Thursday, May 9, 2019

EASTER SUNDAY ATTACKS: ROBERT BLAKE ON WRONGS, RIGHTS, AND LESSONS TO BE LEARNT

Wrong To Have Withdrawn Military Training

08/05/2019

Ambassador Blake regretted that after the Sri Lanka-LTTE war ended in May 2009, the US had stopped its military aid and training programs in the island on the plea that there had been human rights violations by the Lankan military.

“In the last years of the war in 2008 and 2009, human rights concern almost completely circumscribed our military exercises, training and assistance with the Sri Lankan Army and Air Force. I had to fight hard to maintain even small areas of Navy-to-Navy cooperation, in part by arguing that it was in our interest to help Sri Lanka interdict LTTE arms shipments. Today, I am happy those restrictions are behind us,” he said.

Blake referred to the stoppage of military training to the Pakistani army and said that this resulted in the US losing contact with a “whole generation of Pakistani military officers”.

The result was that this generation grew up on a diet of anti-American sentiment hampering inter-operability which is key to military-military cooperation, the former envoy said.

US-Lanka Cooperation Restored

Blake noted that the US and Lankan militaries are now training together in areas ranging from maritime security to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

“The US has announced plans for new security assistance of $39 million to Sri Lanka to support maritime security, freedom of navigation, and maritime domain awareness.”

“In 2018 the U.S. transferred a U.S. Coast Guard cutter to the Sri Lankan Navy. And we have regular joint training and exercises with all the services All these are signs of a healthy and growing military partnership.”

“Likewise, our law enforcement cooperation has strengthened. There is no better sign of that than the quick and substantial FBI response to Sri Lanka’s request for assistance in its investigation of the Easter Sunday bombings.”

Lessons From Easter Bombings

Tuning to the April 21 Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka, Blake said: “

“The Easter attacks were not just personal tragedies for the families of those killed and wounded.

They opened old wounds still fresh from Sri Lanka’s 26-year civil conflict, and they raised new questions in the minds of potential business partners about the wisdom of doing business in Sri Lanka.”

“What steps should Sri Lanka take to successfully manage these new challenges and sustain its progress of the last ten years? Job one of course must be to pursue with vigor the investigation into who was responsible, what links they had to outside terrorist groups, how the bombers were able to mount such a sophisticated and well-coordinated series of attacks in multiple cities without detection from your intelligence and security services, and what networks may remain so the Sri Lankan people can be sure the threat has abated.”

“One priority during this phase of investigating and hopefully wrapping up any remaining terrorist elements must be for the government and security services to conduct investigations in a professional and impartial manner that respects the rights of all Sri Lankans and does not inadvertently add to the problem.”

“The Government should also make every effort to limit scope and duration of Emergency Rregulations.”

What US Experience Can Teach

Blake said that Sri Lanka can learn from mistakes America made after 9/11.

“Most civil liberties experts believe the US over-reacted by expanding government surveillance without appropriate constitutional checks; by extended detentions at Guantánamo Bay that circumscribed the legal rights of detainees, by extraordinary renditions and interrogations, all of which gave rise to questions of what the limits of government power should be in times of crisis.”

“Our system of checks and balances ultimately righted most of these wrongs, and the press had a powerful role to play in exposing excesses and wrong-doing.”

“Sri Lanka can also benefit from another US lesson learned after 9/11. One of our mistakes was that there was poor communication and intelligence sharing between the CIA, FBI and other agencies. To improve inter-agency communication and cooperation, the Bush White House established a working group of senior technocrats from all the intelligence and law enforcement agencies.”

“This group met regularly to evaluate all intelligence from all sources and agree on responsibility for follow-up on specific threats. The group was headed by Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan who reported directly to the President. Sri Lanka could benefit from a similar high-level group.”

Gotabaya Rajapaksa Praised

In this context, Blake recalled how when Gotabaya Rajapaksa was Lankan Defense Secretary during the last Eelam War he set up a committee of experts to advice him an called for a strong and unified national leadership to take decisions and implement them.

Continued Threat From Islamic State

Sri Lanka must also be careful not to allow ISIS or other extreme Islamic groups to take root, Blake warned.

“Although the precise role of ISIS in the attacks remains to be investigated, one must ask why Sri Lanka proved a tempting target of opportunity. First, they may have calculated that since Muslim-Christian relations have historically been good, and extreme Islamic thought has never gained wide favor on the island, they and NTJ could organize with undue scrutiny.”

“Secondly, they probably calculated that the security forces have relaxed their efforts since 2009 and to the extent they were still concerned, that concern was more likely on preventing a revival of the LTTE.”

“Having suffered the loss of their self-proclaimed caliphate and territory in Iraq and Syria, ISIS must show its followers it is still relevant and strong. Without a central caliphate, ISIS is metastasizing into smaller units wherever opportunities present themselves. One is in the southern Philippines where they are seeking a beach-head in SE Asia.”

“But they also looking to use bombings such as those in Sri Lanka to sow discord between Muslim, Christian and other communities that they can then exploit for their evil ends. Sri Lanka cannot allow that to happen.”

“Which brings me to my third recommendation, which is that Sri Lanka needs to give new focus and priority to reconciliation and good governance.”

“The Easter Sunday bombings opened a potential new divide in Sri Lanka’s already complex ethnic amalgam. Sri Lanka continues to debate the pace and scope of reforms aimed at reconciliation between Sinhalese and Tamils. Some tensions remain as important priorities such as a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, reparations and accountability, remain on the drawing board.”

“Even as Sinhalese-Tamil reconciliation remains a work in progress, the Easter bombings threaten to open new wounds and cleavages in Sri Lankan society and raise new questions.”

New Questions

According to Blake the new questions are: “Will the attack on St. Anthony’s church in Batticaloa rekindle memories of the Tamil-Muslim violence in the East during the country’s civil war? Will extremist Sinhalese Buddhist groups seek to exploit popular anger about the attacks to renew their attacks on Muslims as we saw most recently in Kandy in May of last year?”

“Will Christians, themselves the victims of Muslim and Sinhalese Buddhist violence, seek their own retribution?”

“This complex and combustible mix requires the country to come together for a national dialogue. Given the political chasm and open antipathy between the President and Prime Minister, careful thought must be given as to who might lead such efforts.’

“Two good places to start would be Sri Lanka’s religious leaders and its youth groups. Cardinal Ranjith has managed the aftermath of the attacks with considerable aplomb and grace. And there is a long history interfaith dialogue that can help bring these disparate communities together and reduce tensions.”

Need For Early Warning System

Blake said that with tensions high and the possibility that social media can be misused to spread false rumors, the communities would be wise to set up an early warning system to monitor rumors and then have senior religious figures quickly deny these.

“This system has worked well in Eastern Indonesia,” he added.

The Lankan government itself has a crucial role to play to heal old and fresh wounds, Blake said and added: “ Every Sri Lankan citizen should be able to count on equal justice and no group that breaks the law or violates the rights of other citizens should be above the law.”

“Renewed thought should be given to increasing Tamil and Muslim recruits in the country’s security services so they more accurately reflect Sri Lankan society as a whole. The same should be done with the civil service.

Islamophobia, already on the rise in India and my own country, should not be allowed to take root in Sri Lanka.”

Need For Non-Partisan, United Leadership

Calling for a truly national and united leadership, Blake said: “In the end, any country’s response must depend not on its political leaders who too often succumb to the temptation to defend narrow party and personal interests, but rather on the strength of its institutions.”

“The recent constitutional crisis underlined the critical role of independent institutions like the Constitutional Council and the judiciary. Their continued independence will be an important part of restoring faith in Sri Lanka’s ability to recover and prosper.”
Adopted from newsin

National Security & National Reconciliation Partnership Of Enmity Or Intimacy?

By Chamindry Saparamadu –MAY 7, 2019

Chamindry Saparamadu

Ten years after the end of the war, terror has struck Sri Lanka again. The Easter Sunday tragedy and the events and issues associated with it bring national security to the center stage. The past few days, I have observed several efforts to understand and theorize the new phenomenon of terror and to find possible solutions and answers.

At a recently held conference of all political parties, important points were raised with regard to the relationship between national security and national reconciliation. It was highlighted that a country’s national security agenda and the national reconciliation agenda must not be seen and pursued as standing in contradiction to one another. This is critically important for Sri Lanka, at the current juncture that is striving to achieve both. An understanding of both is vital, not just in terms of discourse, but from a point of policy making and strategizing to deal with the current and future challenges. In this short article, I am sharing my immediate reactions on this issue.

For a number of reasons, rational or irrational, national security in Sri Lanka has come to be perceived as a project of the majority, the Sinhala Buddhist community. Linking of national security to one particular community is what makes security issues seem contrary to the objective of achieving national reconciliation. I believe there are many causative and explanatory factors to this unfortunate situation and if not dealt with now, would result in, us, as a country, losing a historic opportunity of making national security, a project of all communities.

The narratives in the mainstream liberal thinking and discourses, both locally and globally, have been consistent and continuous Sinhala Buddhist majority faulting game as well as fear of securitization as a concept. On both, the liberals, both in the island and outside, seem to converge. While the perils of securitization is a reality, as a result of such simplified understanding, each incident of violence is automatically interpreted and explained as a project of the Sinhala Buddhists and therefore and inextricably linked to the state and its armed forces. As we experienced the recent bombings in Colombo, how the blame game commenced and evolved was interesting to observe. The first and most immediate reaction was either directly or by insinuation implicating the Sinhala Buddhists in the attacks in most media and other platforms, explained as a historical and a continuous enmity between the Buddhists and the Catholic and or the Christian community. The conversations among elements injuriously infected with a Rajapakse phobia focused on former defense secretary and those who are connected as having staged the attacks to gain political mileage in the run up to the presidential elections. Shortly thereafter, when the Islamic States (ISIS) assumed responsibility for the attacks, the insinuations were that the Sinhala Buddhists are nevertheless culpable as a causative factor.

This simplistic understanding of violence runs contrary to reasoning or logic and loses its historical and political dimensions and explanation of violence in its many forms, manifestations and interpretations. To cite few, the horrendous Aranthalawa massacre, the attack on the Temple of the Tooth etc bear evidence to the fact that Sinhala Buddhists have been as much a victim of violence in the island’s long history of ethnic and other forms of violence. Despite such glaring evidence, the victim-perpetrator narrative that is being repeated and reinforced by the liberals continue to polarize the communities, and also jeopardize any chances of reconciliation.

This singular and limited understanding of violence is what led to war against terror to be defined in terms of violence against the Tamil people instead of explaining military operations in terms of an attempt at ending violence and establishing security. Such false depiction seemingly also obscures the many aspects of military operations including stabilization and humanitarian relief. We have seen such multiple roles played by the armed forces, during and after military operations and during and after crisis situations of the kind we witnessed during military operations in the North and East and in the aftermath of outbreak of violence in Aluthgama. The recipients of those efforts have been mostly the island’s ethnic minorities.

However, few things, wittingly or unwittingly done, have led to construction of the national security agenda within a majoritarian ideology and practice. And one that I would like to emphasize is the symbolic representation of our security achievements linked to gigantic images of the lion (representing the island’s ethnic majority) and singing of songs of Sinhala nationalistic flavor at ceremonies and other public forums. These and other forms of representations of military achievements within a Sinhala Buddhist majoritarian ideology have tended to alienate other communities from these accomplishments.

Further and most unfortunately, the composition of the armed forces does not reflect islands demographics in as much as the armed forces are mostly constituted of persons from Sinhala ethnic origin. In addition, their operations are predominantly unilingual in blatant disregard of the official language policy of the country. Such practices, however, executed, in my view has contributed to the imagination of national security within Sinhala majoritarianism.

Is Sri Lanka a failing State? If so, why not arrest this decline, starting now?

In Sri Lanka the security apparatus does not function smoothly basically because of certain weaknesses in the 1978 Constitution such as the lack of checks and balances or the independence of the Legislature, the Judiciary and the Executive. The last in turn is split into two between the President of the Republic and the cabinet of ministers headed by the Prime Minister; if they are from two different political parties there can be differences of opinion leading to contradictory decisions and actions – Pic by Shehan Gunasekara

Thursday, 9 May 2019

The purpose of this article is to discuss whether Sri Lanka (SL) is at present a ‘failing’ (fragile) state or a ‘failed state’. This writer contributed two articles that appeared in the DFT of 26 February and 27 March this year on strategies to avoid economic collapse and the leadership needed to implement them respectively; these suggest solutions that may help the country to avoid a ‘failing’ or ‘failed’ situations.
Failed states

The Fund for Peace describes a failed state as having characteristics such as ‘loss of control of its territory, erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions, inability to provide public services, and inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community’. Examples of such states are Somalia, Afghanistan and South Sudan. SL is not among them.

Causes

The causes of state failure according to scholars on the subject are ‘corrupt and self-seeking leadership , malpractices of indigenous elites, prevalence of social conflicts, internal violence, foreign interference, authoritarianism, poor economic performance particularly a steady decline in global terms of trade and environmental degradation’.
Failing or fragile states

According to the OECD ‘a state is fragile when it is unable or unwilling to perform the functions necessary for poverty reduction, the promotion of development, protection of the people and the observance of human rights’. In other words the state is unable to perform basic functions in the areas of security, rule of law and basic social services. Sadly SL fits this description. The Fragile States Index, 2018, ranks SL at 50 from the bottom occupied by South Sudan, out of 178 countries.

Indicators

The Fragile States Index describes fragile states under three sets of groupings , a) political and military indicators among which are sub indicators such as the security apparatus, rule of law, state legitimacy , public services, human rights and external intervention, b)economic indicators, among which are sub indicators that include uneven economic development, poverty and economic decline, and c) social indicators such as demographic (population) pressures, internally displaced people, group grievances, human rights and brain drain. Such ‘weak states fulfil expectations in some areas and perform poorly in other areas’ (Rotberg, 2003).

SL’s present failing situation is discussed below under some of these and other selected indicators.
Security

The primary function of the state is to provide security to the people. Security provides a foundation on which all political, economic and social activity in a state takes place smoothly. (This situation in the country is reflected by the Rule of Law Index 2019 which ranks SL at 63, while Venezuela occupies the bottom position of 126.)

In SL the security apparatus does not function smoothly basically because of certain weaknesses in the 1978 Constitution such as the lack of checks and balances or the independence of the Legislature, the Judiciary and the Executive. The last in turn is split into two between the President of the Republic and the cabinet of ministers headed by the Prime Minister; if they are from two different political parties there can be differences of opinion leading to contradictory decisions and actions.

The situation is made worse by Article 55 of the Constitution which enables the politicians in the cabinet of ministers to appoint or promote public officials on the basis of political affiliations and not purely on merit as in Singapore; the public service consisting of qualified and experienced personnel functioned smoothly before the enactment of the 1972 Constitution as the appointment and promotion of public officials was undertaken by an independent commission.

The current situation where a few criminals had openly planned over a long period of time and executed the massacre of hundreds of innocent Christian churchgoers and the destruction of hotel property on Easter Sunday is an example of the worse kind of damage that could take place due mainly to the above mentioned weaknesses in the Constitution; the concerned officials though forewarned about it did not take any action as the culture among them after 1972 is to await instructions from the politicians; the Head of State and the Ministers concerned apparently woke up to the situation after it happened (as claimed by them).

Another example is the tsunami of bribery and corruption that has siphoned off an enormous amount of capital that could have been invested to realise development goals; the Corruption Perception Index 2018, of Transparency International, ranks SL at 89, Malaysia at 61 and Singapore at 3 out of 180 countries); this is mainly the result of two other weaknesses in the present Constitution, i.e. the parliamentary electoral system where the unit of election is the larger district and not the smaller constituency and therefore election campaign expenditure (normally funded by dubious characters such as drug dealers) is very high; once elected the motivation of members of parliament is to earn this expenditure back by hook or crook; this behaviour on the part of MPs is indirectly legitimised by the constitution as it does not provide for the regulation of the activities of political parties in the country.

According to the world Human Rights Protection Scores prepared by C. Faris and K. Snackenberg (Human Rights, Max Rosen, 2019), human rights protection in SL had been rather satisfactory from 1949 to 1977 (0.75 and 0.63 respectively), but decreased drastically in 1990 to -2.5 into negative territory; from then onwards it has increased slightly to a negative of -1.18 in 2013. The period after 1990 roughly coincides with the war with the LTTE from 1983 to 2009 and afterwards.

The urgent need is to arrest the decline of SL into a failed state. This can be achieved only by electing leaders who are both honest and passionate about serving the needs of the people at the forthcoming elections. In this effort they have to think of ways and means of creating a consensus for a well-integrated nation like a closely-knit family with a single dream or vision of a prosperous life for all in the different communities in the country instead of allowing them to live segregated lives as at present. Practically the only way of doing this is by enacting a new and complete constitution like that of the USA or India. Once political stability is created in this manner (that will help to attract investment especially FDI into the production of goods and services mainly for export), it is a matter of speedy adoption of strategies similar to what was proposed in my article of 26 February, to lead to economic recovery. If this cannot be done the country could slide into a failed state!

In the case of Singapore the score has increased gradually to a positive of 1.41 in 2014 indicating better human rights protection which may have been the foundation of its spectacular economic prosperity. Although the 1978 Constitution has a declaration of human rights, it can be superseded by opposing laws and these rights were never really practically implemented.
In SL when a crisis occurs there is never a practice of analysing the reasons for it and finding out the ways and means of avoiding them in future; however, after the 30-year war with the LTTE war ended in 2009 a Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) was appointed; its report of 2011 which examined some of the grievances of the SL Tamils were never fully implemented as is the normal practice in SL.

Although the country is populated by several communities belonging to several racial and religious groups, there has never been and effort at integrating them to a single SL nation as shown by the schools system where the children of different communities are still taught in separate streams and there is no serious attempt to teach English as a link language. A social set up of this nature where there is racial and religious segregation into self -contained ‘tribes’ is guaranteed to explode as it did on Easter Sunday.

Will foreign investors seriously consider investing in a country where, there is no political stability mainly because of the likelihood of communal clashes as well as the irresponsible conduct of political parties and where there is deep seated corruption under which bribes have to be paid to politicians and officials even for approval of investment proposals? All these problems arise mainly due to a weak constitution under which near-illiterates and criminals like drug dealers can be elected to Parliament.
Uneven economic development and poverty

Economic growth in SL has been declining. According to the latest Central Bank (CB) Annual Report, economic growth in 2018 was 3.2%, lower than 3.4 % in 2017, investment as a percentage of GDP was 28.6% when 35-40 % is required to achieve about 8% growth, per capita GDP was at $ 4,102, lower than the amount in the previous year, the trade deficit surpassed $ 10 billion; according to the CB Annual Report of 2017, Government revenue was at 13.8% of GDP and expenditure was at a high of 19.4% and the external debt was about $ 52 billion in 2017. In other words, the SL economy has collapsed.

The result is poverty and unemployment which among youth (15-24 years) was 18.6% in 2017. According to World Bank reports the income of individuals earning less than $ 2.5 per day (or poverty) was about 32 % of the population in 2012/13; currently it could be higher. Compared to SL most of the countries in East Asia such as Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea with per capita incomes of $57,714, $ 9,952, $ 29,743 respectively in 2017 have prospered, due to good governance plus strong leadership, higher inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) and careful management of their economies.
Migration

The number of people leaving the country or migrating because of thorough disappointment with local conditions and a desire of finding better opportunities elsewhere in the world is one of the clearest indicators of fragility; in SL this trend emerged in 1983 particularly because of attacks against the Tamil people.

According to the Annual Report of the CB by 2008 1.8 million people had left SL; the CB report of 2018 reveals that the number of such departures in 2017 was over 200,000 and that about 36% of them were professional and skilled people. The tragedy is that most of such people never come back to the country where there is a serious scarcity of skilled hands needed by investors.
Abuse of the natural environment

According to the Forest Resources Assessment of the FAO 2010, the primary forest cover in SL has declined to 2.6% of the total land area. This means we have destroyed most of our natural forest cover which forms the rain water retention area of the country. This is mainly due to the fact that the leaders of the country have not diverted the excess population (26% of the total employed population in 2017, CBSL) engaged in agriculture into manufacturing industries by attracting investments into such activities. It is not surprising that the youth of these people encroach into forested areas and steep slopes for finding a livelihood in the absence employment opportunities in other areas.

Another result of the abuse of the natural environment is the frequent occurrence of droughts and floods; according to the Global Climate Risk Index 2019, SL takes rank 2 after Puerto Rico (rank 1). The leaders of the country respond to these in a feeble manner after the event; scientists now point out there are ways of reducing the effect of such disasters by cutting down on carbon emissions from a country.
Conclusion

SL is thus a failing (fragile) state. The urgent need is to arrest the decline of SL into a failed state, as suggested by Robert J. Rotberg, ‘Failed States, Collapsed States, Weak States: Causes and Indicators,’ 2003, referring to SL and two other countries.

This can be achieved only by electing leaders who are both honest and passionate about serving the needs of the people at the forthcoming elections. In this effort they have to think of ways and means of creating a consensus for a well-integrated nation like a closely-knit family with a single dream or vision of a prosperous life for all in the different communities in the country instead of allowing them to live segregated lives as at present.

Practically the only way of doing this is by enacting a new and complete constitution like that of the USA or India. Once political stability is created in this manner (that will help to attract investment especially FDI into the production of goods and services mainly for export), it is a matter of speedy adoption of strategies similar to what was proposed in my article of 26 February, to lead to economic recovery. If this cannot be done the country could slide into a failed state!
(The writer is a development economist.)

A Sri Lankan Octogenarian speaks

By Deshabandu Jezima Ismail-May 8, 2019, 8:26 pm

In my eighties - Do I look forward or backward to April 21st Easter Sunday. I was numb with grief but my mind went racing with multiple thoughts. Let calm descend over me to take stock of the situation. This reprehensible dastardly act was the work of criminal minded cowards who have forgotten the Quran’s message of mercy, forgiveness the categorical statement - Those who commit murder of even one person it is as if the whole human race has been annihilated.

Sorrow washes over me and as I look at myself in the 80’s age range I chide myself at not having succeeded in my efforts to dispel extremisms which reared its head visibly about 45 years ago and resulted in the formations of groups with warped and twisted interpretation of Religion and subsequently became the foundation for violence and terrorism in their efforts to spread their view and brainwash the community.

There is no doubt that this is a national issue - Not a global one. In Sri Lanka we have to stand together as one entity of integration to deal with the consequences. The Muslim Community has a special responsibility to look inwards and spare no effort in working with all its members on a true understanding of Islam. The treacherous and criminal minded group who have gone against the whole human race call themselves the National Thowheed Jamaat movement. What does Thawhid mean? The oneness of Allah. The message to the people echoes and reechoes in the call to prayer and what it underlines. The oneness of God or the Unity of God because this phrase should inspire righteous living in man for the main reason that this divine unity transforms itself into the sense of the unity of man and it’s this unity in verse 49:13 echoes the love and care one should have for everybody.

"O ye mankind surely we have created you a male and female and made you tribes and families that you may identify and care for each other. Surely the noblest of you in the sight of Allah is the one among you most mindful of his duty. Allah is knowing, fully aware" 49:13.

How can those who foist death on innocent beings call themselves Thawhid Jamad and how can they be referred to as "Islamic Terrorist" when there is nothing Islamic about their heinous acts.

Again another misnomer. They are also referred to as Jihadists. One has to look at this concept. Jihad is such a meaningful concept and we need to look carefully at what it connotes. It means exertion/ striving against all that is evil whether in thought or feeling. The small Jihad is fighting with arms those who are out to disturb the peace of the nation or bent on destructing the good in life. However the big Jihad - Jehad-e-Akbar or the greatest Jihad is to contend with ourselves to restrain evil and create peace by enduring. The ordeals of life with truth and steadfastness. It also means to extend one’s own interests with the interests of the World at large. That is righteous work to spread harmony, justice, unity and peace.

When one observes the present situation in our country I reiterate the fact that all of us Sri Lankans as one body will have to work towards the balance of the whole community of Sri Lankans and scrutinise carefully the potential of a pluralistic society with its multi-ethnic , multi-cultural, multi-religions has, to restore peace. One topic that has surfaced uppermost in most discussion and suggestion for change has been the dress of the Muslim Women. It is not necessary to go into any analysis of the reason why this change in the traditional dress of the Muslim Woman has transformed itself into an alien costume which bears little significance for the community and causes unrest in the Sri Lankan society. The dress of the Muslim Woman whether it be Hijab, Niqab, Burkar or Chador. Whatever it may be it needs addressing. Many are of the opinion that it is the right of an individual to choose what she wears. Yes I agree but together with the right there is also the duty; especially in a pluralistic, multi-ethnic, multi-religion, multi-culture if it causes inconvenience, and causes insecurity and lack of safety in the environment it’s best that one obeys the rules of Islam that the religion should help not only peace with oneself but also peace with the outside World. Every prayer in Islam is a resolve to conform to the Divine and in order that one might declare one’s obligation to one’s own self and own obligation to the others.

The one ray of light that I grasp is the fact that this group consist of just a few of the members, while the larger community is proud of its identity as Sri Lankans and whatever anyone might say I always uphold the fact that we have been treated as citizens, of course there are extremist in every group and there have occurred instances where communities have been harmed but all-in-all a nation such as Sri Lanka with its positive attitude is indeed unique.

I can’t help looking back at my years of existence. The constant challenges I have faced and the negative publicity I got in the community media and these extremist groups who called themselves the reformers? Being a student of a Catholic convent, teaching 19 years in a Buddhist environment and grown up in a Hindu Cultural Society it was indeed a fulfilling life and the tragedy was that we could not stem the process of terrorism. I remember with love and gratitude when my son was dying of cancer, the Churches, Buddhist Temples and Kovils having religious ceremonies. On such an occasion it was one of these fanatics who in the social media declared that my son deserved to die because of my unislamic practices. Then when I was Principal of a Muslim School giant efforts were made to introduce the Hijab and such alien costume which we somehow countered. There are many more incidents but maybe they could be recorded at a later stage.

I now go forward again. Many so called experts and decision makers declare that the ISIS products of terrorism come into action to deal with climate change, mental health issues and such negatives such as poverty. As a writer says - They ignore the elephant in the room - The ideology. The real battlefront is on this level (G. Wood). "It is their distorted beliefs contrary to the pure religious principles, the contortions of concepts like Thawhid, Jihad and their desire to impose a mono-religious culture resulting in the destruction of democracy pluralism, diversity, freedom of speech and thought, the right of women etc. How we promote national discussion and devise strategies to prevent and contain the problems that have resulted in massive human rights violations, including crimes against humanity and genocide." (K. Matthews) It is an enormous task and needs massive coordinated support but a beginning can be made at least by the community by going inwards and working out the process of a spiritual growth by building on the divinity of each individual so as to transform evil ways. We need to go beyond radicalism and search out the spiritual in Islam which is a religion of peace. Interpretation of the Quran has been completely blocked there is no place for Ijithihad (Independent reasoning) and the religion has become riddled with strict rules and stringent regulations of the Wahabi movement. The Islam I know gets its vitality from the creative elements - music, art, literature. Today in Sri Lanka Islam is dominated by rituals, regulations which completely destroy its vibrancy and vitality. The original meaning has to be restored and in this sphere Muslim community has a special role. As said before we have to re-scrutinise our efforts and collectively eliminate the evil perpetuated nationally, regionally and globally.

My heart goes out to the dear departed souls and their near and dear ones. The only way out of this negative situation is for all Sri Lankans to come together in unity and condemn these atrocities. The Muslim community is heartbroken at the carnage created by those who share our faith but have interpreted the principles as a warped ideology working its way through evil violence. Our democratic ideals must be respected as they form "value oriented structure" to form the positive environment for living together in unity and peace.

An Enigma Of Easter Sunday Bombings In Sri Lanka

The Easter Sunday self-inflicted tragedy was in military parlance a total command failure, which is likely to take Sri Lanka a decade back

by Ashok K Mehta-2019-05-08

Neither Sherlock Holmes nor Alfred Hitchcock would have been mystified by intelligence oversights that led to one of the world’s most dastardly terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka last month. Simply because it was a case of just connecting the dots — so detailed and specific were the tip-offs. According to a top secret intelligence memo of April 9 (there were two others before the fateful day dawned on Easter Sunday), the country’s intelligence chief had warned the Inspector General of Police that “Zahran Hashim of the National Tawheed Jamaat and his associates were planning to carry out suicide terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka shortly.” How this classified warning was not shared with President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is a riddle. Rarely has there been an intelligence goof-up of this magnitude in recent memory.

That such a catastrophic intelligence foul-up took place in Sri Lanka, which only a decade ago had destroyed the invincible Velupillai Prabhakaran-led Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), ending root and branch a 30-year-long deadly insurgency and becoming the first country to achieve such a feat in the 21st century, is intriguing. The Army, Navy and Air Force have held annual international seminars in Colombo to showcase their military successes, including the Army’s prowess in deep penetration intelligence acquisition skills. According to the then Defence Secretary and brother of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, now a presidential hopeful for the elections this year, the present Government dismantled the elaborate intelligence and surveillance network of 5,000 personnel he had set up in 2011 across the country, including the Muslim majority areas of the east.

Nine suicide bombers, including one woman, struck in coordinated attacks followed by two or three hara-kiri acts by family members and associates of the mastermind Hashim. It is now known that the suicide squad consisted of 15 members and the support group was 150 of whom 100 cadres have been arrested. Thirty-six Sri Lankans are reported to have gone to fight with the Islamic State in Syria and many had returned. The preparation for serial human bombing of this scale and sophistication would have taken months if not years. Sirisena has revealed that planning for the attacks started in Syria in 2017. How this massive diabolical plot escaped detection is a mystery. The Sri Lankan Army Commander, Lt Gen Mahesh Senanayake, in an interview to BBC, has said that the suicide bombers “got some sort of training” in Kashmir and Kerala. This should worry India. Given the severe communal polarisation exacerbated by the elections, major terrorist attacks are not unlikely in India in the near future.

In 2017, I retraced my times with the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) 30 years ago in the east, travelling through Muslim majority Ampara and Kalmunai areas near Batticaloa and saw an increased density of population, mosques and madrassas as also prosperity and development. The Muslims were targeted by the LTTE notably in their massacre in Sri Lanka’s biggest mosque in Kattankudy near Batticaloa in the 1990s. (Kattankudy is the hometown of Hashim, the mastermind of the attacks and its training ground). Later, the Sinhala Buddhist extremists Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), ostensibly supported by the Government, targetted Muslims periodically from 2013, culminating in the big anti-Muslin riots in Kandy last year, which led to the Government declaring an Emergency. The trigger for Muslim alienation and radicalisation is the BBS attacks and objections to hijab and halal. How the Government did not pick up these straws in the wind is an enigma.

Initially, the Government ascribed the horrific attacks to the Islamic State (IS)-inspired Sri Lankan Muslim National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ) as retaliation for Christchurch till IS supremo Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi claimed responsibility as revenge for loss of Baghouz, the caliphate’s last bastion in Syria. Sri Lanka’s own counter-terrorism czar, the Singapore-based Rohan Gunaratna, confirmed that IS has created support groups around the world and NTJ has joined the IS.

The rift and infighting between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe is a folklore. The politics of the carnage is beguiling. Sirisena has squarely blamed the Prime Minister, the Defence Secretary and the Inspector General Police and said he was kept in the dark and that he would reconstitute security structures. On his part, Wickremesinghe said, “I did not know…still we have to take responsibility for that part of Government machinery that did not work.” Sirisena is not only the Defence Minister but has also kept the Law and Order Ministry with him, some say, unconstitutionally. This has kept Wickremesinghe quarantined from defence and security, including national security council meetings. That the left hand did not know what the right hand was doing is the black hole in the security system.

Former Army Commander General Sarath Fonseka was the key architect of victory of the LTTE but he fell out with the old regime’s top leaders, the Rajapaksas. The Sirisena Government appointed Fonseka a Field Marshal and a Minister. Speaking in the Emergency debate in Parliament after the bombings, Fonseka lambasted his own Government, including Srisena, Wickremesinghe and other defence and intelligence officials. Demands for making Fonseka Minister for law and order are increasing.

Sri Lanka is under Emergency rule with the Prevention of Terrorism Act in place but is likely to be replaced with the new counter-terrorism Bill. It is the first country to ban the face veil in South Asia. Both the curfew and ban on social media were lifted after a week. The preliminary report on the bombings has been completed, which Sirisena is keeping close to his chest. A new military command territorially, including parts of west and northwest provinces, including Colombo and Puttalam and strangely called Overall Operational Command, has been established and coastal security beefed up. India’s offer of sending its elite National Security Guards has been politely rejected. The joke in Colombo is about how NSG messed up in Mumbai in 2008 taking four days to complete the operation. Tongue-in-cheek Sri Lankan military veterans say what the IPKF started and did not complete, we finished.

Over-indulgent in its conquest of LTTE, Sri Lanka let its guard down. A dysfunctional cohabitation Government has been rent apart by catastrophic terrorist attacks, which are likely to take Sri Lanka a decade back. The Easter Sunday self-inflicted tragedy was in military parlance a total command failure. That neither the Prime Minister nor President has resigned is to borrow a famous war time Churchillian one liner: A riddle wrapped in a mystery surrounded by an enigma.

(The writer is a retired Major General of the Indian Army and founder member of the Defence Planning Staff, currently the revamped Integrated Defence Staff)

Easter Sunday In Sri Lanka: Crisis, Correction & Hope

By Asanga Abeyagoonasekera –MAY 8, 2019

Asanga Abeygoonasekera

“What happened on September 11th is at least, theoretically, small stuff compared to what can happen.” ~ Robert D. Kaplan

I was 16 when I witnessed the horror terrorism first hand. It was the blast I lost my father in.

When the long battle ended with the Tamil Tigers in 2009, I was relieved that what I witnessed would not be seen by my children.

I was wrong.

April 21st 2019 was when I had to cover my seven-year-old child’s eyes while my family was evacuating from the emergency exit of the Shangri La Hotel soon after the two suicide attacks which shook the entire building. The steps were soaked in blood. Lifeless bodies were carried out and many body parts blown off. Not many families made it out of the fire exit like us. My family is shocked and living in fear like many others today. I sympathize with the victims and their families who have lost loving family and friends.

Had I been 3 minutes earlier to the lift, I would not be writing this piece.

Since this day, questions raised by my six-year-old and seven-year-old are hard for me to answer. Why do people kill each other? How many bad people are there in the world? Why do people make bombs? It goes on. For my young son’s peace of mind and happiness, I painted a heroic story that life will all be better soon after a superhero saves us.

In my capacity as the Director General of the National Security think tank, I see this event as gross national security negligence.

The Easter Sunday attack stands apart from previous faces of terror. Nine extremists turned the entire nation to a state of fear by killing the innocent. The targets were Christians and foreign nationalities to get the maximum global attention.

Sri Lanka is a geo strategically blessed paradise island that lives with an ‘existential threat’ (as my book further outlines). This is due to its internal disarray of politics and external geopolitics. Countries facing an existential threat for a long period of time tend to become a ‘national security state’ according to John J.Mearsheimer. Out of its 71 years of independence, Sri Lanka has fought a brutal terrorist war for almost 30 years. Today there is another phase of terrorism: violent extremism.

Certain liberal values introduced by the present government made our nation vulnerable and a soft target for terrorist to breed and function. What was seen by the West as an autocratic state under Rajapaksa was reset overnight, tagging Sri Lanka to a global liberal order. This was done at the expense of an ensured demilitarization and the complete dismantling and weakening of the country’s military apparatus.

It brought prosperity to individuals without understanding the setbacks of liberalism. The principal of liberalism was confused with nationalism. Some policy makers saw one against the other to push agendas forward.

Many extra regional nations came forward with certain agreements which had direct and indirect influences on our national security. Noncooperation with some powerful nations may lead to the assumption that certain powerful nations may have used a backdoor to enter the island using terror.

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith explained at a press conference warning that “powerful nations could be behind these attacks”. It is an urgent area for Sri Lankan national security to invest in serious research and investigation. This lacuna is due to the lack of support by certain policy makers. A glance at the support extended to Sri Lanka’s national security think tank will reveal its rank on the State’s list of priorities. The ‘National Defence Policy’ is the leading document capturing all threats. It remains a classified document inside a cupboard for three years. None of the policy makers bothered to take this forward.

The National Security think tank (INSSSL) at its internal Ministry of Defence discussion held in 2017 March identified the threat of extremism that could trigger in Sri Lanka and documented in its monthly threat forecast written in March and October of 2017 and subsequently in January of 2019 after the discovery of 100 detonators and explosives in the West coast of the Island. How did such warnings go unheard?

This gross negligence was clearly due to the malfunction of processes within the government, perhaps due to political meddling within intelligence agencies and political division. The consequence is devastating and has dragged the entire nation to a “state of fear”, taking more than 350 innocent lives.

When the state cannot manage the consequence of an extremist act, extremism presents a clear threat to national security. Extremist groups can operate in emerging democracies, while also finding operational space in failed or failing states. Post war Sri Lanka was a soft target for extremist to creep in due to the political instability with two sets of instructions flowing in from the bipartisan government. I have indicated multiple times the grave danger to national security from the existing political instability of the country.

It was not even a month ago when President Trump announced, “we just took over 100% of the IS caliphate,” in a victorious speech seeing the end as the last bullet was fired in the IS held Syrian town of Baghouz, on the banks of the Euphrates River. Lina Khatib, an expert from Chatham House, UK who analyzed the victory of the U.S., British, and French-backed Kurdish and Arab coalition, said, “The group itself has not been eradicated,…The ideology of IS is still very much at large.” She states that IS will revert to its insurgent roots as it moves underground, using the territorial loss as a call to arms among its network of supporters.

Joseph Votel, the top American general in the Middle East, warned: “(The caliphate) still has leaders, still has fighters, it still has facilitators, it still has resources, so our continued military pressure is necessary to continue to go after that network.”

In the same manner Prof. Rohan Gunaratna, the international terrorist expert, analyzed how this spilled over to Sri Lankan attack. He stated, “With a vengeance, the returnees from Iraq and Syria and diehard supporters and sympathizers in their homelands responded to the call by the IS leadership to avenge Baghouz, the last IS stronghold. The indoctrinated personalities and cells attacked Buddhist shrines and broke Buddha images.”

At least 41,490 international citizens traveled to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS, according to ICSR; this is at least 50 each month. A total of 41 Sri Lankan Muslims from two extended families travelled to Iraq and Syria. There were many individuals who migrated as refugees to Sri Lanka from Muslim nations in the last several years.

The members of the IS branch that staged the attacks in Sri Lanka believed in martyrdom. They were educated and mostly from upper middle-class families. This is a different scale and complexity of threat when compared to the LTTE threat. The extremist bombers were calm. One bomber even gently holds a child just before his suicide. This shows they were well trained for months and perhaps years.

Some see this as a retaliation to the Christchurch attack, which took place last month. The Christchurch footage was used for election campaigns in Turkey weeks after the attack. It was used by a political leader to win popular support, which will further divide the Christian and Muslim communities in the same way as President Trump’s Muslim ban did soon after his victory. The danger in such populist acts by politicians will further polarize and lead towards a clash among two great civilizations.

Why Maithripala Sirisena hates SF

9 May 2019

Do not be afraid; our fate cannot be taken from us; it is a gift. ~Dante Alighieri

Presidency goes away beyond the holder’s personal likes and dislikes. It goes beyond the holder’s fears and pleasures; its scope is so large and extending beyond the personal boundaries of one’s lamentable limitations, a not-so-sophisticated intellect (if he has any) fails to embrace the immense responsibilities and demands that are rested upon the office.

As this writer has enunciated in his previous columns, the fundamental function of the leader of the country is to protect and defend its people.

However, clever he thinks he is, when the weight of office falls on him with immeasurable intensity, if he is not ready or equipped to understand the nuanced attributes of the demands that he is expected to confront and respond with poise and stoicism, he will be judged by history, first as a miserable failure and then even as a traitor to the office he was elected to.

Politicians, unlike those bureaucrats who are appointed to execute the policies and programs spelt out and prepared by them, more often than not, tend to take the easy way out when the going gets rough and tough.

The way forward should be the only focus of leaders of a country
Alleged pressure on Sirisena sourcing from the Rajapaksas might be unbearable for Sirisena

Politicians by the very fact of impermanence of their being in power, especially in a democratic republic, usually resort to clever messaging of the facts; their rhetorical insinuations overtake the plain and simple expression of the status quo as related to innumerable crises their country faces on a daily basis; their immediate attention is to the sustenance of their power and in order to solidify that power, they apply all the skills they have accumulated over the years; whether they are intellectually matched with the complex tasks that lie ahead, they have proven to be perfectly matched in the deceptive techniques of this enterprise called politics.

When such characters seek high office in the country, and when they are elected on the strength of the campaign and unusually electric rhetoric they used during those campaigns, an inscrutable phenomenon enters their minds; that inscrutable phenomenon begins to not only shape and define their activities that follow, it acts as a shield and armour against numerous attacks hurled at them by their opponents.

Nevertheless, the path that these politicians choose to trek offers more rugged terrain than rosy meadows. The natural obedience to greed and lust becomes the second part of their very DNA and at the expense of the people who elected them to office, they begin a macabre game of indulgence and luxurious living styles that sometimes belittle those spent by old-rich millionaires and billionaires.

Law and Order Ministry is a double-edged knife; that is how Sirisena perceives it. Fonseka will man that job and destroy not only all forces that try to destroy our lives, but he might also go after the Rajapaksas

This, in short, is what has happened to our current Executive President. After being elected by the overwhelming majority of United National Party (UNP) supporters and the Tamils and Muslims, this politician has chosen to brandish his power in the most unethical; he chose to betray his supporters and go to bed with his mortal enemies, so to speak.

Yet, when the name of real war hero, Sarath Fonseka came up for the post of Field Marshall, he did not hesitate to decorate Fonseka with this rare distinction.

He saw it fit to make such a magnanimous gesture at the time. But unfortunately for Sri Lanka and her people who were trying to raise their heads above water after a brutal 30-year war, tragedy struck again. On Easter Sunday of 2019, April 21, a well-coordinated and shrewdly organized terror attack was hurled at the three Christian/Catholic churches and three five-Star hotels, namely, Shangri la, Kingsbury and Cinnamon Grand, and killed more than 300 men, women and children and injured more than 700, the Executive President was on furlough in Singapore with his family.
His patriotism and love for the people of his motherland came apart at its seams.

When it was revealed that the Executive was informed of an impending attack of the nature of the Easter Sunday Massacre, the people saw through this man’s utter inadequacy for the job he holds.

Usually, at moments of crisis, most political leaders own responsibility and pledge to go forward from then and thereon. Passing the buck is not usually ascribed to great men. Maithripala Sirisena’s deficiencies have been brought to light. What happened is now history. The way forward should be the only focus of leaders of a country. Harbouring old grudges is petty and belittling to the office they hold.

You cannot handle the job of national security. You cannot be trusted with the defence apparatus and its sophisticated demands. Standing up and bowing their heads to you is not attributed to you personally; national security professionals do that for the office you hold. Misreading such bureaucratic obedience is a national crisis. Please do not try to hide behind the constitutional clauses and hold on to the Ministry of Defence. You still can be the Minister of Defence but hand over national security to an elected politician who has proven beyond any shadow of doubt or reservation, who can account for the defence and protection of our people.

Sarath Fonseka is a much-maligned man. His bravery and undiluted courage was once the source of irritation and mistrust by another regime which was headed by three brothers. The first among them was the President, another was charged with the economy and the other who fled the army he once served in and was in hiding in another greener pasture. The brothers gathered their political and financial capital thanks to their other brother’s Presidency.

Credited with almost three fourths (75%) of the national budget, these brothers are alleged to have ransacked the country’s coffers to their will and whims. The guy who is being promoted for Presidency in 2020, got one of his cronies to write a book and attribute the success of the war effort to his own name. These empty vessels began their symphony of self-aggrandizements soon after the guns fell silent in the North and East.

The natural obedience to greed and lust becomes the second part of their very DNA and at the expense of the people who elected them to office, they begin a macabre game of indulgence and luxurious living styles that sometimes belittle those spent by old-rich millionaires and billionaires

Plutarch, named, upon becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, was a Greek biographer and essayist, known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia, who is classified as a Middle Platonist, said:

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled”.

The empty vessels, that were the Rajapaksa brothers, did not understand the nuanced ways of thinking nor could they relate or empathize with the ordinary shades of life and its idiosyncratic elements. Instead of kindling their emptiness with wisdom and acumen, they opted for the alluring magic of material luxury and ego-enhancing flattery. But the horrendous felonies and misdeeds they are alleged to have committed are now pursuing them like a hyena in scavenging search of easy prey.

While the Executive is being charged, rightly or wrongly, with negligence of duty, Sarath Fonseka chose to wait in the shadows, but no more. Field Marshall Sarath Fonseka could not wait any longer.

His remarks in the House of Parliament in the wake of the Easter Sunday Massacre revealed the very character and traits of a fighter; of a man who knows what national security is, what it demands of those who are held responsible to protect and defend the land and her people.

It is being speculated that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is responsible for the Easter Sunday Massacre. ISIS is a very sophisticated terror organization, perhaps second only to or on par with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE).

Who else is more qualified and equipped to confront ISIS than Sarath Fonseka, the one who destroyed Prabhakaran and his murderous organization named LTTE.

But Maithripala Sirisena does not see it that way. His anger, jealousy and pettiness have clouded his judgment.

The Law and Order Ministry is a double-edged knife; that is how Sirisena perceives it. Fonseka will man that job and destroy not only all forces that try to destroy our lives, but he might also go after the Rajapaksas with the same commitment to democracy and rule of law and expose them, once and for all.

The alleged pressure on Sirisena sourcing from the Rajapaksas might be unbearable for Sirisena. The man who beat and brought Prabhakaran to his knees is being held in limbo because he can do the job.

But, it seems, placing the country before petty and inconsequential likes and dislikes is a hard choice for our Executive. It is indeed a tragedy beyond Shakespearian genre. One wonders whether holding Sarath Fonseka away from the job of Law and Order is part of a deal that involves nomination from the Pohottuwa. That would be even a more unspeakable tragedy.

The writer can be contacted at vishwamithra1984@gmail.com

Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Sri Lanka police chief: All suspects in blasts killed or arrested

All those responsible for the Easter suicide bombings that killed 257 people are accounted for, police chief says.

The government reopened public schools on Monday [Eranga Jayawardena/AP]

Sri Lanka's security authorities have either killed or arrested all those responsible for the Easter suicide bombings that left 257 people dead, according to the police chief.

Chandana Wickramaratne said in an audio statement on Tuesday that police had accounted for every individual involved in the April 21 attacks on three churches and three luxury hotels.

"All those who organised and carried out the suicide bomb attack have died or [are] in our custody," he said.

"The two bomb experts of the group have been killed. We have seized the explosives they had stored for future attacks."

Wickramaratne, who was named acting police chief last week after President Maithripala Sirisena suspended his predecessor over his failure to act on warnings about the attacks, said public life was slowly returning to normal with the lifting of curfews imposed after the bombings.

Schools reopened

The government reopened public schools on Monday, but attendance dropped to below 10 percent in many places with parents still fearing attacks.

"We have strengthened security for all schools," the police chief said. "We are also conducting a programme to create awareness about safety and security in all schools."

Wickramaratne did not say how many people were in custody over the bombings, but police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said on Monday that 73 people, including nine women, were being held.

The bombings were blamed on a local group, the National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ).

But the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) armed group has also claimed responsibility.

Police said religious tensions have eased at Negombo, a town north of Colombo that suffered the highest death toll in the Easter Sunday attacks. A bomb at St Sebastian's Church in the town killed more than 100 worshippers.

Dozens of Muslim-owned businesses, homes and vehicles in Negombo were damaged in clashes on Sunday night.

The Roman Catholic Church appealed for calm and urged Christians not to carry out revenge attacks against Muslims.

Police said two arrests were made and more suspects had been identified through CCTV footage.

Sri Lanka Easter bombings: Was the social media ban necessary? | The Listening Post (10:00)

Easter Sunday Attack In Sri Lanka: How Did Spy Warnings Go Unheard?

The government and civil society will have a massive duty on managing the spreading of hatred and division among different ethnic and religious groups.

by Asanga Abeyagoonasekera-2019-05-08

"What happened on September 11th is at least, theoretically, small stuff compared to what can happen.” Robert D. Kaplan

I was 16 when I witnessed the horror terrorism first hand. It was the blast I lost my father in. When the long battle ended with the Tamil Tigers in 2009, I was relieved that what I witnessed would not be seen by my children.

I was wrong.

Had I been 3 minutes earlier to the lift, I would not be writing this piece.

In my capacity as the Director General of the National Security think tank, I see this event as gross national security negligence.

The Easter Sunday attack stands apart from previous faces of terror. Nine extremists turned the entire nation to a state of fear by killing the innocent. The targets were Christians and foreign nationalities to get the maximum global attention.

Sri Lanka is a geo strategically blessed paradise island that lives with an 'existential threat’ (as my book further outlines). This is due to its internal disarray of politics and external geopolitics. Countries facing an existential threat for a long period of time tend to become a ‘national security state’ according to John J.Mearsheimer. Out of its 71 years of independence, Sri Lanka has fought a brutal terrorist war for almost 30 years. Today there is another phase of terrorism: violent extremism.

It was not even a month ago when President Trump announced, “we just took over 100% of the IS caliphate,” in a victorious speech seeing the end as the last bullet was fired in the IS held Syrian town of Baghouz, on the banks of the Euphrates River. Lina Khatib, an expert from Chatham House, UK who analyzed the victory of the U.S., British, and French-backed Kurdish and Arab coalition, said, "The group itself has not been eradicated,…The ideology of IS is still very much at large.” She states that IS will revert to its insurgent roots as it moves underground, using the territorial loss as a call to arms among its network of supporters.

Joseph Votel, the top American general in the Middle East, warned: "(The caliphate) still has leaders, still has fighters, it still has facilitators, it still has resources, so our continued military pressure is necessary to continue to go after that network.”

ISIS tentacles reached NTJ in Sri Lanka in 2017, among another group globally. The spillover from the Baghouz defeat affected Sri Lanka, the Island nation who was at the top of tourism, ready to participate for Belt and Road 2nd Forum and celebrate its 10 years of success in eradicating terrorism this May.

The Sri Lankan attack was the single largest killing in a day by a terrorist outfit in the Island’s history. Despite sophisticated security services the nation possessed during the three-decade battle, there were intelligence and security limitations. It was ‘a gross national security negligence’ that the entire nation fell victim to. The answer for this could be seen as intelligence information was withheld and not flowing into political decision makers. Such endemic security failures were in plain sight, even in the United States over the 9/11 attacks. The CIA found that available intelligence did not flow to political decision makers.

Despite multiple warnings from Indian intelligence before the attacks took place, the extremist cell NTJ was identified months and years before by the Islamic community leaders as a threat.

Steps to Strengthening Military Intelligence:

The Sri Lankan government will have to develop several immediate steps first to strengthen military intelligence and the handling of cross border intelligence sharing among other nations as this sort of terrorism require a multi-pronged, multi-jurisdictional approach. Secondly, it is necessary to protect our vulnerable communities who could be targeted through the spreading misinformation and disinformation in the social media, which could lead to communal riots. Religious leaders have a great role in promoting religious harmony in this environment.

Third, while operational intelligence on arresting the perpetrators will go on, the analysis of intelligence data will be an important step to understand the real root cause behind the attack. Fourth, a complete post audit of the security negligence should be done by the government to understand where the limitations had come from, and should be addressed immediately. The accountability of negligence has to be pointed out and those responsible should be charged or fired. Finally, external support from other nations should be taken only for intelligence sharing and building capacity to combat extremism, and not to sign any other security agreements that could have security implications in the long run.

In the coming months, the deradicalization of the radicalized youth will be another essential part we would need to invest in. The government and civil society will have a massive duty on managing the spreading of hatred and division among different ethnic and religious groups.

A collective effort from society will be necessary to defeat extremism.

Just as the manner in which the Sri Lankan Muslim society assisted to defeat the LTTE, they will assist to defeat extremism within the island. The simplest act of kindness and service from each one of us to reclaim unity will be an honor to respect the lives we lost in 4/21.

Sri Lanka will respond to terror with strength and hope- more unified than ever before.

(Asanga Abeyagoonasekera is Director General of the National Security Think Tank of Sri Lanka (INSSSL) under the Sri Lanka Defence Ministry, author of “Sri Lanka at crossroads(2019). Views expressed in this article are authors own. A version of this article first appeared on www.insssl.lk )