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BLACK SUNDAY: Cardinal Ranjith leads the Black Sunday protest at the St. Anthony’s Church in Kochchikade, Colombo, against the denial of justice for the Easter Sunday bomb blast victims

Even before the report was handed over to him, he could sniff the dead rat that lay concealed in between its pages: the bona fides of the state’s investigating agencies. After having followed the Commissions day to day proceedings closely, he had divined a certain apathy cloaking the CID investigation to finding the mastermind, the elusive curtained puppeteer pulling Zaharan’s strings.

He told a press briefing one month ago: “I cannot be satisfied whether the CID has conducted a thorough investigation into the attack. Those investigations seemed as if they were carried out for the sake of investigating with no genuine interest. It is, perhaps, because I felt it was and is done in a lackadaisical manner, that I have now embarked on a legal course on one matter which I  will reveal soon.’’

He also disclosed that he had made a personal appeal to the Commission to find not only those who failed to avert the attack but also the people who lay behind this attack. I await hoping that my plea will receive a favourable response, he told a news conference on 12 February.

CARDINAL RANJITH: Relentless quest for justice to the victims

He said: ‘What our people want is an answer to their question ‘why was this done to us and who did it’? They’re waiting with expectation to find answer. I saw that expectation in their eyes. Our people have come to the end of their tether. Their patience is running out. If we don’t receive justice from the Government or the Commission, we will have to take other decisions as a people.’’

But, alas, after the Cardinal had perused the Commission’s final report which was handed to him on March 1, he would have grieved, perhaps, to learn that his prayer to find the real perpetrators of this outrage revealed in the report’s conclusions, had been denied answer.

True, the names of those who failed to take necessary measures to thwart the dastardly plot, stood starkly revealed, but wasn’t that stale bread? The crucial revelation as to the sinister hand that had lurked in the wings off stage and choreographed every step of Zaharan’s and his fellow bombers’ gory orgy of death, remained unproclaimed, shrouded in ignorance.

A day after receiving the report, the Cardinal, whilst stating his Black Sunday  protest was not against the Commission’s report, conveyed his thanks to ‘the commission members who investigated various aspects of these attacks over a one and a half year period.’

On March 3, he expressed again his dissatisfaction over the marked lackadaisical attitude of the investigating agencies and reiterated his call to bring to justice the mastermind behind the church attacks. In a statement issued to the news media, he said: “We are suspicious about the gravity of the investigations conducted by these law enforcement agencies. We also want to be clear that we do not see any explicit action being taken by these law enforcement institutions to arrest the masterminds behind the attacks.”

The statement also underscored the Cardinal’s avowed resolve to pursue his mission to mete out heavenly justice to his earthly flock to the very end, even if it meant draping the church in mournful black to achieve the aim. It said, ‘since there is no clear evidence on justice being meted out to the victims of the terror attacks, the churches in the Archdiocese of Colombo would be engaging in protests in the coming weeks, seeking true justice, beginning with Black Sunday.’

At the Black Sunday protest outside Kochchikade’s St. Antony’s Church last Sunday, the Cardinal proclaimed: “Our effort is to establish who was actually behind the attacks. This is an issue not only for Catholics but all Sri Lankans who suffered due to the attacks.”

On Monday, The Catholic Bishops Conference of Sri Lanka, of which, as Archbishop of Colombo, the Cardinal, is also a member, issued a joint statement signed unanimously. It welcomed the Commission’s report and said, “We urge the Government to take immediate action in the implementation of these recommendations and as a matter of priority with regard to those individuals against whom criminal charges have been levelled.

“We, therefore, appeal that the Attorney General be given full power and the freedom to prosecute immediately the perpetrators, those who aided and abetted in this dastardly terrorist act and those who were found to be negligent in carrying out their duties. We urge that the judicial mechanism to do that be set in motion with immediate effect. We have been made to understand that 22 sensitive documents have been withheld from the Attorney General and we feel that these documents should be given to him as soon as possible.”

The statement concluded by calling for action without delay. It said: “We are all awaiting the immediate and transparent process of justice which is to be carried out with a sense of urgency. In the name of truth and justice and for the sake of peace and security of all people in our dear country, we urge all concerned to act without delay on this crucial matter. We wish to reiterate that justice delayed is justice denied.”

The statement, however, makes no mention of the cardinal need, as clamoured for by Cardinal Ranjith these last four weeks, to discover the true identity of the evil spectre behind Zaharan’s dastardy; and thus provide answer to the question the Cardinal saw lit in his congregation’s eye, ‘who did it’? Nor does it highlight nor condemn the slipshod manner in which the investigations into the Easter blasts by the state agencies, as claimed by Cardinal Ranjith, are carried out.

Instead, the tenor of the joint statement seems to suggest this College of Lanka’s Bishops will hang their collective mitre on the altar of peace, at least for the present, if the Attorney General’s allowed free rein to immediately prosecute on a priority basis those named as the guilty men with criminal charges levelled for their failure to avert the Easter carnage, and the perpetrators and all those who aided and abetted in the attack.

But if a seeming calm had suddenly fallen in the wake of the report’s release to the bishopric, lulling a less firebrand spirit to dip its quill in watered ink and compose the Bishops’ official response in pedestrian prose, what howling storms had blown the night before its advent.

Consider the February tempests. Leading the Catholic agitation was its indomitable Cardinal Ranjith – the only Lankan ecclesiastic to be in line to the Throne of St. Peter as, possibly — for who can say of the inscrutable ways of Providence — the next Pope in the Holy See. Peeved at being denied early access to the Easter bomb report, the Cardinal made it known in early February that he will boycott meetings with politicians till the Government hands him the report.

He was not alone in his protest. Joining him was the Lord Bishop Winston Fernando, the President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Sri Lanka. On February 23, he too expressed his indignation at the delay in the report’s release to the Church.

He said: the Government’s handling of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry on the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks is not acceptable to the Catholic Church, under any circumstances. We are quite worried and suspicious over the inordinate delay in the Government sharing the Commission’s report with the Church. We never expected the Government to adopt delaying tactics having assured the people that all those responsible would be appropriately dealt with.

He further warned that the Church wouldn’t give up its campaign to ensure justice. The community couldn’t be deprived of justice for political reasons therefore those in power shouldn’t expect the protests to cease. During this period, Cardinal Ranjith also threatened to go before the International Courts as he is not getting justice from the Sri Lankan government and declared March 7 as Black Sunday.

The mounting church ire, in so far as the delay was concerned, was only placated when the report was finally handed to the Cardinal on March 1. But the cardinal wrath over delay in meting out justice to the people still remained unappeased. The Cardinal vowed to continue his crusade for justice by launching a Black Flag protest if there were no transparent process to deliver true justice for the victims of the Easter Sunday bombings by the second anniversary of the Easter Sunday terror attacks on 21 April.

Even the Attorney General who had received the report on February 25 had been cheesed off to discover that it was only a section of the complete report. The AG’s Deportment had complained that the AG would not be able to proceed with legal action if he was not privy to the entire set containing the proceedings, materials and other documentary evidence. Out of 87 volumes, he had been given only 65 volumes.

Perhaps, it was as a result of the Bishop’s request in its statement that moved the Government to hand over the 22 volumes it had so far withheld on ‘sensitive grounds’ to the Attorney General — traditionally the Government’s lawyer — this Friday. Perhaps it was also the realisation of the truism that to one’s lawyer in his chambers or to the priest in his confessional box at church the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Else, one’s case will be half baked and one’s sins only half purged.

The Presidential Commission on the Easter bombings which claimed 268 lives on April 21, 2021 was appointed by the then President Maithripala Sirisena on September 22, 2019 to investigate the series of bombings which rocked Lanka and shocked the world.

The commission has recommended criminal proceedings against former President Sirisena and others. No action has been recommended against former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, though the commission has faulted him for not raising the issue of not being invited to Security Council meetings in parliament or cabinet and also for an alleged “lax approach” to Islamic extremism. However, the commission has failed to unmask the mastermind behind the terror attacks.

While the Catholic Bishops welcomed the report in unison and called for its recommendations to be   implemented immediately, the Deputy Secretary of the Asgiriya Chapter the powerful Siam Nikaya Ven. Narampanawe Ananda Thera expressed dismay after being aghast to discover the report’s findings may tarnish the Sinhala Buddhist image in international eyes.

Fearing the Committee’s final report may backfire on the Sinhala Buddhist majority, the Ven. Narampanawe Ananda Thera said on Monday: “Reading the Presidential Commission report into the Easter Sunday terror attacks, the international community may conclude that these attacks were carried out by Sinhala Buddhists.”

The Thera also said that the Former President, former IGP, several police and Government officials, all of them Sinhala Buddhists and the Bodu Bala Sena had been identified by the report as those responsible for the attacks, giving the impression that these attacks were launched by the Sinhala Buddhist people.

On Wednesday the report entered the Parliamentary domain where it soon became politicised in debate. Under the cover of absolute privilege where slander is sport, members became one man commissions of their own, hurling aspersions and swapping calumnies while Sarath Fonseka stated  the commission hadn’t unveiled anything new.  Rathane Thera used the occasion to call for Quasi Courts to be banned since ‘it had prevented Sinhalese who had married Muslims to seek legal redress from normal courts.’

But after the presidential commission report had voyaged the catholic sea, raised its head briefly in a Buddhist Chapter and done the Parliamentary round and come full circle, the question nailed on the catholic cross and found etched on the public lip still is: ‘All that labour gone to produce such a voluminous report but where, in heaven’s name, is the fruit of the toil, the reward of the sweat?’