News
Easter Sunday carnage: Defence Secy. decries bid to implicate Prez, reiterates lawyer Hizbulla’s involvement
…acknowledges Geneva taking note of probe
By Shamindra Ferdinando
Defence Secretary Gen. Kamal Gunaratne says certain interested parties are propagating lies that the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks had been carried out to influence the electorate at the 2019 presidential election.
Gen. Gunaratne says attempts are being made to drag President Gotabaya Rajapaksa into the controversy.
The former General Officer Commanding (GoC) of the elite 53 Division said so at a media briefing at the Defence Complex in Akuregoda, Battaramulla on Thursday (9).
SLPP presidential candidate comfortably won the election. It was followed by the SLPP triumph at the general election in 2020.
Flanked by Navy Chief VA Nishantha Ulugetenne and IGP C.D. Wickramaratne, Gen. Gunaratne pointed out that consequent to investigations carried out by law enforcement authorities spearheaded by the CID, the Attorney General would now indict the accused before a Trial-at-Bar constituted by the Chief Justice to hear Easter Sunday case.
Gen. Gunaratne urged the public to be wary of despicable attempts to deceive them. Responding to continuing allegations made by the Archbishop of Colombo Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith as regards the Easter Sunday carnage, Gen. Gunaratne emphasized the police and the intelligence services briefed the Catholic Bishops’ Conference and the Mahanayakes, separately in that regard. Gen. Gunaratne dismissed accusations that the Easter carnage had been a conspiracy meant for wartime Defence Secretary’s benefit.
Towards the end of the briefing Gen. Gunaratne referred to the arrest of attorney-at-law Hejaaz Hizbullah on April 14, 2020 in connection with the ongoing investigations into the Easter Sunday suicide attacks.
The police apprehended Hizbullah in terms of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).
Commenting on continuing challenges faced by the country, Gen. Gunaratne said that the lawyer’s arrest had been raised at the highest level at the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council. In spite of representations made to the UNHRC on behalf of the lawyer, the Defence Secretary stressed they had irrefutable evidence regarding the detainee’s involvement in Easter carnage.
Sri Lanka Core Group at the UNHRC comprising the UK, Canada, Germany, North Macedonia, Malawi and Montenegro in late June 2012 raised the lawyer’s arrest along with several other cases, including the former CID Director SSP Sharni Abeysekera. The UK delivered the statement on behalf of the Core Group at the 47th session of the UNHRC.
Easter Sunday attacks claimed the lives of 270 and inflicted injuries to approximately 400 persons.
The Defence Ministry held the media briefing close on the heels of Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith accusing Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and Foreign Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris of planning to undertake a visit to Vatican in a bid to deceive the Pope as regards the Easter Sunday carnage. Before leaving for Italy on Thursday night, Prof. Peiris told The Island that they never sought a meeting with the Pope nor received an invitation from the Vatican.
Prof. Peiris explained that the government conducted investigations in a transparent manner and briefed all those interested parties, including the Vatican. Fresh controversy erupted over the Easter Sunday investigation in the wake of Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith declining to meet Prof Peiris unless he received an assurance as regards the inquiry.
Director General, Legal Affairs, President’s Office, attorney-at-law Harigupta Rohanadeera is on record having dismissed accusations that Easter Sunday carnage was meant to give advantage to the SLPP presidential election candidate.
Rohanadeera explained against the backdrop of the debilitating setback suffered by the then ruling UNP at the Feb 2018 Local Government election primarily caused by the Treasury bond scams and the defeat at the presidential poll was inevitable following the failure to thwart Easter carnage despite having precise intelligence provided by India.
Both Gen. Gunaratne and lawyer Rohanadeera contradicted the conspiracy theory. Dappula de Livera, PC, caused a media furor a few days before his retirement in May this year when called the Easter Sunday carnage a grand conspiracy.
Gen. Gunaratne, VA Ulugetenne and IGP Wickramaratne addressed several other issues, including sustained efforts to eradicate powerful narcotics networks operating in the country. IGP Wickramaratne said that all property of those engaged would be confiscated.
VA Ulegetenne explained recent operations undertaken by the Navy on information provided by the State Intelligence Service (SIS) and the police. Referring to two specific operations in the seas off Beruwela and in high seas, VA Ulegetenne said the two detections in August and Sept led to the recovery of over 600 kilos of heroin. The Navy Chief appreciated the assistance provided by the Navy Intelligence, other intelligence services and the Air Force in anti-narcotics operations.
Gen. Gunaratne warned the fisher community to desist helping heroin and arms smugglers. According to him, a section of fisher community was deeply engaged in clandestine activities at the expense of their reputation.
Gen. Gunaratne also dealt with the role played by the armed forces and the police in assisting civilian health administration to fight the raging Covid-19 epidemic. The Defence Secretary explained how President Gotabaya Rajapaksa brought in the military in the wake of attempts to sabotage the vaccination rollout. The military had the capacity to undertake the large scale inoculation campaign regardless of other commitments, Gen. Gunaratne said.
Minister of Transport and Highways and Minister of Mass Media Dr Bandula Gunawardena at a press briefing held at the Presidential Media Center today (30) said that the earliest Sri Lanka can recover from bankruptcy is in 2027, at which time it is envisaged that the countries foreign reserves which stand at USD 3.5 billion at present would increase to USD 14 billion..
Pope Francis is evicting US Cardinal Raymond Burke, an outspoken critic, from his Vatican apartment and revoking his salary.
Cardinal Burke is part of a group of American conservatives who have long opposed the Pope’s plans for reforming the Catholic Church.
A Vatican source told the BBC that Pope Francis has not yet carried out his intention to evict the 75-year-old and the decision is not meant as a personal punishment, the source added. Instead, it comes from the belief that a person should not enjoy cardinal privileges while criticising the head of the church.
Still, the move is “unprecedented in the Francis era”, Christopher White, a Vatican observer who writes for the National Catholic Reporter, told the BBC. “Typically, retired cardinals continue to reside in Rome after stepping down from their positions, often remaining active in papal liturgies and ceremonial duties,” he said. “Evicting someone from their Vatican apartment sets a new precedent.”
White warned that the decision could “provoke significant backlash” and deepen divides between the Vatican and the US church, where there is already “fragmentation”.
Cardinal Burke has yet to respond to the news and the BBC has reached out to his office for comment.
The Pope revealed his plan to act against the cardinal at a meeting with heads of Vatican offices last week. His frustration with US detractors who take a more traditional or conservative view on several issues appears to be coming to a boil.
Earlier this month, he fired Joseph Strickland, a conservative Texas bishop who had blasted his attempts to move the church to more liberal positions on abortion, transgender rights and same-sex marriage. The removal followed a church investigation into governance of the diocese.
A few months before, the Pope told members of the Jesuit religious order in Portugal that there was “a very strong, organised, reactionary attitude in the US church”, which he called “backward”, according to the Guardian.
Tensions with Cardinal Burke, who was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI, have been simmering for nearly a decade, with the American prelate openly criticising Pope Francis over both social and liturgical issues.
“Cardinal Burke’s situation seems to stem from his gradual alienation from the Pope,” said White. “It appears the Pope perceives Burke as fostering a cult of personality, centred around traditionalism or regressive ideals. This action seems aimed at limiting Burke’s influence by severing his ties to Rome.”
Most recently, the cardinal held a conference called The Synodal Babel in Rome on the eve of the Pope’s synod, or meeting of bishops, last month.
He also joined fellow conservatives in publishing a “declaration of truths” in 2019 that described the Catholic church as disoriented and confused under Pope Francis, saying that it had moved away from core teachings on divorce, contraception, homosexuality and gender. Notably, he disagreed with the Pope promoting Covid vaccines.
Within church politics, he and Pope Francis were at odds over the firing of the head of the Knights of Malta after the order’s charity branch was found to have distributed condoms in Myanmar.
The Pope, in turn, has demoted Cardinal Burke within the church hierarchy or moved him to posts with less influence over the years.
Michael Matt, a columnist for the right-wing Catholic newspaper The Remnant, wrote that the most recent action taken against Cardinal Burke showed that Pope Francis was “cancelling faithful prelates who offer hierarchical cover to pro-life, pro-family, pro-tradition hardliners”. He accused the Pope of putting critics into “forced isolation”.
(BBC)
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has died at the age 100.
He served as America’s top diplomat and national security adviser during the Nixon and Ford administrations.
In a statement, Kissinger Associates, a political consulting firm he founded, said the German-born former diplomat died at his home in Connecticut but did not give a cause of death.
During his decades long career, Mr Kissinger played a key, and sometimes controversial, role in US foreign and security policy.
Born in Germany in 1973, Kissinger first came to the US in 1938 when his family fled Nazi Germany. He became a US citizen in 1943 and went on to serve three years in the US Army and later in the Counter Intelligence Corps. After earning bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD degrees, he taught international relations at Harvard.
In 1969, then-President Richard Nixon appointed him National Security Adviser, a position which gave him enormous influence over US foreign policy in two administrations.
(BBC)
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