Speaking at St. Anthony’s Shrine, Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, raised the possibility that the Easter Sunday attacks were part of a ploy to stoke ethnic divisions and security concerns ahead of the 2019 Presidential elections.
Quoting the parliamentary select committees report he notes:
“The PSC makes a very serious finding in terms of the status of the state intelligence apparatus, where intelligence information known to a few was not shared with relevant parties. The PSC also observes that further investigations will be needed to understand whether those with vested interests did not act on intelligence so as to create chaos and instil fear and uncertainty in the country in the lead up to the Presidential Election to be held later in the year. Such a situation would then lead to the call for a change of regime to contain such acts of terrorism. Coincidently or not so coincidentally, the security situation and fear would be unleashed months away from the Presidential Election.”
His statement comes as he leads a delegation, including 30 relatives and those disabled by the Easter Sunday attacks, to the Vatican. In total 279 people were killed in the bombings and a further 500 injured.
“We see that an attempt has been made to somehow lay the blame only on the radical elements of the Islamic community while protecting all the others who have had something to do with these attacks, either in the manner of direct involvement or in the manner of not carrying out their duties to prevent them,” the cardinal told his audience.
He further highlighted the numerous warnings Sri Lanka’s security forces received not only from members of the public but also from the Indian Intelligence Service.
“What is most surprising is that the security officers circulated among themselves a confidential letter to warn each other, while not giving this information to the general public”.
“The attempt made by some security officials to get the attacks accepted by ISIS as something they had organized, when it was clear that even ISIS did not know about it, is also another mystery. So, the question can be asked, why the security officers were interested in getting ISIS to claim responsibility for something they didn’t even know about. Were they trying to hide someone else who was behind all this?” the cardinal asks.
He further highlights that “on two other occasions after the Easter bombings, some extremist groups close to the present regime in Sri Lanka and inimical to the Muslims tried to provoke communal violence between the Sinhalese and the Muslims was again a politically motivated provocation”.
The cardinal castigates the former President noting:
“The attempt made by the then President of Sri Lanka to somehow prevent the arrest of Zahran Hashim and his group and the discouragement of attempts by the Police to get them arrested, played a big role in ensuring that the attacks did take place. The story of the arrest of the Deputy Inspector General of Police, who had even obtained an arrest warrant on Zahran, is not understandable unless we posit a possible plot to somehow ensure that the attacks do go ahead”.
He also sharply criticises Sri Lanka’s current President stating;
“The present government continuously refuses to carry out the recommendations of the Presidential Commission Report with regard to the prosecution of some of the top-level political and security as well as intelligence officers for criminal neglect of duty in the matter. We have to sincerely ask why they are taking that attitude. In the case of several of these top officers, the prosecution has been so poorly handled that even the cases that have been filed against them by the previous government have been dismissed by the courts. So we see a spirit of collaboration between the existing government and the Attorney General’s Department to treat these cases in a slipshod manner”.
In his statement, he further called on the international community to put pressure on Sri Lanka to ensure a “transparent and just inquiry”. This is a marked change in approach from his response to the genocidal violence in Mullivaikkal. In 2012, as Bishop of Mannar, Rayappu Joseph and other members of the wrote to the UN Human Rights Council, Cardinal Ranjith said the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka rejected any moves for an international accountability mechanism and claimed: "such efforts by western powers is an insult on the intelligence of the people of Sri Lanka".
In 2013, Ranjith slammed any notion of foreign intervention in Sri Lanka, writing
"Foreigners should not tell us what to do... We are not a pack of fools".
Read more here: The Cardinal becomes a convert
