Lethal Bungling: Sri Lanka’s Easter Bombings
The number of dead is bound to
rise, already standing at more than three hundred. The bombs, worn by
seven suicide bombers, struck at three churches during the period of
Easter Sunday worship, and three hotels. As the dead were counted and
the wounded accounted for, the situation through the
glass darkly was a
troubled one. Information relayed had either been ignored or
discounted. In some cases, it never reached necessary recipients.
While the individuals behind the
bombings were hardly forthcoming about their handiwork, there were
suggestions as early as April 4 from Indian security sources that one
group was readying to initiate various attacks. National Thowheeth
Jama’ath, an Islamic group, had piqued the interest of police enough to
lead to the identification of members and their addresses on April 11.
One of the suicide bombers, it
transpired, had also been arrested some few months prior on suspicion of
vandalizing a statue of Buddha. Such acts of serious desecration were
not alien to the NTJ; the use of bombings on such scale was, however,
not their forte.
On Monday, Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne, confirmed
what had already been a fast held suspicion: even after the warning of
April 4, the prime minister and his associates had been “completely
blind to the situation.”
The picture painted by the minister
seemed a gruesome admission of defiance in the face of detailed
warnings. Intelligence agencies had “informed, from time to time,
starting from April 4, 48 hours before the attacks and finally ten
minutes before the tragedy struck. They gave warnings about a possible
attack on April 4 for the first time.” From then on, the National
Intelligence Chief Sisira Mendis kept the Inspector
General Police (IGP) abreast of the “imminent attacks” having “actually
informed that an organisation called ‘Thowheed Jamath’ planned suicide
attacks and had even mentioned their names.”
Scenes of confusion and dangerously
comic dysfunction unfolded in the government. Despite various organs
being informed about the threat – the ministerial security division
(MSD), the judicial security division, and security divisions of former
presidents and the Diplomatic Security Unit, there was a failure, according
to Senaratne, “to warn the Prime Ministerial Security Division (PMSD)
and the Presidential Security Division (PSD) of the attacks.” When the
PM attempted to convene a security council meeting, no one turned up.
When the President had made a previous effort to do the same thing,
there was a delay of 20 minutes. He had to “sit in the State Defence
Minister’s room for some time.” Nor was the Tourism Minister, John Amaratunga, briefed. “Unfortunately, I did not know anything about it.”
Efforts to minimise, contain and
deflect have become standard fare, with blithe ignorance forming the
central defence. Rich lashings of blame are also in full circulation.
This gives the air of monstrous acceptance: we bungled, but haven’t we
before? Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando, on Monday, felt
that the intelligence assessments had not warranted a serious, full
security response, despite the level of detail supplied, and their
frequency.
“Intelligence,” he stated disingenuously, “never indicated that it’s going to be an attack on this magnitude. They were talking about isolated incidents. Besides, there is no emergency in this country. We cannot request the armed forces to come and assist as we can only depend on the police.”
Having claimed the received
intelligence pointed to mere potential “isolated incidents” (the
suggestion here is that a monstrous act, when seen as an isolated one,
can be rationalised according to a security and ethical calculus; in
short, more permissible), Fernando proceeded to normalise the entire
episode.
“It’s not the first time a bomb went off in this country. During the height of the war, when emergency regulations were in force and roadblocks installed at every two kilometres, bombs went off. Why are you trying to isolate this unfortunate incident?”
At the highest levels, the Sri Lankan government has suffered political sclerosis. President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe,
have been waging wars cold and hot against each other for some time.
When Wickremesinghe was re-appointed after being sacked by the cranky
Sirisena in December last year, in turn replacing a cantankerous Mahinda
Rajapaksa, the President extolled
his own democratic credentials. While he held a personal dislike for
his appointee, he also respected “the parliamentary tradition”.
The post-attack reaction is also
proving to be an unhinged affair. Sri Lankan authorities immediately
imposed a social media blackout. Dazed and confused as officials are,
the idea of not containing an agitated public as inquiries are conducted
seemed a grave threat. Besides, a country bathed in the blood of
decades of communal violence continues to teeter before the next
provocation, the next inflammatory message of inspired retribution.
There was little pride in asserting
that the group was “a local organisation”, with all suicide bombers
having been Sri Lankan citizens. But not wishing it to be an entirely
indigenous affair, Senaratne wished to speculate
that, “there was an international network without which these attacks
could not have succeeded.” Another source of blame had been identified.
As Fernando surmised, it would be
foolish to put too much stock in future efforts on the part of the
government. Yes, assistance was being sought from Interpol, the FBI and
the Australian Federal Police. But he could not “take confidence with
terrorism. No country in the world can assure that it’s not going to
happen. But we are trying our best.” A brutally frank response, though
hardly a cleansing exculpation.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark
was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures
at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global
Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
Featured image is from The Greenville News
The original source of this article is Asia-Pacific Research
Copyright © Dr. Binoy Kampmark, Asia-Pacific Research, 2019
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