group responsible for the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka. India is believed to have provided several warnings on the attacks, including time- and location-specific details, which were ignored by Sri Lanka.

Officers in Indian security agencies say they are already in touch with their Saudi Arabian counterparts to find out on any links between the IS cadres responsible for the Sri Lanka attacks and Kasargode (Kerala)-Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu) module in India, with Colombo on the verge of sending a team to Saudi Arabia.

After the Easter Day bombing, Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale is believed to have called up the top-brass of the Tata owned Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL) to ask them to install security scanners and metal detectors at their three properties in Sri Lanka because all the suicide bombers are still not accounted for. The IHCL owned Taj Samudra had a lucky escape on April 21 as UK educated suicide bomber Abdul Latif Mohammed Jamil entered the hotel but could not trigger the device. He later died in a blast at the Tropical Inn in Dehiwala suburb with a couple also losing their lives in the blast.

For the record, Indian intelligence alerted Sri Lankan police and security agencies on April 4, 10, 16 (the day the device was tested in a motorcycle), 20 and two hours before the multiple suicide bombings on April 21, the last with the names of three churches under imminent bombing threat.

The IS inspired bombings in Sri Lanka have raised serious concerns over spread of this Islamic group in India through the virtual space as the rabid group hardly holds any territory in Syria or Iraq. IS handlers are radicalising cadres in India through cyber-identities such as Yusuf al Hindi/ Abu Hurairah (used by Indian Mujahideen absconder Shafi Armar), Sameer Ali (used by Shajeer Mangalassery of Islamic State in Khorasan Province, killed in Afghanistan), Gold Dinar (used by Abdul Rashid Abdulla, main motivator of radicals from Kerala in ISKP and
Babyboy111/Snickers021/Anwer (used by Ashfaq Majeed, who hails from Karala and belonging to ISKP). Since the rise of IS in 2014, around 115 Indian nationals have been radicalised and reached various conflict zones where the group held sway.

Around 81 reached Syria, Iraq and Libya, another 34 reached Nangarhar province of Afghanistan largely. From this original group of 115, 24 died fighting in Syria and Iraq and 11 lost their lives in Afghanistan. In addition to this 35 Indians were deported to India. Around 126 individuals are under the scanner of law enforcement agencies in India with 8 Indian nationals under arrest for their affiliations in other countries. So far nine persons affiliated to Islamic State, J&K have died in encounters in the state with security forces with eight of them hailing from Valley.

First Published: May 04, 2019 07:12 IST

Fragments and fissures in State and society – Post Easter

All party meeting

Rajan Philips-May 4, 2019, 12:00 pm 

"The State of Ceylon embraces three ethnic groups and four religions."
Pierre Elliot Trudeau, 1962.

Two meetings, two pictures. They say it all about the state of Sri Lanka’s political establishment following the Easter Sunday calamities. The first (The Island, April 26) shows Sirisena presiding over an all-party meeting. The President’s pathetic photo-up to cover up his incompetence and failure generally as President and especially as Defence Minister. In the second (Daily Mirror, April 29),Mahinda Rajapaksa is presiding over a para-state gathering of the former Defence Secretary and a handful of former commanders discussing the state of national security after the blasts on Easter Sunday. Mahinda Rajapaksa is the only person in both pictures – Leader of the Opposition in one, and head of para-state in the other.

In any other country or under any other government in Sri Lanka, the second picture would have provoked howls of condemnation that it is a virtual show of treason. But the first picture explains why the second picture is even there. A government utterly divided and totally in disarray has given the gumption to the folks of the former government to pretend that they are in virtual power now and to assert that they will be in real power soon. There is no cabinet government even in name. And the parliament, for all intent and purpose, has become totally irrelevant. This is one side of the post-Easter reality.

The other side is the sociopolitical side – its fragments and fissures that have been brought into sharp relief by the targeted bombings of places of worship belonging to onereligious group by extremist outliers of another religious group. This has never happened in Sri Lanka. Nor has there been a targeted attack on foreign tourists. The external impetus to these events is now well established and that too is unprecedented. There is understandably a dialectic between the global emergence of radical Islamic groups (not movements) like the Al-Qaeda and the ISIS, on the one hand, and the radicalization of Muslim politics in many non-Arab countries.

In its genesis and its implications, the radicalization of Muslim politics in predominantly, or majority, Muslim countries from Turkey to Indonesia, is manifestly different from the processes of radicalization in countries where the Muslims are a minority. Even among the latter grouping, Sri Lanka has its own peculiarities. India, where the Muslims are a minority, is in a league of its own as it is in every socio-political phenomenon. The Muslim question in western countries is also different, given the different source countries for Muslim migration and the differences between traditional Europe and the immigrant societies of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US.

Muslim Radicalization

The current radicalization of Muslims in Sri Lanka is the result of a sliver of Sri Lanka’s Muslim population coming under - what scholars on Islamic radicalization call the "narrow, literalist interpretation of Islam’’, against traditional forms of Muslim worship and religious practices. The main impetus for radicalization has been acknowledged to be the ‘Wahhabi influence’ from Saudi Arabia supplemented by Saudi money and messianic inspirations. Commentators have drawn attention to early warning signs that emerged as far back as 2006 and 2007:the proliferation of madrasas and non-traditional Mosques, Tamil translations of Osama bin Laden speeches, and attacks on Sufi shrines in the Eastern Province. To their credit, moderate Muslim individuals and groups have consistently and even loudly warned government and Muslim leaders of the dangerous developments on the ground. The factors that led to these warnings being ignored were also the factors that created a fertile soil for the process of radicalization to take root to the extent that we are seeing today.

No Sri Lankan government was ever going to do anything to displease any Middle Eastern government on whom Sri Lanka depended for importing oil and exporting primarily domestic labour. The way recent Sri Lankan governments operate, as we have come to know, it is unlikely that these matters would have been discussed at any policy level to develop an overall approach to dealing with the new socio-religious channels between Sri Lanka and the Middle East. Political leaders and government officials opted to turn a blind eye to the radicalization of small groups of Muslims, and turned a deaf ear to the large number of complaints from moderate Muslims. This approach also enabled the coterie of Muslim radicals to use willing Muslim politicians as their protectors from policing and apprehensions.

To digress here for a moment, we saw the stunning culmination of these developments in the decision of senior Defence Ministry and law enforcement officials, as has been credibly reported, to ignore the pre-Easter warnings from India because acting on those warnings might annoy Pakistan. How can anyone make any sense of this? How can any sensible Sri Lankan believe that the President would not have been a party to this native strategizing? Even if Pakistan was a serious consideration, wouldn’t it have been a more sensible approach to contact and apprise Pakistan at highest level about the Indian information, while taking every step based on thatinformation to prevent the calamity that eventually happened on Easter Sunday. In the end, no one contacted India, no one contacted Pakistan, and the perpetrators were given a clear path to go ahead and do what they did.

The external impulses to radicalization found a favourable local environment over the last few decades. For starters, the dynamic of Tamil separatism played its own catalytical role in the radicalization among the Muslims. Although the vast majority of the Muslims were neutral in the conflict over the separate state, more than a few of them joined one or the other group of Tamil militants fighting for separation, while others became collateral victims in much larger numbers of LTTE vengeance for alleged collaboration with government forces. After the war, Muslims became an easy target for extreme Sinhala Buddhist groups who periodically attacked the Muslims with impunity. The irony was that moderate Muslims became victims of a double squeeze. On the one hand, the government ignored the warnings of moderate Muslims about their own extremists; on the other hand, the government abandoned them when they came under attacks from the extremists of other groups.

What has also emerged is that in the cacophony of ‘Tiger cries’(the new way of crying wolf) that drown out any other discussion in Sri Lankan politics, the police missed out on identifying the real killers of the two policemen who were killed in Batticaloa, in November last year. The police arrested former LTTEers on suspicion while those who were responsible for the killing remained free to plan for Easter Monday.

At another level, what underpinned the process of radicalization was the regionalization of Muslim politics and the emergence political leaders especially from the Eastern Province, and also from the Mannararea. These new leaders challenged the traditional leadership of Muslim elites in the Western, Central and Southern Provinces and their co-option into the two major political parties of Sri Lanka. Even though the new Muslim political parties that emerged remained within the moderate matrix in politics, the regional dynamic gave another impetus to Muslim radicalization. Not surprisingly, East became the incubator for the process for radicalization. It may not be widely known now, but Eastern Province Muslims have traditionally shown a flair for oratory in Tamil. That flair too has been a factor in the spread of radicalization as is being now reported. It was quite inevitable that the global messianism of Islam would provide the spark that turned these local processes into quite a little fire.

The State and society

To complete the circle, more than a spark flew in from abroad to ignite the Easter Sunday bombs. To many commentators on global terrorism, the local perpetrators really punched well above their weight. The commentary is also that the ISIS was not targeting Sri Lanka to become its new theatre, but it found a situation in Sri Lanka that had been independently ripened for exploitation. There have also been suggestions that Sri Lanka may have been looked upon as a base for targeting India, rather than the other way around as I alluded to last week. While there have been worldwide commentaries and analyses of what happened on Easter Sunday, the government of Sri Lanka is yet to provide a cogent explanation of what went wrong and how it is planning to put things right. This is too much to ask from a government and its leaders who cannot even offer a coherent apology or intelligently participate in international media interviews.

The self-proclaimed alternatives to the present government, the Rajapaksa family that is, are not offering anything qualitatively different except loads of bravado. They may take their cue from Prime Minister Modi who has just been doing that in his electioncampaign in India. After the Easter Sunday blasts in Sri Lanka, Modi has been campaigning that such a tragedy will never happen in India on his watch because the terrorists are frightened of him. It is quite possible that Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa will borrow that slogan from Modi for use in Sri Lanka’s presidential election. But how much will he be able to do within the fetters of the Rajapaksa political formation? That is the question about the Rajapaksa alternative to the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe zombie administration. Let us look at the pictures again.

In the first picture, Ranil Wickremesinghe unsurprisingly cuts a lonely figure, stuck between the President and Sajith Premadasa, the President’s favouriteUNPer. What you see in the second picture is more consequential.

In contrast to Ranil’s lonely status, Gotabhaya is caught in an obsequious pose, the perpetual apprentice to the all-powerful older brother – a taste of things to come even if Gotabhaya were to become the next President of Sri Lanka. To add to the tamasha, Lanka’s most discredited law professor (GL Peiris) and its most discredited ex-revolutionary (Vasudeva Nanayakara) are duly relegated to the sidelines of the para state. Perching over from behind in the other picture is Basil Rajapaksa, plotting as always to kidnap the country again for the Rajapaksas even if it means having his least favourable sibling occupy the most powerful seat in the country.

My point is that even though it is normal to have expectations that after the next presidential and parliamentary elections things should get better with a new President and a new parliament, it is not going to be the case in Sri Lanka. For nothing in this country will change for the better so long as any or all of the grandees in the two pictures are the ones who are going to be in charge of the state and government again after whatever electionsmay come and go. The two pictures say that better than all the words that we write can do. At least in 2015, there was on offer, a believable promise and in Maithripala Sirisena there was a credible candidate to ride on that promise. Ranil Wickremesinghe promised the sun and the moon and everything in between, and some of it in great detail. This time around even they know that they have neither the credibility nor the substance to offer any promise.

Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s situation is different. Just days after Easter Sunday, he paid a courtesy visitto Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith and then, with or without the scarlet blessings, we do not know, Gotabhayawent on to proclaim that he is hundred percent ready to be a presidential candidate at the next presidential election. If that was a high point for Gotabhaya after his California summons, and relative to the post-Easter pits that Sirisena and Wickremesinghe have slumped into, he was soon brought to earth by the para-state meeting shown in the second picture. If elected President, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa will likely feel more constrained by his brothers than anyone in the new opposition.

Historically, Sri Lanka had its best time for the brightest prospects at the time of independence, in 1948. The State was at its strongest and it looked strong enough to accommodate and manage its sociopolitical fissures to the point of drawing praise from someone like Pierre Trudeau, in faraway Canada, that "The State of Ceylon embraces three ethnic groups and four religions." This was before Pierre Trudeau (father of the present Canadian Prime Minister) became Prime Minister, in 1968. He was an intellectual activist at that time and was in vigorous argument with French Canadian separatists in his natal province, Quebec.

Unbeknownst to Trudeau and many others, however, fragments and fissures were already developing in Sri Lanka’s State and society. The State that was set up to cement the fissures in society has since become fragmented and even atrophied. The two pictures say it all. As for the society, the old fissures have given way to new cracks and the new cracks gave a bloody appearance on Easter Sunday. Tragic though the situation is, it is neither unfathomable nor unsolvable. But not by any one in the two pictures. They are more part of the problem than they can be part of any solution.

Forever branded

Manuela Motha-Saturday, May 4, 2019

In the predominantly Muslim Colombo suburb in which I live, the mood is sombre, the air heavy, the tension palpable, at the supermarket on Saturday (27) afternoon, just a week after the deadly Easter Sunday bombings.

The faces I scan show, if not fear, then consternation; not just one group of faces, but all – no matter the race, the age, the social class. Terrorism, is then, a deadly equalizer. And there is, above all, an air of resignation, a demeanour that gives away that this is no new demon, but a nemesis ever shadowing Sri Lankans.

Not surprising then that staples such as milk and ‘tinned fish’ (as in local parlance) have been cleaned off the supermarket shelves, so used to ‘stocking up for an emergency’ are we Sri Lankans.

Just a few weeks ago, it was the searing heat and relentless power shutdowns that we were preoccupied with, that dealt a body blow to the economy; how that pales in comparison to the diabolical Easter Sunday bloodshed.

As I stand in the supermarket queue among a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious group, a middle-aged Muslim lady greets a young Muslim man she obviously knew, with the familiar Arabic “As-Salaam Alaikum.” He responds, “Wa Alaikum Salaam.” They then proceed to speak in my mother tongue; so I understand their conversation, although I’m sure they don’t think I would.
She complains that after the Easter Sunday attacks, the supermarket has temporarily suspended accepting phone and utility bill payments. Her mobile phone connection has been barred as she has reached her credit limit. He replies that she can try the customer care centre a kilometre away, and then they both realize that it would close soon, as people hurry home before curfew.

Self-imposed curfew

Veritably, even if the government hadn’t ordered it, there was a self-imposed curfew among the people last week – Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim or Burgher, they wanted to be home before dusk, not willing to take any risk, what with search operations ongoing countrywide and the grisly pictures of what began as a seemingly innocuous Easter morning indelibly printed in their minds. For, whether ‘the Mother of Satan’ or an RPG, a bomb does not discriminate – the victims of the Easter bombings included locals and foreigners, Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims apart from Christians, and saddest of all, some 45 children, even toddlers.

As I went about my errands in my neighbourhood last weekend, I looked at my Western clothes and sent a silent ‘thank you’ heavenward. For, I’m often thought to be Sri Lankan Moor or Malay, both of which I’m not.

Relief mixed with guilt mixed with sadness mixed with empathy.

Relief not to be the targeted ethnic group as we once were; the guilt of one who did not face the terror attacks; sadness at the unimaginable suffering of the victims and their relatives; empathy which stretched like a silent bond as I pondered the fear the Muslims in my neighbourhood must feel, a fear I’m all too familiar with.

For I’m a minority thrice over – of race, religion and gender. My identity is then like a mosaic, a kaleidoscope of ever-changing patterns, one I understand so well, yet that seems strange to others.
A few weeks ago, on a late evening commute from work, the familiar fear I knew as a young girl and a young woman coursed through my veins, as a group of young boys boarded the rather empty bus and proceeded to taunt and mock a middle-aged Chinese couple. How thankful was I, and I’m sure the Chinese couple, as more passengers got in.

How well I remember the day when I was very young, when my cousin, playmate and best friend, whom I lost to cancer 25 years ago, announced to me that we were Tamil; I vehemently disagreed and insisted we were English, and so a rare dispute arose between us. We decided to settle it by asking Akka, my older and wiser elder sister; it was a moment of truth indeed, when she did confirm that we were Tamil, which drastically changed my seven-year-old worldview. So dejected was I that day, that the library of Enid Blytons, annuals, and more was not something intrinsic to my culture. One of the greatest gifts my parents bestowed me was the love of books and indeed, names of iconic London landmarks such as Tottenham Court Road and Paddington Station evoke similar sentiments as would enjoying Vesak pandals or the Vel festival.

Therein lies the contradiction in terms, the oxymoron if you like, that I am, English-educated, English-speaking, Catholic, and Indian Tamil, or as our particular community is euphemistically categorized in the Census, Bharatha. I however, would have it no other way and wear my peculiar identity as a proud badge, as I’m sure every Sri Lankan does. I just skirt those with an insular, parochial mindset and enjoy what I like to think are very intellectual discussions with those with whom I share a meeting of the minds, no matter the demographic. With Sinhala Buddhist friends at work, for instance, we discuss everything from movies like Ginnen Upan Seethala to Asandhimitta, to the state of the nation, to tips on dieting, mindfulness and workouts, over lunch or tea.

 

 

So as a Sri Lankan Roman Catholic of Indian Tamil origin, I studied in the English medium, then reserved for the ‘mixed’ and so my friends were all from minority groups – mostly Muslim and Burgher. How sad that the latter are an ever-dwindling number in the Census, most opting to migrate to Australia.

I was first introduced to curfew and overflying SLAF aircraft as a very young child during the first insurgency, and then it only meant the happiness of ‘no school’. I was perplexed when I saw Tamil shops attacked after the 1977 General Elections, unable to understand why. That paled however in comparison to the horror of 1983, and the war years.

Before 1983, race was not the focus of identity, as it undeniably is now. I was regarded as Burgher, for I thought and felt in the English language, it is and will ever be for me, my first language. Not really of my choice alone, but of a confluence of circumstances, perhaps.

After 1983, and to date, no matter where, whether in a three-wheeler or at the bank, one of the first questions is, “Miss Sinhala nevai, neda?” or “Miss, gama koheda?” And when I reply, all I get in return are downcast eyes, implying ‘second-class citizen’ or ‘marginalised’. Forever branded.

And then, as circumstance would have it, towards the end of the war, I decided to join the bandwagon of migrating colleagues at my then workplace. Why I say ‘bandwagon’ is that unlike they who had made a commitment to settle overseas, I, when in Canada, who had regarded myself as very independent, ever wished to return to the blue skies and green trees back home, the lushness that always hits me first as I return home from the BIA after an overseas trip. And I did, with little regret.

Of course, to Canadians, such a friendly people, with whom I was ever so comfortable, so cosmopolitan were they, I was merely ‘brown’, the peculiarity of the mixture of my nationality, race, and religion escaping them. As ‘brown’, I did feel excluded, but then, all I have of that brief period with them are of very warm memories, such lovely people were they.

Then, quixotic and impulsive as those close to me know me to be, I chose after returning home as soon as the war ended, primarily because job opportunities in my very narrow field are few, I chose to live and work in India.

As a Tamil, and having studied there earlier, I thought I could fit in like a ‘hand in glove’ as it were, only to find to my chagrin that my mode of speaking, dressing and thinking, in those years immediately after the war, made my colleagues wary of me. They just couldn’t see me as Tamil, and chose to believe otherwise.

Low profile

Ironically, I was branded ‘Sinhalese’ – in that part of the world, a second-class citizen indeed, one who didn’t belong there. Anytime there were tensions about events related to the recent war in Sri Lanka, even my friends would caution me to keep a low profile, no matter how much I told them that I was Tamil. Very soon, I learnt not to air my views on Sri Lanka and to adopt the low profile of a minority, in office and elsewhere. We just couldn’t understand or gel with each other.

I loved the jobs I had in India, but my heart was ever in this gem of an island, and thankfully, now, after some years, it seems I never left Sri Lankan shores. How grateful I am for that feeling.

Racism is something I abhor; I enjoy the diversity of people, and as getting ready for work on Sunday (28) morning, exactly a week after the terror attacks, my heart warms as I hear Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith espousing the richness of diversity, during the televised Mass, held at Archbishop’ House as Sunday services were cancelled for security reasons. So proud am I to be Catholic at that moment.
Indeed, so proud was I to be Catholic, as after the Easter bombings, Catholic leaders entreated their flocks that hatred be returned with forgiveness, appealing for peace for every Sri Lankan citizen. As did New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern after the Christchurch massacres, local Catholic and Christian leaders set the tone for reconciliation, unity, and brotherhood, after the unthinkable tragedy.

So, no matter who brands me as whatever, I am comfortable in my own skin, in the land of my birth that I love so dearly and am so very glad God brought me back to. May His name be praised forever.