Urgent Appeal for Action: persecution of refugees in Sri Lanka

The people in Pakistan attacked us and say we’re not Muslims…. Then in Sri Lanka, people attack us because they say we are Muslims.”

May 2, 2019

Those were the words of 58-year old Tariq Ahmed, an Ahmadiyya man from Pakistan, who until recently had been living in the town of Negombo, Sri Lanka, having fled religious persecution in his home country. He is now one of over a thousand refugees and asylum seekers to have been hounded out of their homes by violent mobs seeking ‘revenge’ against members of the Muslim community in response to the Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka.

Pakistani Ahmadi Muslim refugees who found refuge in Sri Lanka are now being moved to a safe location after facing threats following the Easter Sunday bombings. pic.twitter.com/YGxrUECwuL

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) 30 April 2019

The situation that Tariq and others like him face is now desperate. After several failed attempts to re-locate them inside Sri Lanka, hundreds of families – including children, breastfeeding mothers, and the elderly – are now scattered across three makeshift displacement camps. Conditions in the camps are dire, with serious over-crowding, inadequate water supplies, and no access to healthcare. Without strong guarantees from Sri Lanka’s political leaders, many are extremely fearful of further violence being carried out against them.

An experienced human rights activist who has been working to help the families told us: “The physical and mental trauma being done to an already scared and distraught population is beyond description.”

There is no straightforward response to the situation. What is needed right now is action at a number of levels from a range of key players. The government of Sri Lanka, members of the international community, and relevant UN agencies, all need to step up to the plate to ensure the safety of these people, deliver urgent humanitarian relief, and provide durable solutions.

So urgent is the situation that local activists are requesting countries around the world to speed up the process of re-settling individuals that they have already agreed to accept as refugees – and to consider accepting further numbers as necessary to deal with the crisis.

To make that happen we need to raise the profile of this issue and bring pressure to bear on those key players. In order to that, we are asking our supporters to do the following:

1. Send a copy of the letter below to your elected representative (in the UK, Canada, US or at EU level)
2. Share our latest infographic below on social media, telling your friends about the current situation, and ‘tagging’ any of those mentioned above who can help to resolve it. (This could include, for example, your elected representatives, Sri Lankan government officials, or relevant UN agencies).

Doing either of these two things should take you just a couple of minutes. But we believe that by drawing attention to this issue, your action – together with the important work being done by those on the ground – will have important knock-on effects that could save lives.

Please act now.

Thank you.

The Sri Lanka Campaign Team

Infographic:

Suggested letter:

Dear [name of elected representative],

I write to draw your attention to the desperate plight of over a thousand refugees and asylum seekers currently residing in Sri Lanka, who since the devastating attacks on Easter Sunday have been threatened by violent mobs and hounded out of their homes. They are currently scattered across three displacement camps in the South of Sri Lanka and enduring appalling conditions.

Most of the refugees are Muslims from Pakistan and Afghanistan, but they also include Christians. Many, like the Ahmadiyya from Pakistani, fled to Sri Lanka due to persecution they faced in their own countries.

Right now, they are in dire need of humanitarian relief. But they also need those in power to act and provide them with sustainable solutions. That is why I am calling on you, my elected representative, to take all the steps within your power to help them.

Specifically, we are asking you to:

1. Urge the government of Sri Lanka to take steps to guarantee the safety of the refugee population there, to provide urgent relief to those currently living in terrible conditions in camps, and to identify options for the safe internal re-settlement of the families.
2. Ask relevant government and immigration officials, especially in the US, Canada and the EU, to expedite the permanent re-settlement of refugees that their countries have already agreed to accept – and to consider accepting further numbers as necessary to deal with the crisis.
3. Encourage the relevant UN agencies to do all that is within their power to address this matter.

Further information about the situation of the refugee population, and what can be done, is available in this briefing from Human Rights Watch and in this letter from Amnesty International.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

[your name]

Geopolitics and Cardinal in Oppositional politics

• Easter Sunday attacks have left serious geopolitical implications
• The US is responsible for most extremist Islamic terror groups from Taliban to ISIS
• Chinese leave Sri Lanka neither here nor there

3 May 2019

What’s the aftermath of the Easter Sunday “terror” attack? On what is being reported, more than 150 have been arrested on suspicion by Tuesday last. Four from the list of six wanted suspects have also been arrested while two have died in clashes with the security forces conducting operations. 

The reported number of trained jihadi activists now stand at 140 and are being tracked down. There is controversy nevertheless about Zahran Hashim, the leader of National Tawheed Jama’ath (NTJ) being one of the suicide bombers at the Shangri-la hotel, Colombo. 

For the first time in the history of Catholics in Sri Lanka churches closed for Sunday mass and a special service instead was conducted by Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith from his official residence in Colombo with the President, the PM and the Opposition Leader in attendance. For all others of the Catholic faith, the service was aired live on TV and radio channels. 

After social media that was blocked for a week, the Burqa in public was banned with Muslim men in All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama (ACJU) consenting. 
Schools remain closed till Monday, May 06. The President has promised special security for schools and religious places of worship. 

Meanwhile, a video clip went viral on 29 April with the elusive ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi making a speech from a hideout, five years after he made a victorious speech declaring the Caliphate from the pulpit of the famed al-Nuri mosque in Mosul, Iraq. 

Wiped out of Iraq and the Caliphate seized by Kurdish and Syrian fighters, Baghdadi said: “And as for our brothers in Sri Lanka, I was overjoyed when I heard about the suicide attack,” Saying it was against the crusaders headed it “avenged them for our brethren in Baghouz”. 

That leaves the government’s assumption that the Easter Sunday attacks were in retaliation for the Christchurch attacks on Muslims as ill-formed. Baghdadi says it was to avenge their lost fighters in Baghouz, where the ISIS fought its last battle in Syria, trying to save their Caliphate. ISIS affiliations have thus far been substantiated with such evidence far off. ISIS is a run-off from the most insanely executed occupation of Iraq by the US administration of George Bush Jnr. Pre-invasion US intrusions in Iraq, funded and assisted a few small dissenting Islamist groups in Saddam Hussein’s very repressive ‘Socialist Iraq. 

Thereafter massive terror operations by the occupying US military in dismantling the Hussein regime turned those Islamist groups against them. One of the most brutal flushing out operations by the US forces in April 2003 in Fallujah eventually became an ISIS stronghold. 

Three years later in March 2016 David Kilcullen a leading counterinsurgency expert, former adviser to both Gen. David Petraeus and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, told Channel 4 that a lot of the problem is their making, adding “There, undeniably, would be no ISIS if we hadn’t invaded Iraq.” 

The US is responsible for most extremist Islamic terror groups from Taliban to ISIS. In the late ’80s, the US started supporting Afghan Mujahideen groups against the Russian occupation. They worked with the Saudi Arabian “General Intelligence Directorate” and the Pakistani “Inter-Service Intelligence Agency” funding and facilitating the training of Taliban groups. 

The Al-Qaeda also came out of the Iraqi occupation by the US. What is called Islam fundamentalism is not Islam the religion. It is a narrow political ideology extracted out of the Quran in challenging US dominance in global politics. Islam fundamentalism works on the premise that US is “Christian power”. 
The ISIS, therefore, uses the term “crusaders” going back in history to wars between invading Christian armies and Muslims for “Holy land” then under the Islamic empire. 

All extremist political interpretations reach out to the emotions of communities they wish to take control of. 
Most extremist groups emerge with their own political ideologies, supported by some State somewhere. As it was with the Taliban, the Al-Qaeda and the ISIS that the US administration supported, the LTTE and other Tamil armed groups too were initially supported by the Indian State during PM Indira Gandhi’s time. 
In creating Bangladesh out of “East Pakistan”, Mukti Bahini fighters were sponsored by the Indian State. 

That extremely vested political interests do play about with these small fundamentalist groups, should not be lost in understanding the emergence of NTJ from Kattankudy. Fundamentalist extremism, as a rule, is established in society through intimidation, violence and brute force as it was with the JVP during its insurgency in the 88 to 90 period. It was that in Kattankudy too with moderate and traditional Islamic communities being forced into accepting the ideology of the NTJ. People refused to accept them, protested against them, lodged complaints with the police against NTJ leaders. As claimed recently by the ACJU, written complaints had been made with all details even to President Rajapaksa and his Secretary to the Ministry of Defence Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. Apparently, no attention had been paid by the Rajapaksas to those complaints and appeals. 

This brings into focus another aspect of how politics play with the State. Sinhala Buddhist politics of that Rajapaksa government needed another bogey after eliminating the LTTE. Islamic fundamentalism was tailor-made for them in having Sinhala Buddhist fanaticism on the roads. The NTJ perhaps was therefore allowed to exist. What is also important to note is how the State behaved after the Rajapaksa regime was ousted. All special operations now carried out exhibit one simple truth. State intelligence had almost all necessary information with them. They knew where to go for what. They knew who they wanted in connection with the chain of explosions.

The “wanted list” of 06 though with an unnecessary photo mix up of an innocent undergraduate girl in the US, released to media within 03 days of the explosion said they had all that information with them. But there was no proper and adequate action taken to avert this tragedy. Not even during the last few weeks with Indian authorities too providing detailed information. Obviously, the uneasy alliance put together after the 2015 January elections in forming a government that fractured in no time, left the State on its own. The State also has its own ideology, not necessarily that of the ruling government. That can also compromise inept and fragile governments into inaction. 

"ISIS is a run-off from the most insanely executed occupation of Iraq by the US administration of George Bush Jnr."

This UNP government led by PM Wickremesinghe was hoisted with US geopolitical interests despite democratic slogans and good governance promised at elections to oust Rajapaksa. Post-Easter Sunday attacks now seem to further those US interests in keeping the government as distant from Chinese economic and geopolitical influence as possible. While China showed no special interest in making statements on the Easter Sunday attacks, the US is here with Britain in a big way. Their “experts” are here to help investigate the Easter Sunday attacks and have vowed to help the government eradicate “Islamic terrorism”.

US Ambassador Ms Teplitz here in Colombo has warned of ongoing plans by NTJ to launch further attacks, while the State intelligence is yet to confirm such warnings. Meanwhile, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) of the US government approved a grant of 480 million US dollars to SL, 04 days after the Easter Sunday attacks. The IMF has also pledged more assistance. 

While all that was between Colombo and Washington DC, the Chinese government for the second time convened a meeting in Beijing of Heads of States last Friday and Saturday on the world’s largest project ever planned; the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This second meeting had 39 countries participating including Germany, UK and Switzerland. “Notable absentees” were the US, India, Turkey and Sri Lanka. The Wickremesinghe government was reported as having said it was not briefed about this meeting. Brutal Easter Sunday attacks have certainly had their impact in defining geopolitics in our region. 

Meanwhile, in local politics, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith emerged in no time as a popular religious leader with discipline and compassion for all across religious and ethnic divides. As expected, Sinhala Buddhist extremist elements were busy driving a fear psychosis across all communities. Statements by government leaders too led to a growing fear in society that Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith did not directly contribute to. In fact, with his new found popularity he now stands as critically opposed to this government playing the role of a “vigilant Opposition”.He engages with the government while keeping his identity clear and independent. He said publicly he was not satisfied with how security was being handled by this government. He refused to have the bulletproof vehicle the government offered him.

He publicly stated this country does not need new laws to face “terrorism”, contradicting PM Wickremesinghe’s mighty haste in having the “Counter Terrorism Act” passed as law. He sounded extremely political when he said he is prepared to lead the people against the government if it fails to solve issues in normalising society. His political stance runs along with Mahinda Rajapaksa’s projection as the Leader of the Opposition. His politics in a “non-political” cloak indicates his cordiality with the Rajapaksas all through the Rajapaksa era is still maintained. His Eminence Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith is certainly a “holy thorn” in UNP politics. 

Easter Sunday attacks have left serious geopolitical implications. The traditional UNP voter base in Catholic and Christian areas is fast eroding. The Muslim community remains utterly frustrated with the government getting more entrenched in US interests in South Asia. The Chinese brakes off with growing regional acceptance, leaving Sri Lanka neither here nor there. Immediate future no doubt is packed with uncertainty.    

More questions In The Aftermath Of The Easter Sunday Carnage: Following The Socratic Method Of Inquiry, Albeit In A Lighter Vein

By K. Ganesh –MAY 3, 2019

More questions in the Aftermath of the Easter Sunday Carnage – following the Socratic Method of inquiry, albeit in a lighter vein

1. How many foreign intelligence agencies does it take to screw on a light bulb?

8 and counting; so far: P3 – FBI, Scotland Yard, Interpol for sure;  Aussie Intel, RAW and IB, absolutely, Japanese (QUAD) Intel, maybe, China (an injured party, indeed, and very likely Israel’s MOSSAD experts who after all are well versed on terror in Palestine, Mr. Putin’s KGB who would definitely want a piece of the action, perhaps, and of course, Singapore Expert– Mr. Inside Al Quaid himself, the redoubtable Professor of terror, Rohan Gunaratne of NTU who has demonstrated links to the US military business industrial complex, weapons manufacturers, and the murky world of CIA and IS terror intelligence.

1.1 There were 9 suicide bombers, so perhaps what’s needed are nine intelligence agencies: One for each bomber in the Easter carnage? 

After all primitive thinking cleaves to in magical thinking and numbers games (like for instance, the Buddha took 7 steps when he was born, and 7 lotus flowers bloomed) Now, various intelligence agencies are in Sri Lanka to craft the ”narrative” that the “IS Caliphate has landed”, Hollywood style, in this tropical island paradise, because, Islamic State Kingpin Al Baghdadi, got tired of desert sands and mountains, and wanted to take a Deep Dive in the Indian Ocean, correction, the recently invented ocean called the AMERICAN INDO-PACIFIC. It seems that no one has heard that TOO MANY COOKS, SPOIL THE SOUP?!

2. Why has Islamic State chosen in a 70 percent Buddhist, Tropical Island in the Indian Ocean to deliver a strong message to the West and Christians?

Now, it seems that IS head honcho, Al Baghdadi, tired of dessert sands and mountains may have got some “Maritime domain awareness” lessons from US Ambassador in Sri Lanka and other CIA and FBI operatives, to discover his latent interest in tropical islands, marine affairs, and deep dives in the ‘Indo-Pacific.’

The fantastic narrative now being crafted – based on pure alternative facts promoted by the Singapore Security Xpert is that: the IS Caliphate has proclaimed that now “South Asia is an IS Province”. Moreover, 70 percent Buddhist, (with 20 percent Hindus and Christians), Si Lanka, has been specially chosen as the ideal location for the new IS South Asia Provincial capital, with the re-constructed Ocean-front Chinese owed Shangri la five star hotel set to be named the Islamic Caliphate’s new Headquarters.  

3. Do Monotheists hate polytheists and atheists? 

It is reliably learned from our own redoubtable Singapore expert (shades of Arjuna Mahendran?) on IS narratives that Al Baghdadi hates multi-religious and multi-ethnic countries in general, and Sri Lanka in particular given its complicated multi-ethnic and multi-religious cultural mosaic and confused citizens, who are too hybrid, mixed, and hence messed up (both confused and confusing), and hence a massive Security Threat to monotheists and mono-theism. Also, there are those horrible apostate Sufi cults spread across the island, including whirring dervishes, that are doubly galling and to be eliminated.

4. When America invents a new Ocean, and Islamic State a new Province there may be trouble around the corner?

These narratives about new provinces and oceans are of course to entertain, distract and scare the shit out of traumatized Lankans who have presumably suspended disbelief, and abdicated ALL their critical thinking faculties at this time of national tragedy, so that  FBI and related Singaporean Xperts and SPIN doctors can craft a narrative to feed the petrified and hence doubly gullible natives of Banana Republic beset with a squabbling Prime Minister and President and a Cabinet of thieves– just as the Chagos Islanders, 60 years ago were terrified when US marines gassed their dogs and forcibly drove the Chogossians out of their Indian Ocean island home when the infamous Diego Garcia military base and CIA Black Site, now being green washed into a Marine Reserve in the Indian Ocean, was being set up.

5. How do you white-wash a CIA Black Site called Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean? You Green Wash it!

Since the UN’s highest court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that Chagos Islands must be de-colonized by United Kingdom and returned to Mauritius in February this year,  the sole purpose of the continued existence of Diego Garcia military base, the largest outside the US mainland, will be to protect Indian Ocean crustaceans after everyone has signed the Convention of Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES), also known as the Washington Convention in Colombo, come May 2019.

6. Marginalization of national expertise? Forget Foucault and the Cold War in the Indian Ocean

Sri Lankan experts, one and all, have been marginalized with the landing of the IS Caliphate in Paradise Lost, with droves of  random Intel and media experts to craft the narrative, amidst the tug o war between the puppet Prime Minister and the farmer President.  But, so, it is time that local and national Sri Lankan Intellects, I/NGO innocents, and experts get cracking with favorite geopolitical fantasies to explain and find motive for our Easter carnage. After all, anyone, including FBI, can set up a website and claim responsibility for the Easter Carnage now that WikiLeaks is down and Julian Asange safely locked up in UK… 

7. ‘Carrots and sticks’ to set up a military base in the Indian Ocean?

Read More

‘Release my husband’ demands wife of former LTTE cadre

Photograph: Selvarany and her children protesting for Ajanthan's release last year.

02 May 2019

The wife of a former LTTE cadre who has been held for more than five months without charge has demanded his release, at an emotional press conference in Batticaloa yesterday.

Kathirgamathamby Rajakumarar, also known as Ajanthan, was arrested by Sri Lankan police over claims he was involved in the murder of two Sri Lankan policemen in Vavunathivu in November last year. 

However, three men detained following the Easter Sunday attacks have reportedly claimed responsibility for the assassinations. The men, currently in CID custody after multiple raids and a crackdown on the Islamist extremist network on the island, said they had been responsible for the killing of the officers as well as the damage to Buddhist stupas in Mawanella. Amidst raids carried out in the wake of the Easter Sunday bombings, a gun found in a house in Kalmunai is believed to be a missing police rifle from the killings.

This week, Sri Lanka’s cabinet spokesperson Rajitha Senaratne also claimed at least four army officers were involved in organising the assassination.

Read more: NTJ paid by Sri Lankan intelligence, soldiers organised police murder - cabinet spokesperson

Read more: Sri Lankan police investigate Islamist extremist links to 2018 checkpoint shooting

Ajanthan though remains in detention.

“It is not fair to detain my husband,” his wife Selvarany told reporters. “I will never accept this. My husband is not guilty.”

Ever since her husband’s arrest Selvarany and her children have been struggling to cope, she said. Sri Lanka’s CID arrested her husband and promised they would release him within three months. Without her husband, her and her five children are suffering financially. 

“I borrowed money from a relative and went to Criminal Investigation Department in Colombo to see my husband,” she said describing the hardships they face. “I can’t feed them three times a day… I am only feeding them once a day. My children wash themselves with water only as I can’t afford soap. I am living a painful life without money to buy milk powder, to provide my kids with milk tea in the morning.”

Weeks after his arrest Selvarany and her children staged a hunger strike calling for his release. However, after threats from Sri Lankan police, her protest was forced to end.

'Where is my father?' reads the sign held by Ajanthan's children last year.

Read more: Police threats forced wife of detained former LTTE cadre to end protest

Read more: Wife of arrested former cadre ends hunger strike after officers pledge release on bail

Now that the alleged perpetrators have confessed, she told reporters that she wants her husband to be allowed to come home. “The guns the police officers carried have been found, the driver of the vehicle that was used for the murder has also arrested,” she added. “Maithripala Sirisena must take quick action to release my husband, who is not guilty.”

In an emotional final plea, Selvarany said her family was desperate to see Ajanthan back home. In tears, she told reporters, “If my husband is not released, me and my five kids will drink poison and commit suicide.”

Related Articles: 

30 April 2019 : NTJ paid by Sri Lankan intelligence, soldiers organised police murder - cabinet spokesperson

27 April 2019 : Sri Lankan police investigate Islamist extremist links to 2018 checkpoint shooting

Independence Square Vigil: Speech by Dr. Radhika Coomaraswamy

Photo courtesy AP / Manish Swarup via The Nation 

DR. RADHIKA COOMARASWAMY- 05/05/2019

For people of my generation, as Sharika Thiranagama wrote in her recent article, news like the Easter Sunday blasts does not initiate a new fear, it ignites an old one. I do not feel scared or angry. There is just a complete paralysis of the self. A feeling of “We have been here before”. A trauma that has been lingering, hovering over these years of peace, has just been revived.

When I first heard the news, I was convinced that this was our violence, our people with grievances, our people who have become angry and frustrated because of our mistakes. I was sure that this was a product of the acrimony that coexists with our intimacy. Though there are external factors, this focus on the local is still a valid concern. How did we create young men and women capable of such hate? What did we do or not do to make them receptive to hate mongering and delusion? They may have been radicalized outside our shores but why did we, as a society, not know about their terrible hate and anger?

Now we have been also made to realize that this is something much larger than ourselves. Beyond our wildest imagination. We are caught in the global cross-currents of events we had nothing to do with. Events that did not concern many of us in our daily lives. We have now stormed into the radar of international security concerns. This will change us in fundamental ways. As so many writers have warned us the global narrative of global terror and the war on terror may overwhelm us. At the moment we are completely lost. We are so used to clawing at each other and then appealing to the international community to take our side- whichever side that is- we do not know how to respond to this body blow that strikes at the heart of who we are as a country. We can only recover if we unite across communities, religions and politics.

Many individuals in the Muslim community are engaging in introspection. I was a little reluctant about forcing introspection on them at this vulnerable moment. Yet much of the introspection written by women has been extremely moving. They describe how they saw their culture and their civilizational ethos change within a generation. For women, especially, it has been a complex and challenging journey.

But it is not only time for Muslim introspection. If we are going to call for introspection, we must ask everyone to do the exercise. How did we Tamils produce the LTTE? How did the Buddhists produce the BBS? How do we respond to extremism in all our communities? How do we make the voices for tolerance and inclusiveness speak out? How do we convince others that this calamity does not mean that we forsake our democracy or our decency? As Ahilan Kadirgamar has noted how do we turn this moment into a moment of co-existence.

In the fog of terrorism we hear strange things that we hope is the heat of the moment. People speak about human rights supporters being responsible for the carnage, that there was too much peace and freedom and too little security and that what the country needs is a dictatorship. Human rights and national security are not mutually exclusive. There are areas of tension but years of practice and protocol have devised ways in which they can coexist. A country can be both free and secure. This is an important realization, not only because it is the humane way of looking at these problems but also because we do not want to radicalize another generation of youth who seethe with anger at the injustice and inequality they face.

The churches they attacked were some of the oldest and most beautiful of our cathedrals. Volumes have been written on the spice merchant and his rich sons. But most of those who died in these churches were not wealthy. They were ordinary people going to their Sunday mass. There is such cruelty in this act of bombing a place where families gather to seek solace. When are people more vulnerable? And yet, we cannot fight this ethos by becoming terrorists ourselves.

My mother went once a week to St Anthony’s at Kochikade even though she was a Hindu. I think she went to pray for me, her rebellious child. That is what we were. Before extremism came to our religions and communities, we inhabited each other’s religious spaces; we celebrated each other’s festivals and holidays. Thanks to my youth in Sri Lanka and my work for the United Nations I find solace and peace in all religious spaces. I am moved by the sacred, regardless of which culture defines it. But these young people who blew themselves up come from another place where there are no sacred universal spaces and no universal values. Universality is out of fashion these days and this is the deadly trajectory of that mindset.

Sri Lankans as a whole have risen in the aftermath of this violence to reclaim our humanity. From blood donations to interfaith activities guided by religious leaders we have tried to rekindle the bonds that connect us. But we must not have a false sense of reality. There is fear, insecurity and a lot of ugliness out there that can only be defeated by our united, dedicated efforts. We have come out today in solidarity. I want to thank the organizers for their bravery and I am proud to be part of this moment. But it is only the very beginning.

I thought I would end with a poem. The Last stanza of Wilfred Owen‘s Insensibility.

That they should be as stones.
Wretched are they and mean
With paucity that was never simplicity.
By choice they made themselves immune
To pity and whatever mourns in man
Before the last sea and the hapless stars.
Whatever mourns when many leave their shores
Whatever shares
The eternal reciprocity of tears.

IN SOLIDARITY WITH THOSE AFFECTED BY RECENT EVENTS – STATEMENT BY TAMIL CIVIL SOCIETY

Image: In Colombo citizens gather to show solidarity on 04th May 2019. ((c) Aithiya.lk.

04/05/2019

(May 4, 2019)  We the undersigned Tamil civil society organizations unequivocally condemn the horrific Easter Sunday attacks which took more than two hundred and fifty lives, and also express our wholehearted solidarity and support to our Christian communities, targeted in this cowardly act of violence by extremists. We stand with the Christian people, as members, as allies, as friends and family, as we work towards the long healing process.

We also want to express our support to the Muslim communities of Sri Lanka in this tragic time. As they face serious persecution and threat, we call on the Tamil community as a whole to extend a hand and open our homes and hearts. The violence, surveillance, oppression and fear they are facing could be precursors to an onslaught that we Tamils know far too well. As this last week has demonstrated, we must not forget that it is still the State that the Tamil and Muslim communities are most vulnerable to.

We are deeply disappointed by reports that seem to indicate that some Tamil politicians and community organizations are rejecting proposals to house refugees, Christian and Muslim, of Pakistani and Afghan origin in the Northern province. As a community, which has experienced first-hand persecution, discrimination and violence at the hands of the Sri Lankan state and its institutions, it is imperative we show empathy and solidarity and welcome those now facing similar conditions.

At various points in Sri Lanka’s history, Tamils have been forced to flee this island in the thousands and seek refuge elsewhere to avoid persecution. It is now our turn to offer that refuge to those fleeing the same State structures and conditions. While we continue to stand against State-sponsored land grabs and colonisation, militarisation, forced disappearances and the discrimination of displaced Tamil persons, we should not negate the hospitality to those at risk of discrimination we are historically familiar with.

The Muslim and Tamil communities on the island have seen ever increasing tension in their relationship both during the armed conflict and in the post-war context. Both Tamil and Muslim communities harbour mutual mistrust, despite the fact that we live side by side in the North-East. 

There is certainly a need to have a comprehensive truth and accountability process to address these deep-rooted grievances and have genuine reconciliation between the two communities. However, in this moment of urgency and tragedy, drawing upon historic grievances and prejudicial stereotypes in order to demonize a community at risk jeopardizes the lives of those vulnerable to violence. We are very concerned that those who harbour both implicitly and explicitly Islamophobic agendas are monopolizing this moment to propagate their false stereotypes and incite violence against the Muslim community.

As we mourn the victims of devastating attacks on Easter Sunday, let us centre our humanity and stand in solidarity with all those affected by the violence.

Signatories:

Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research

Maatram Foundation

Mannar Women’s Development Federation (MWDF)

People for Equality and Relief in Lanka (PEARL)

SEED (Vavuniya)

Vallamai (Movement for Social Justice)

Viluthu Centre for Human Resource Development

Women’s Action Network (WAN)

Terror: Motives, links and philosophy

Time to rubbish rumour mills and stacks of proliferating shoddy theories

"Embrace goodness: Eschew evil"
Tamil Nadu Thowheed Jamath https://twitter.com/thameem62836012

National Tawheed Jamath (Sri Lanka)
https://everipedia.org/wiki/lang_en/national-thowheed-jamath/

by Kumar David-May 4, 2019, 6:30 pm 

It is clear that the Easter Sunday blasts were the work of domestic Muslim extremists. I have no access to confidential information outside the public domain, but what is available is prolific permitting intelligent analyses. Lanka’s intelligence and security apparatus has been wretched in action and poorly informed of the ‘philosophical-ideological’ mind-set of jihadism. We are better off thinking through for ourselves instead of waiting for the authorities. We have to think it through because while some matters are indisputably clear others are tantalizingly opaque. This is one of the most baffling cases of terrorism in the world in recent years.

Muslims-Christians-Buddhists

These three points are palpable - (NTJ stands for National Thowheed Jamath).

The Easter Sunday attacks are the work of an identified Muslim entity (NTJ).

It is incomprehensible why NTJ or any Lankan Muslim entity should choose Christian targets.

Clashes in recent years have all been between Buddhist extremists and Muslims.

The perplexing portion in this storyline is the triangle of terror with Muslims, Christians and Buddhists at its vertices. This is an aberration if one extrapolates the experience of recent years; Muslims and Christians enjoy cordial relations while Buddhist-Muslim relations have been fraught. Sinhala-Buddhist extremists have a history of intolerance and recent anti-Muslim rioting, fuelled by rumours, was led by these mobs; allegedly the police stood by and let the mobs run free. At a loss in the face of this a historical episode we have been offered a jumble of concoctions. Some say Easter is busy so it was an opportunity to inflict maximum damage; but Vesak, Kandy Perehara and prominent Poya days are just as enticing. Others have said it was retaliation for the Christchurch Mosque shooting in New Zealand; an implausible claim by a government which has lost the plot and is whistling in the dark? The NTJ which has thus far vandalised Buddha statues is alleged to have switched targets and transmuted into a top-class terrorist outfit. None of this is credible or do they add up.

Some in the diaspora, recalling military-police brutality during the anti-LTTE war, point a finger at the State, but in this instance there is not a shred of evidence to support the claim. What is indisputable is that international warnings were ignored. The SL Mirror website (Dec 2016) goes further: "Intelligence authorities established that during the Rajapaksa regime a secret account in the defence ministry funded Thowheed Jamath, Bodu Bala Sena and other Muslim and Buddhist extremists" This is rubbish; if true, the next government would have delighted in exposing these "secret accounts".

Another theory refers to drug peddlers, but what on earth do drug-lords gain by putting the state security apparatus on full alert? Some say that Muslim businessmen are in cahoots with politicos; sure for money, how do such cabals benefit from the carnage? Another yarn is that the nation’s security apparatus is in tow with nefarious types – that it was incompetent is not in dispute, but a conspiracy of terror! Why? Nonsense! People don’t think their prattle through, so they churn out baloney.

It is easy to make prima-facie absurd allegations but we must refrain from inflaming feelings and be cautious about the Muslim-Christian-Buddhist dimension. At this time of writing no useful information about motives has surfaced. Allegations that stir religious tensions or statements for political advantage by government or opposition must stop. Misconduct and negligence must be probed and punished but now is not the right time; let things subside first. None of the theories I have summarised so far or stacks of others (a plot to overthrow pro-Western Ranil government; Mossad stirring up anti-Muslim sentiment; a conspiracy by India) are plausible. If every pontificated theory is riddled with holes, this begins to look like an abnormal occurrence with a huge subjective element.

Home grown terrorism or global game?

The following are three prima-facie reasonable inferences.

In scope, size and precision of execution it exceeds the isolated capability of domestic group.

An attack on this scale could not have been executed without exploiting a foreign connection.

There is no evidence to cast suspicion on any foreign government.

Another triangular enigma! Treat with caution the claim by Islamic State (IS) that its militants carried out the assaults. The claim, more likely, is a macabre after-the-event boast to get credit. After its defeat in Iraq and Syria it is desperate to rebuild its image as a credible fighting force. Usually, it claims an attack very soon, publishing pictures of the jihadists on its media portal. In this case it did not provide any details and all but one of the faces in the much delayed photo it did release are covered.

The following is typical of what is being circulated by domestic chauvinist organisations; "What happened is the tip of an iceberg. The objective is deep rooted with government, diplomatic and foreign connections. The Shangri-La bomber Zahran Hashim featured on YouTube, but investigators are prevented from digging deep. There are sleeper cells ready for the next phase: Buddhist temples all over the country during Vesak. There is no doubt they will target temples to drive fear into Buddhists as they did to Christians. Next month Ranil Wickremesinghe will sign the Millennium Challenge Corporation deal with the US; chaos and emergency rule will help him surrender Sri Lankan sovereignty to the US."

There is not one shred of evidence of Indian, US, Chinese or Timbuctoo government connection, or for that matter involvement of extremist organisations based in these countries. But newspaper and web innuendo are replete with bizarre sagas; "Oh it must be this lot, oh it must be that lot". Indication of any foreign government involvement is nil.

Ideology and eschatology

National Thowheed Jamath, is an ideologically faceless religious extremist sect.

Tamil Nadu Thowheed Jamath (TNTJ) is a well-known Islamic faith and campaign organisation.

TNTJ has denied any sympathy or connection with ISIS.

The Arabic word tawhid or thowheed represents the indivisible oneness of Allah. As in Judaism, Islam holds that God is One and a Unity; the word thowheed can be read simply as God; Jamath means Association or Assembly and Thowheed Jamath is best translated as Assembly of God, a name also used by a Christian-Pentecostal evangelical church of US origin. The NTJ is the spawn of a December 2018 split in the older Sri Lanka Tawheed Jamaat (SLTJ) when the latter condemned defacing Buddha statues. The SLTJ itself emerged out of TNTJ, which claims to be non-political and devoted to social activities. TNTJ’s community work is well recognised and includes education, preaching Islam, blood donation (it has won ten awards), tsunami and flood relief work, and dengue awareness. Its most notable achievement is a campaign against the dowry system.

However, TNTJ’s activities are not entirely non-political as it has led demonstrations opposing ill-treatment of Muslims in India. The most notable is protest against killing of Muslim in Utter Pradesh for selling or eating beef. However TNTJ has never been accused of terrorism or connection to IS. It issued a statement condemning the Easter bombings and dissociated itself from the NTJ. Nor does TNTJ share IS’s Caliphate eschatology or advocate a crusade to make all the world Islamic. Like Christians and other monotheists, however, it does believe that the way to salvation is faith in the "one true God".

Community service oriented Islamic organisations proliferate in many countries. The huge Muslim Brotherhood organisations of the Middle East were famed for social service long before they hit the political headlines. Indonesia is well known for extensive community service Muslim societies. The SLTJ however is different; its General Secretary Abdul Razik called the Buddha a cannibal and the triple gem pebbles; his video generated an uproar. Razik was arrested in November 2016 and released on bail a month later. SLTJ agreed to apologise but violated the bail conditions by insulting Buddhist monks. Still the SLTJ, it seems, is not a terrorist outfit, just foul-mouthed.

The NTJ and its mastermind Zahran Hashim, in truth, are rather mysterious animals. Its website has not been updated for long and little is known of legitimate activities, if any. It lacks the TNTJ’s record of community service nor does its philosophy exhibit a trend to service. Its vision of heavenly denouement (eschatology) could well be a replication of Islamic State’s Caliphate cock-and-bull, but spoken, written or electronic evidence is unavailable. It is depraved, disconnected from reality and from Lanka’s larger Muslim community, though when the gun battle in Kalmunai is factored in, it cannot be called tiny. Its religious zeal mirrors the blinding faith that persuaded Abraham to drag Isaac up Mount Moriah intending to slaughter his son as a sacrifice to the One True God. This fervour motivates the Thowheed faithful to martyr their wives and children to gelignite. Searing intensity of devotional-political passion is its secular heaven, indistinguishable from its godforsaken creed. Somewhere deep in the soul a spiritual ache crosses a modern Styx to touch fingers with the darkest evil; of this Nietzsche wrote, 150 years ago.

We will rise again

It is logical, given the scale, scope and precision of operations, to factor in international training and materials supply; some may be Syria-returned jihadists. Crucially, it is also clear on evidence so far that this is not an overseas operation of an international jihadist entity, rather it is home grown but leans on its overseas connections. This is the true elucidation of the conundrum I spoke of previously. Fortunately, it also makes it easier to ferret out and pulverise the threat, which can be best accomplished with the help of the mass of the Muslims. Let not Sri Lanka repeat the blunder it made in marginalising the mass of the Tamils decades ago.

Is it possible that Lanka once again is a ‘world leader’? My training as a researcher impels me to hold back from slick theories and sloppy speculation - all of which I have scorned in this essay - until a lot more empirical evidence is gathered. Are we a crucible of innovation of a new spontaneous jihadism? We may well be on the first step of a very steep and new learning curve. Horrific though the events be, to dress the future in sack-cloth and ashes and declare Sri Lanka paradise lost is premature. The scale of a massacre must not be confused with motivation; a train wreck causes carnage but is a one-off event. The Muslim community itself is our first and best line of defence; many Muslim organisations have already risen to the occasion. And there is a flood of international goodwill that Lanka can lean on. The Easter 2019 horror is an anomaly; Lanka will bounce back, it can. Yes, I know that this is not what everyone else is saying; so what, let’s see!