The Easter Sunday attacks- where to from here?

By Kassapa 

The sixth anniversary of the 2019 Easter Sunday terror attacks that claimed the lives of two hundred and seventy civilians, mostly devotees attending church has come and gone and the same question is being asked: are we any closer to knowing the truth?

There is a difference this Easter to the rhetoric that emerges every year: a new government is in office. This government is not from the established major power blocs that the country has known for decades and is also one which promised to ‘reveal the truth’ by probing the attacks without fear or favour during their election campaigns late last year.

Have they done so? No, not yet, anyway. It could be argued that this is understandable because they have been in office for just seven months and an investigation of this complexity requires more time. Is the new administration showing signs that it is keen to and capable of getting to the bottom of this mystery? The answer to that question is ‘maybe’ because, while the government’s intentions may be genuine, its recent track record on other issues of concern leaves much to be desired.

Thankfully, the government hasn’t appointed a new commission of inquiry. There are plenty of them already: then President Maithripala Sirisena’s committee of inquiry followed by his presidential commission, the parliamentary select committee and also the Supreme Court inquiry following fundamental rights applications. The general impression is that, what happened and who did the deed is well established. What is missing in the narrative is who masterminded the attack, or alternatively, whether this was the act of a group of misguided, radicalised people.

There was an expectation that there would be a major ‘revelation’ on, or just before, the sixth anniversary of the attacks. This was heightened after the detention of Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, better known as Pillayan. He was detained on an entirely different charge of abducting the Vice-Chancellor of the Eastern University in 2006 but is known to have shared prison time with Zahran Hashim, the leader of the Easter Sunday attackers. More recently one of his former associates, Azad Maulana accused him of complicity in the attacks but those claims were largely unsubstantiated.

Despite the speculation that Pillayan would say it all before the anniversary, nothing has emerged. Arguably, if what is needed is a detailed and thorough review of the investigations thus far, this will be a time-consuming process. We have had repeated assurances that this is the case, most recently as this week from Cabinet spokesman Nalinda Jayatissa who tells us that all will be revealed in due course. That would indeed be promising if the government’s catalogue of achievements so far was impressive. The big question now is, can the government walk the talk?

Certain examples stand out. When the Attorney General’s Department contemplated releasing some suspects in the Lasantha Wickrematunge assassination, the government cried foul and said it would appoint an Independent Prosecutor’s Office which it had planned anyway in its manifesto. After the initial fuss over Wickrematunge died down, we haven’t heard about an Independent Prosecutor.

The ‘Clean Sri Lanka’ project, a laudable concept, was launched with fanfare on January first this year raising expectations of a continued and sustained effort to not only literally clean the country but also improve the country’s culture and environment. Since then, we have seen episodic bursts of activity from this campaign but nothing that suggests a long term, enduring programme of work.

Then, a key component of the government’s elections campaigns last year were its pledges to repeal the Online Safety Act (OSA) and the even more restrictive Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). Both are very much in operation even now. The detention of a 22-year-old youth who was arrested under the PTA on a detention order signed by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake for pasting a sticker related to the conflict in Gaza highlights how draconian the PTA can be. When asked about repealing the PTA, ministers have said it will be done in “due course” with no timeline promised.

Last but not least, there is the vexed issue of the Executive Presidency which Dissanayake and the Jathika Jana Balavegaya (JJB) solemnly promised to abolish, many times over, during their election campaigns. This would of course require a change in the country’s Constitution and such changes cannot be made overnight but has the process even started? If it has, we haven’t heard much about it. In comparison, the last time the country’s Constitution was changed by J.R. Jayewardene in 1978, it was done within a year and few months of the new government taking over.             

Alarmingly, the government seems to be preoccupied with the day-to-day running of the government and taking petty pot shots at political opponents rather than getting to work on the broader policy changes it so boldly promised when in campaign mode while in the opposition. That was less than a year ago.

This is why the lack of progress on the Easter Sunday terror attacks investigation is concerning. The Catholic Church led by its vocal head, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, read out a strongly worded reminder addressed directly to Dissanayake at this year’s Easter commemoration service but stopped short of being critical. The message seemed to be that the Church was willing to wait, maybe for one more year but the tone and tenor of the Cardinal’s speech suggested that patience was running out.

The only response from the government was tokenistic: Dissanayake formally handed over the 67,000 page report of the Special Presidential Commission of Inquiry to the Criminal Investigations Department for inquiry. That begs the question as to why this was not done sooner, perhaps even just after Dissanayake assumed office? Or, is the government now clutching at straws to convey the impression that it is seen to be doing ‘something’?

Whether Dissanayake and the government likes it or not, the people want definitive answers about the Easter Sunday attacks, whatever that answer might be. The sooner the government realises that, the better it is for its own survival. Clearly, the government has miles to go and promises to keep.  

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