Sunday Times 2
Easter attacks: Your sin will find you out
“Your sin will find you out”. This universal saying is borrowed from the Holy Bible. Moses, admonishing two tribes for disobeying God, said, “Your sin will find you out.”
This is quite true in conduct after crime, too. That is why Police mount surveillance on suspects with a view to collecting evidence of behaviour after the crime.
It is also true even of pets. I remember in the early 1960s we had a big sized Doberman crossed dog named Pluto. It was normally obedient but not when it came to food. He just could not resist food within sight or smell. What was most embarrassing was his habit of toppling neighbours’ curry pots sometimes still on the fire. When the neighbours scream out complaining, my mother would go with a stick to confront Pluto. The dog would take a circuitous route, get to our verandah about 200 metres from the fence and lie down under my father’s reclining arm chair, as if he had been there the whole day. None would interfere with him under that chair. All his antics, however, pointed to his guilt. That of course is animal instinct.
With regard to the 2019 Easter Sunday disaster, information was available to all concerned that the attacks would take place and the attackers were identified. There is ample evidence that this information was brought to the knowledge of then President Maithripala Sirisena.
There is also speculation that the sustained campaign by the Special Task Force (STF) against the Narcotics Mafia was a red herring to divert attention from the impending Easter Sunday attacks. Whether intended or not, it did divert attention from the Easter Sunday attacks. The then STF chief, Senior Deputy Inspector General M.R. Latiff, testifying before the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC), said he was fully engaged at that time in an onslaught against the Narcotics Mafia on orders from the President. He said if the STF had been informed of the impending Easter Sunday attacks, he could have prevented it.
There are also other unexplained circumstances that give rise to speculation. The Prime Minister and the Inspector General of Police (IGP) have been kept out from Security Council meetings prior to the Easter Sunday attacks!
On his part, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe should have asserted himself and questioned the propriety of his being kept out, without taking the path of least resistance to later say he was not informed.
Police bashing, of course, is the usual game, be it the acting IGP, Chief of National Intelligence (CNI), or Chief of State Intelligence Services (CSI). The fact is that intelligence officers are helpless without honest commitment of the political leadership.
It is preposterous on the part of President Sirisena to say that he was not aware, in the face of overwhelming evidence that he was informed. Was he apprehensive of a threat to his own life if he prevented the attacks? Did he sell his soul to save his own life? Is this not subculture instinct? These are questions that call for answers.
The sudden departure from the country at the most crucial time, without delegating presidential powers, taken with the questionable circumstances, finds him out.
These derelictions of duty on the part of the President however do not preclude investigating direct complicity on the part of any others.
(The writer is a Retired Senior Superintendent of Police. He can be contacted at seneviratnetz@gmail.com)