5th Column

Your Eminence,

I thought of writing to you because you are in the news once again, even though I doubt that you enjoy the headlines you are making now. Since the report of the Commission inquiring into the Easter attacks has been released you are in the limelight and some may not like what you are saying.

You have called upon people to observe what you call a ‘Black Sunday’ today, asking all churchgoers to dress in black as a mark of protest against what you say is the lack of justice for the 269 people who perished on that fateful Easter Sunday, nearly two years ago.

I do understand your frustration, Your Eminence. This is not the first Commission that looked into the attack. In fact, this is the third. What is even more ridiculous is that after the Commission’s findings were released, there has been yet another committee appointed to look into what the Commission said.

If memory serves me right, soon after the Easter attacks, a ‘committee’ was appointed by Cheerio Sirisena, after his return from Singapore. That was a three-man committee which deliberated for a few weeks and then submitted a report with some observations but no serious recommendations.

In what was a tit-for-tat move, Committee No. 2 was appointed in Parliament by the then Speaker, Karu. Its sittings made Cheerio Sirisena the laughing stock with, for instance, Hemasiri describing how he had to wait for several hours to have a meeting with Sirisena, who was, in effect, his Minister!

The findings of that committee, predictably, cast Cheerio Sirisena in a very poor light. So, the day after he was summoned to give evidence before this Committee No.2, he retaliated in his own way: he initiated inquiry No. 3, appointing not merely a committee but a five-member Commission of Inquiry.

It is the report of this Inquiry No. 3 that you are unhappy about, Your Eminence. You say that while it has made some relevant observations, it has failed to find out who was responsible for the attacks. It has also failed to identify who funded them and also not determined who knew what and when.

Your Eminence, although this Commission did not have all the answers to your questions, it identified some people as being responsible, by being negligent in their duties. Also, despite being appointed by Cheerio Sirisena, the Commission had the courage to name him as one of the main offenders.

Then, even before you could say ‘Easter Sunday’, we hear that Gota maama has appointed Committee No. 4, a group of ministers who will look into what the Commission said and recommend ‘what to do next’. Led by loku aiya Chamal, it includes Johnston, Udaya, Ramesh, Prasanna and Rohitha.

To put it as gently as we can, some on this Committee No. 4 are not those who will win awards for integrity. So, it came as no surprise to us when Your Eminence publicly queried why ‘those without ‘O’ Levels are looking into the findings of more learned people’!

We now have a situation where, two years after the Easter attacks, we don’t know who is responsible. We also don’t know who we should punish because, even though Commission No. 3 has made it clear as to who should be punished, Committee No. 4 has been asked to decide on the best way forward.

Your Eminence, you will recall that, soon after the attacks, there was a degree of hostility towards the Muslim community and your words at that time, calling for calm, emphasising that not everyone in that community was a terrorist probably averted the kind of mob ‘justice’ that we saw in July ’83.

At the same time, Your Eminence voiced contempt for the way the attack was handled from the very top to the lower ranks of the then government. Your words helped Gota maama with the election that followed because even the so-called ‘Catholic belt’ didn’t vote for the Greens!

You may have had hopes, like most others, that the new dispensation would clean up the mess, find out who was responsible and deal with them. Instead, Your Eminence is now finding that this is not the case, that excuses are being made and that the more they change, the more they stay the same.

Our citizens are now past the stage where they hope that their latest political master would deliver what they promised. They have been disappointed twice, within a short time. So, while we wait to see the response to ‘Black Sunday’ today, Your Eminence, I wouldn’t be holding my breath if I were you.

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS: It is obvious that the powers that be are in a tight corner. If they implement what Commission No. 3 said, one of their own, Cheerio Sirisena, will be in trouble. So, though we have a Committee No. 4, I wouldn’t be surprised if, after they deliberate, we have a Committee No. 5 to make the final decision!