Features
Four years after the Easter massacre, the plot keeps thickening
By Sanja de Silva Jayatilleka
The families of the victims still weep and mourn, their hurt spilling over in painful tears. They express their disappointment at the lack of progress on the investigation into the Easter Bombings of 2019. Justice for the victims has proved to be oddly elusive since the 21st of April that year. four years on, the authorities seem to be still staring at a blank wall, unable to connect the dots and follow the trail of evidence in the public domain and those collected at various commissions and by official investigations.
The public, horrified at the utterly unexpected outrage four years ago, are beginning to construct their own theories, partly out of frustration and partly because it’s impossible to leave such a gaping hole in their collective consciousness without filling it. Why did it happen? Why then? Who was behind it? What was the point of it all? Did they achieve what they wanted? Who won? We lost, as a people, so who won as a result of the mindless carnage?
It didn’t just happen to the several hundred dead and injured and their families. It happened to us all in this country, to ordinary folk who had put their violent collective history behind them, and were looking forward to a different future after 30 years of war. Who pulled us back into such horror?
The Catholic Church which had shown remarkable patience from the very beginning, displayed its intense displeasure at the failure of the government to provide any satisfactory answers at the Mass held on the 4th anniversary of the bombing.
Malcom Cardinal Ranjith made a strident speech at the Mass commemorating the dead, stating that the Church had no trust in the present leadership to do what they promised. He read out from the pages of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry established to look into the Easter bombing. He reiterated the conclusions of the former Attorney General who said that the evidence points to a political conspiracy behind the event.
The Conspiracy Theory
The people want to know what happened and are putting the pieces together in the absence of a credible official version. If the people lose faith in their institutions, it won’t be pretty, since that’s not all they are dealing with. The public already knows a lot of what is said to have happened, and going by what’s in the public domain, a political conspiracy is not outside the domain of logic and beyond the realm of possibility.
So far, it has been worked out that some outside the ring of suicide bombers benefitted. About the bombers themselves we cannot know for sure, but their hope was ‘glory’ and we can’t know if they managed to achieve it. It may be the case that those others who obviously benefitted, did so completely by accident and horrified though they were together with the rest of us, the very circumstances may have contributed in some measure towards their success. And the most conspicuous success was political. Thus, the conspiracy theory.
To be fair, it’s not conclusive therefore, that those who succeeded as a result of an event, had anything to do with the event itself. In Israel, following the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a rightwing Zionist infuriated by the signing of the Oslo peace accords and the handshake with Yasser Arafat in the White House Rose Garden, Mr. Netanyahu was about to lose the election to Leah Rabin, the slain PM’s widow and strong peace campaigner, when an extremist Palestinian group set off a bomb killing civilians on a bus. Mr. Netanyahu was hardly known as a friend of the group and was in fact its opposite, but he benefitted nevertheless by the swing of Jewish sentiment in its aftermath. He could convincingly run as the national security candidate and did so successfully.
The central theme of a brand-new Netflix series called The Diplomat, much acclaimed already, is a false flag event which finally turns out to be commissioned by the personality who benefitted politically, with the same highly placed politician drowning out all other voices by shouting “Russia first, second and third” on the agenda at every opportunity as responsible for the death of 41 British sailors. He insists on a plan to bomb Russia as the culprit, having cynically ‘masterminded’ the hiring of a Russian mercenary for the job. Such a scenario is obviously not inconceivable, and makes for a successful drama.
For us in Sri Lanka though, life was much more tragically dramatic. Even art couldn’t conceive of the killing worshippers in Church on a religious holiday. Evil reigned here together with self-interest.
Justice delayed
The problem here is the delay in piecing together what happened, and issuing a credible official report which would offer some kind of closure to the victims. It would also offer some reassurance to the general public that some random group cannot go around bombing several different locations in a coordinated manner, killing and injuring hundreds of unarmed civilians and leave the authorities baffled four years after the event.
The pieces of evidence in the public domain are so curious as to naturally provoke speculation. A few are bizarrely so. The top in this list is the repeated DNA testing of the wife of a member of the suicide squad, Sarah Jasmin, (now a household name), in order to ascertain whether she is alive or dead. When the first two tests came up positive for “alive”, in addition to reports that she was seen being taken away, the authorities persisted until a third test gave what they seem to have wanted, which was that she was dead. So, which is it? Is it two out of three, or the last one wins the day?
Next up, there’s the case of the reluctant suicide bomber Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed. Cardinal Ranjith read from a report that said that this particular would-be bomber of the Hotel Taj Samudra in Colombo, went in, turned on his heels and headed back to Dehiwala where he allegedly spent a few hours wandering around. His wife was located in a house in the area where military intelligence actually went in and spoke to her. The Cardinal asks on behalf of us all, why he wasn’t apprehended. They knew where he lived. Instead, he blew himself up elsewhere, in less exalted premises.
The Cardinal said that he would like everyone to know that the Catholic Church “will remain watchful till justice is delivered”.
Things get further confused when reports appear to say that someone was heard on a telephone begging ISIS to claim the bombing, which they were reluctant to do. However, eventually they seem to have been persuaded. How bizarre can this get?
How curious is it also, that no parliamentarian actually attended the Easter Mass that Sunday morning? No, I’m not wishing that they were there on that day. But they obviously weren’t as fervent in the observation of ‘days of obligation’ as the thousands of ordinary worshippers who did. How fortunate for them, who missed Mass that Sunday.
People are connecting the dots every which way. If they are doing so incorrectly, it’s best that the authorities snap to it before the popular narrative takes hold. If they come to their own conclusions, that will have its own consequences.
Mastermind
If as the Cardinal and the former Attorney-General say, there was in fact a ‘Mastermind’ other than the ringleader of the suicide squad, he or she made a pretty bad call. Whichever way you look at it, resorting to this particular strategy wasn’t smart.
If as is alleged, this Mastermind was also responsible for the “political links”, that too didn’t work out as a prize winning strategy since all the gains turned out to be short-lived. Political strategists are prized professionals but their success depends on their discernment of the local realities. It takes intimate knowledge of the personalities involved and a reading of the respective country’s people as a whole, their sensitivities, the limits of their tolerance and the level of rebelliousness in times of stress.
Considering the failure of the project other than to get international ISIS to claim the carnage, (hardly making a ripple internationally), the Mastermind wasn’t all that, except utterly devoid of humanity. No Islamic group gained anything at all by the random bombing of Churches on Easter Sunday. And yet some people thought it was worth the tragedy, and some people decided to look the other way. That these people who looked the other way by ignoring intelligence about the event, well before the event, were the guardians of this country’s security is a tragedy reaching a whole new dimension. An entire stratum of intelligence officials, coincidentally thought, quite separately from each other, that the higher authorities who could have prevented it, had no need to know, is the most frightening thing of all. They, the lot of them, thought exactly the same thing, and they were all so wrong. They ignored the most evil project to date on this island.
In this country where people have seen decades of violence, it has always been about some grievance, with hot-blooded passion aroused by issues such as poverty, inequality, racism, discrimination. The Easter bombing seems to be the first time in our country’s modern history that such heinous acts were planned with cold-blooded calculation to take lives for no public purpose and without the support of any segment of the public. Everyone knows that there was no background of friction between the Catholics/Christians of Sri Lanka and the Muslim community.
That Mastermind, if there is one, is still at large, free to engage in further evil strategising. This Mastermind has continued to elude the authorities, despite the hundreds who have been questioned, the pages of evidence and reports. He outsmarts our smartest intelligence operatives who are still struggling to name him or her. That is his or her real genius.
The many hands that went up in prayer, the many eyes that looked up in broken-hearted supplication offering praise and prayer for the delivery of justice for those innocent victims of unprecedented evil deserve closure. Fervent prayer has been known to generously deliver much more.
Sri Lanka needs to take full stock of its current economic situation and use to the maximum the potential in its GSP+ facility for export sector growth. In the process, it should ensure that it cooperates fully with the European Union. The urgency of undertaking these responsibilities is underscored by the issues growing out of the recent US decision to sweepingly hike tariffs on its imports, though differentially.
These were principal ‘takes’ for participants in the Pathfinder Foundation’s Ambassadors’ Roundtable forum held on April 8th at the Colombo Club of the Taj Samudra. The main presenter at the event was Ms. Carmen Moreno Raymundo, Ambassador of the European Union to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. The forum was chaired by Ambassador Bernard Goonetilleke, Chairman, Pathfinder Foundation. The event brought together a cross-section of the local public, including the media.
Ms. Moreno drew attention to the fact Sri Lanka is at present severely under utilizing its GSP+ facility, which is the main means for Sri Lanka to enter the very vast EU market of 450 million people. In fact the EU has been Sri Lanka’s biggest trading partner. In 2023, for instance, total trade between the partners stood at Euros 3.84 billion. There is no greater market but the EU region for Sri Lanka.
‘However, only Sri Lanka’s apparel sector has seen considerable growth over the years. It is the only export sector in Sri Lanka which could be said to be fully developed. However, wider ranging export growth is possible provided Sri Lanka exploits to the fullest the opportunities presented by GSP+.’
Moreno added, among other things: ‘Sri Lanka is one among only eight countries that have been granted the EU’s GSP+ facility. The wide-ranging export possibilities opened by the facility are waiting to be utilized. In the process, the country needs to participate in world trade in a dynamic way. It cannot opt for a closed economy. As long as economic vibrancy remains unachieved, Sri Lanka cannot enter into world trading arrangements from a strong position. Among other things, Sri Lanka must access the tools that will enable it to spot and make full use of export opportunities.
‘Sri Lanka must facilitate the private sector in a major way and make it possible for foreign investors to enter the local economy with no hassle and compete for local business opportunities unfettered. At present, Lanka lacks the relevant legal framework to make all this happen satisfactorily.
‘Sri Lanka cannot opt for what could be seen as opaque arrangements with bilateral economic partners. Transparency must be made to prevail in its dealings with investors and other relevant quarters. It’s the public good that must be ensured. The EU would like to see the local economy further opening up for foreign investment.
‘However, it is important that Sri Lanka cooperates with the EU in the latter’s efforts to bring about beneficial outcomes for Sri Lankans. Cooperation could be ensured by Sri Lanka fully abiding by the EU conditions that are attendant on the granting of GSP+. There are, for example, a number of commitments and international conventions that Sri Lanka signed up to and had promised to implement on its receipt of GSP+ which have hitherto not been complied with. Some of these relate to human rights and labour regulations.
‘Successive governments have pledged to implement these conventions but thus far nothing has happened by way of compliance. GSP+ must be seen as an opportunity and not a threat and by complying with EU conditions the best fruits could be reaped from GSP+. It is relevant to remember that GSP+ was granted to Sri Lanka in 2005. It was suspended five years later and restored in 2017.
‘The importance of compliance with EU conditions is greatly enhanced at present in view of the fact that Sri Lanka is currently being monitored by the EU with regard to compliance ahead of extending GSP+ next year. A report on Sri Lanka is due next year wherein the country’s performance with regard to cooperating with the EU would be assessed. The continuation of the facility depends on the degree of cooperation.
‘A few statistics would bear out the importance of Sri Lanka’s partnership with the EU. For example, under the facility Sri Lanka benefits from duty free access in over 66% of EU tariff lines. The highest number of tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka in 2023 was from the EU’s 27 member states. Likewise, the EU’s 27 member states rank second in the origin of inflows of foreign exchange to Sri Lanka; with Italy, France and Germany figuring as the main countries of origin. Eighty five percent of Sri Lanka’s exports to the EU market benefits from GSP+. Thus, the stakes for the country are high.’
Meanwhile, President, In-house Counsel & Legal Advisor, The European Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka, John Wilson said: ‘GSP+ should be seen as not only an opportunity but also as a necessity by Sri Lanka in the current international economic climate. ‘Implementation of local laws is what is needed. Considering the pressures growing out of the US imposed new tariff regime, a good dialogue with the EU is needed.
‘Sri Lanka’s level of business readiness must be upped. Among the imperatives are: An electronic procurement process, Customs reforms, a ‘National Single Window’, stepped-up access to land by investors, for example, a clear policy framework on PPPs and reform of the work permits system.’
It ought to be plain to see from the foregoing that Sri Lanka cannot afford to lose the GSP+ facility if it is stepped-up economic growth that is aimed at. It would be in Sri Lanka’s best interests to remain linked with the EU, considering the aggravated material hardships that could come in the wake of the imposition of the US’ new tariff regime. Sri Lanka would need to remain in a dialogue process with the EU, voice its reservations on matters growing out of GSP+, if any, iron out differences and ensure that its national interest is secured.
Chit-Chat
Chiara Tissera
Mrs. Queen of the World Sri Lanka 2024, Chiara Tissera, leaves for the finals, in the USA, next month
I had a very interesting chat with her and this is how it all went:
1. How would you describe yourself?
I am a sensitive and passionate individual who deeply cares about the things that matter most to me. I approach life with a heart full of enthusiasm and a desire to make meaningful connections.
2. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Actually, I wouldn’t change a thing about myself because the person I am today, both inside and out, is the result of everything I’ve experienced. Every part of me has shaped who I am, so I embrace both my strengths and imperfections as they make me uniquely me.
3. If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?
If there’s one thing I could change about my family, it would be having my father back with us. Losing him six years ago left a void that can never be filled, but his memory continues to guide and inspire us every day.
4. School?
I went to St. Jude’s College, Kurana, and I’m really proud to say that the lessons I gained during my time there have shaped who I am today. My school and teachers instilled in me values of hard work, perseverance and the importance of community, and I carry those lessons with me every day. I was a senior prefect and was selected the Deputy Head Prefect of our college during my tenure.
5. Happiest moment?
The happiest moment of my life so far has been winning the Mrs. Sri Lanka 2024 for Queen of the World. It was a dream come true and a truly unforgettable experience, one that fills me with pride and gratitude every time I reflect on it.
6. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Happiness is a deeply personal and multifaceted feeling that often comes from a sense of contentment, fulfillment and well-being. For me, perfect happiness is in moments of joy, peace and accomplishments … and also being surrounded by my loved ones.
7. Are you religious?
Yes, I’m a very religious person. And I’m a firm believer in God. My faith guides me through life, providing strength, dedication and a sense of peace in every situation. I live by the quote, ‘Do your best, and God will do the rest.’
8. Are you superstitious?
I’m not superstitious. I believe in making my own decisions and relying on logic and faith rather than following superstitions.
9. Your ideal guy?
My ideal guy is my husband. He is compassionate, understanding and is always there to support me, no matter what. He’s my rock and my best friend – truly everything I could ever want in a partner.
10. Which living person do you most admire?
The living person I admire the most is definitely my mummy. Her strength, love and unwavering support has shaped me into who I am today. She is my role model and she inspires me every day with her wisdom and kindness.
11. Your most treasured possession?
My most treasured possession is my family. They are the heart of my life, providing me with love, support and strength. Their presence is my greatest blessing.
12. If you were marooned on a desert island, who would you like as your companion?
I would like to have my spouse as my companion. Together, we could make the best of the situation, supporting each other, sharing moments of laughter and finding creative ways to survive and thrive.
13. Your most embarrassing moment?
There’s quite a few, for sure, but nothing is really coming to mind right now.
14. Done anything daring?
Yes, stepping out of my comfort zone and taking part in a pageant. I had no experience and was nervous about putting myself out there, but I decided to challenge myself and go for it. It pushed me to grow in so many ways—learning to embrace confidence, handle pressure, and appreciate my own uniqueness. The experience not only boosted my self-esteem but also taught me the value of taking risks and embracing new opportunities, even when they feel intimidating.”
15. Your ideal vacation?
It would be to Paris. The city has such a magical vibe and, of course, exploring the magical Eiffel Tower is in my bucket list. Especially the city being a mix of history culture and modern life in a way that feels timeless, I find it to be the ideal vacation spot for me.
16. What kind of music are you into?
I love romantic songs. I’m drawn to its emotional depth and the way they express love, longing a connection. Whether it’s a slow ballad, a classic love song or a more modern romantic tune these songs speak to my heart.
17. Favourite radio station?
I don’t have a specific radio station that I like, but I tend to enjoy a variety of stations, depending on my mood. Sometimes I’ll tune into one for a mix of popular hits, other times I might go for something more relaxing, or a station with a certain vibe. So I just like to keep it flexible and switch it up.
18. Favourite TV station?
I hardly find the time to sit down and watch TV. But, whenever I do find a little spare time, I tend to do some spontaneous binge – watching, catching whatever interesting show is on at that moment.
19 What would you like to be born as in your next life?
Mmmm, I’ve actually not thought about it, but I’d love to be born as someone who gets to explore the world freely – perhaps a bird soaring across continents.
20. Any major plans for the future?
Let’s say preparing and participating in the international pageant happening in the USA this May. It’s an exciting opportunity to represent myself and my country on a global stage. Alongside this, I am dedicated to continuing my social service work as a title holder, striving to make a meaningful difference in the lives of others through my platform.
The formation of wrinkles and fine lines is part of our ageing process. However, if these wrinkles negatively impact appearance, making one look older than they actually are, then trying out some homemade remedies, I’ve listed for you, this week, may help in giving your skin a fresher look.
* Banana:
Bananas are considered to be our skin’s best friend. They contain natural oils and vitamins that work very perfectly to boost our skin health. Skincare experts recommend applying the banana paste to the skin.
Take a ripe banana and mash a quarter of it until it becomes a smooth paste. Apply a thin layer of the banana paste on your skin and allow it to sit for 15 to 20 minutes before washing it off with warm water.
* Olive Oil:
Olive oil works as a great skin protector and many types of research suggest that even consuming olive oil may protect the skin from developing more wrinkles. Olive oil contains compounds that can increase the skin’s collagen levels. Yes, olive oil can be used as a dressing on your salads, or other food, if you want to consume it, otherwise, you can apply a thin layer of olive oil on your face, neck and hands and let it stay overnight.
* Ginger:
Ginger serves to be a brilliant anti-wrinkle remedy because of the high content of antioxidants in it. Ginger helps in breaking down elastin, which is one of the main reasons for wrinkles. You can have ginger tea or grate ginger and have it with honey, on a regular basis.
* Aloe Vera:
The malic acid present in Aloe Vera helps in improving your skin’s elasticity, which helps in reducing your wrinkles. Apply the gel once you extract it from the plant, and leave it on for 15-20 minutes. You can wash it off with warm water.
* Lemons:
Lemons contain citric acid, which is a strong exfoliant that can help you get rid of your dead skin cells and wrinkles. Also, as an astringent and a cleansing agent, it helps to fade your wrinkles and fine lines. You can gently rub a lemon slice in your wrinkled skin and leave it on for 10-15 minutes. Rinse afterwards and repeat this process two to three times a day.
* Coconut Oil:
Coconut oil contains essential fatty acid that moisturises the skin and helps to retain its elasticity. You can directly apply the coconut oil, and leave it overnight, after gently massaging it, for the best results.
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