Tempers rise in House as Easter Sunday attacks are revisited four years on
More than four years afterwards, lingering questions surrounding the Easter Sunday terror attacks were raised in the House yet again as Parliament held another debate on the atrocity.
The two-day debate on Thursday and Friday came in the backdrop of the recent documentary aired by Britain’s Channel 4, which accused senior members of the intelligence services of being complicit in the attacks as part of a conspiracy to bring Gotabaya Rajapaksa to power.
Even before the debate got underway, Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa had raised a privilege issue on Tuesday stating that he had been denied permission to obtain copies of some sections of the final report by the Commission of Inquiry into the Easter Sunday attacks from the Parliament Library. He said the Secretary General of Parliament had informed him that he could read those sections in the Library under the supervision of the Secretary General.
Mr Premadasa questioned why some sections of the report containing evidence was still being kept from the public and MPs. He urged the Speaker to intervene and ensure that copies of these sections too are given to all 225 Members of the House before Thursday’s debate.
Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena told the House on Thursday that certain sections of the report running into 87 volumes, will remain classified as per the advice given by the President’s Secretary owing to the needto protect the identities of certain witnesses who gave evidence. He noted that these sections can still be read by any MP in the Parliament’s Library under the supervision of the Secretary General of Parliament.
Samagi Jana Balawegaya MPs were not happy. Chief Opposition Whip Lakshman Kiriella argued that Parliament’s Secretary General can make her own decision on the matter and need not consult the President’s Secretary, who he said had no authority to give advice to Parliament anyway. The Speaker though, said, further debate on the matter was unnecessary.
Moving the adjournment motion, SJB MP Niroshan Perera accused the government of failing to identify the parties directly responsible for the attacks and to reveal objectives of the atrocity, though more than four years had passed. “The government is evading efforts to give justice to the victims of these attacks through its lethargic attitude towards the investigation and attempts to cover up information,” charged Mr Perera.
He pointed out that the debate is being held in the backdrop of the documentary aired by Britain’s Channel 4 television alleging that the attacks were carried out with the aim of bringing Gotabaya Rajapaksa to power. Some persons still holding key positions in the government as well as in intelligence agencies have been accused of involvement in the conspiracy, he said.
Given this situation, Mr Perera said the SJB is requesting the international community to persuade the President and the Government of Sri Lanka to conduct an independent investigation “with foreign assistance” into the Easter Sunday attacks. He added that the SJB is also requesting Indian Premier Narendra Modi to provide assistance for the investigation since India was the main country to warn Sri Lanka about the attacks.
Those who are bringing the motion on the Easter Sunday attacks were the ones who were in government at the time of the attacks, noted Chief Government Whip Prasanna Ranatunga. “Those who are making these accusations claim that the conspiracy involving Zahran was facilitated over along period of time. The attacks occurred in April, 2019. The Yahapalana Government came to power in 2015. It is the Yahapalana Government that stands accused of providing the necessary facilities to the attackers during this period. I
don’t believe that any government would ever do such a thing, but if they did, it is wrong and you must accept it was your fault. Don’t try to instill a Rajapaksa phobia into this issue and cause this probe to go on a wrong track,” Mr Ranatunga told the opposition.
Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) Leader Rauff Hakeem, who was a member of the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) established under the Yahapalana Government to investigate the attacks, said their final report included separate sections on the politicization of the security forces and intelligence services, and raised issue over certain connections of key intelligence personnel that could potentially have serious implications on national security. The PSC made several recommendations on restructuring the intelligence services under a new framework but the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government threw its entire report in the rubbish bin, Mr Hakeem claimed.
The SLMC leader questioned how a small terror cell led by Zahran Hashim was able to evade such a vast and well-established intelligence network for years before carrying out the attacks, maintaining multiple safe houses and conducting training camps unimpeded in different parts of the island.
There was a heated exchange between SJB MP Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka and former President Maithripala Sirisena after the former accused Mr Sirisena of being one of the masterminds of the Easter attacks along with former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Field Marshal Fonseka, who was also a
member of the PSC established after the attacks, said it was hard to believe then President Sirisena’s claims that no one informed him about the threat of an impending attack given that then Director of the State Intelligence Service (SIS) Nilantha Jayawardena directly reported to the President and would converse with the President several times each day.
The SJB MP accused Mr Sirisena of actively taking steps to weaken the country’s national security in the months leading up to the attacks, including by his removal of then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe from his post, failure to hold regular meetings of the National Security Council (NSC) and excluding then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and several other ministers and MPs from NSC meetings.
He accused Mr Sirisena of being complicit in the attacks and said the President had been “hiding in his hotel” in Singapore when the attacks occurred. Moreover, he had lied to the PSC claiming that he could not return to Sri Lanka immediately after the attacks occurred due to a lack of seats in flights, MP Fonseka further said.
A furious Mr Sirisena accused the PSC which included Field Marshal Fonseka of being biased towards him.
State Minister of Defence Pramitha Bandara Tennakoon noted that a security briefing had been held in Parliament that same week which was open to all 225 MPs, where the Minister of Public Security, as well as senior officers from the intelligence and investigation agencies were on hand to brief them on the inquiry and answer any questions MPs had. “MPs did ask serious questions during this briefing and obtained answers. Yet, even after learning the truth, some MPs came here today and made completely different claims. That is regrettable,” he told the House.
Minister Tennakoon referred to Pulathini Rajendran alias Sarah Jasmin, the wife of Mohamed Hasthun, one of the Easter Sunday bombers. Various parties have claimed that Jasmin had escaped the explosion that took place in Sainthamaruthu on April 26, 2019 that killed most of the remaining members of the terror cell and their families. The minister said initial samples taken from the remains of those killed did not match with Saraha's samples taken from one child and three adults who died. This was down to professional negligence and fuelled rumours that Sarah had escaped. However, tests conducted later on 83 samples from the remains found a match for Sarah, proving that she was indeed among the dead, he added.
He further said ‘Sonic Sonic,’ which some had claimed was an intelligence officer who worked directly with Zahran Hashim’s terror cell, was the code name of an undercover operative who had infiltrated the terror network to obtain information regarding their plans. ‘Abu Hind’ meanwhile, was the code name of a foreign intelligence operative who had also infiltrated the network through digital means, the minister disclosed.
Minister Tennakoon told the opposition not to peddle conspiracy theories and use them to attack intelligence services, whose operatives were risking their lives in the field.
National People’s Power (NPP) Leader Anura KumaraDissanayake however, said serious questions remained regarding the attack that killed over 270 people. He said former President Maithripala Sirisena must bear responsibility for failing to prevent the attacks. Meanwhile, an investigation is needed to find the truth regarding the attacks, which includes determining if certain elements of the intelligence services were complicit in them. “No one here can say this case is fully closed. We all have our own suspicions. That includes the Catholic Church, the victims and the public in general,” the NPP Leader stressed.