Sri Lankan lessons in terror response
AFTER its own terrorism attacks, Sri Lanka could learn a great deal from New Zealand’s earlier response, particularly in leadership empathy and effectiveness, a Sri Lankan researcher says.
The researcher, Sanjana Hattotuwa, is studying for a PhD at the University of Otago’s National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies.
Mr Hattotuwa said yesterday there should be a ‘‘reckoning’’ and ‘‘accountability’’, including by the Sri Lankan president, for a ‘‘catastrophic failure’’ to share security warnings with other branches of government.
The death toll has risen to 321 and more than 500 people were injured in a wave of coordinated suicide bombings at three Christian churches across Sri Lanka and three luxury hotels in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo on Easter Sunday.
Mr Hattotuwa said political accountability was ‘‘critical’’, but ‘‘bitter experience’’ suggested some of the lessons learned in New Zealand might not be applied in Sri Lanka’s more divided political system.
In Sri Lanka, there was ‘‘growing anger directed against the Government and the President in particular’’, about what is perceived as a ‘‘catastrophic loss of life’’ — six times more than the Christchurch massacre — that could have been averted.
He added that what the Sri Lankan Government had revealed since the Sunday attacks was ‘‘astonishing and borders on the incredible’’.
This had not been a ‘‘lapse in intelligence’’, as some had suggested, but a ‘‘catastrophic failure in communication, collaboration and political will to act’’ on the intelligence provided, including by foreign agencies, about an imminent threat.
It had been said that President Maithripala Sirisena and the National Security Council had not kept Prime Minister Ranil Wickremishinghe informed, and that senior members of the Government were also in the dark about the intelligence warning, which the intelligence services had known about a week earlier.
Asked what New Zealand and Sri Lanka could learn from the respective terrorist attacks in each country, Mr Hattotuwa could not ‘‘presume to know what New Zealand could learn from Sri Lanka’’.
But what Sri Lanka could learn included ‘‘political leadership that is committed and empathetic, government that works, democratic institutions that people have faith and confidence in, partisan political differences that are set aside at a moment of colossal or catastrophic national disaster’’, he said.
COLOMBO: Islamic State is claiming responsibility for the Easter attacks in Sri Lanka that killed at least 321 people, but has offered no evidence.
The extremist group made the claim last night via its Aamaq news agency.
The claim said: ‘‘The perpetrators of the attack that targeted nationals of the countries of the coalitions and Christians in Sri Lanka before yesterday are fighters from the Islamic State.’’
It offered no photographs or videos of attackers pledging their loyalty to the group.
The group, which has lost all the territory it once held in Iraq and Syria, has made a series of unsupported claims of responsibility.
The Sri Lankan Government had previously said its initial investigations pointed to ‘‘an extreme Islamist group’’ taking revenge for last month’s attack against Muslims in Christchurch.
A state of emergency took effect yesterday as the death toll from the bombings rose to 321 and police said they had arrested 40 suspects.
A Syrian was among 40 people, mostly Sri Lankans, being questioned about the attacks on three churches and four hotels, government and military sources said.
He was arrested after the local suspects were interrogated, one source said.
Yesterday was declared a national day of mourning and the funerals of some of the victims were held as pressure mounted on the Government over why effective action had not been taken in response to a warning this month about a possible attack by a littleknown domestic Islamist group.
A government minister said on Monday Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had not been informed about the warning and had been shut out of top security meetings because of a feud with President Maithripala Sirisena.
Sirisena fired Wickremesinghe last year, only to be forced to reinstate him under pressure from the Supreme Court. Their relationship is reported to be fraught.
The Government has imposed an emergency law, giving police extensive powers to detain and interrogate suspects without court orders.