IS terror: Its birth and growth in Sri Lanka

Next weekend is when the country should be celebrating the 10th anniversary of the defeat of terrorism and the return of peace. Instead, Sri Lanka has seen a return to terrorism of a different kind, but terrorism nevertheless.

The people are under a cloud of anxiety, fear and foreboding. Having gone through temple, train and Central Bank bombings and massacres of innocent civilians at places of religious worship including Anuradhapura and Kattankudy, many are grappling with what it is now that such a people find difficult to cope with. How is it that having undergone 30 years of terrorism, people are virtually paralysed by fear after one day of terrorism?

Is it that the Government, having underplayed early warning signals of imminent attacks is now overplaying the issue; and in the process contributing to what the locals call the ‘goni billa’ syndrome.

The fact that there is little confidence in a Government plagued by in-fighting is as much a factor as that there is Intelligence that there remain ‘sleepers’ among the terrorist group that mapped out the Easter Sunday attacks. Many of those who overcame terrorism are retired from service. And the Government has not yet found a way of providing the people with credible information with every second person to whom a microphone is thrust giving an opinion, often contradictory opinions.

Government Ministers surrounded by a phalanx of armed guards do not infuse any confidence when they ask children to go to school this week. Unfortunately, we did not see any Ministers taking their children or grandchildren to school.

The collective ‘shock effect’ of the Easter Sunday bombings resembles the situation when the ambush of 13 soldiers at Thinnaveli in Jaffna in 1983 occurred. The reactions, however, contrast. The Church hierarchy was able to defuse the emotions among their flock from turning into violence. On the other hand, in 1983, angry mourners were whipped into a frenzied mob that set alight the country. And yet, as the northern ‘civil commotion’ of the time developed into a ‘war’, civilians became desensitised to death, destruction and casualties, and the killing of 600 policemen in one day in the East or nearly 1,000 soldiers when a camp was overrun in Pooneryn received muted reaction.

Time is the great healer. Provided, however, there are no more blunders and blasts of such a scale as we witnessed on April 21. The climate of vigilance is paramount as much as the on-going exercise to flush out the terrorists needs to be clinical and not breed more terrorists. It is going to be a long haul -- and no quick fixes are available. Even the policemen on the street doing searches these days should be ordered to be polite and courteous, not to think that the Emergency powers vested in them are a licence to be obnoxious.

Muslim leaders, both political and religious, must take the lead as an embarrassed community and an embattled Government desperately tries to gain credibility among the people in fostering an environment where every Muslim is not seen as a terrorist suspect. Even in the United States, the then President Barack Obama had to caution his Police Departments not to think of every Black American youth wearing a ‘hoodie’ as a criminal.

Experienced psychiatrists would say that people do develop resilience after trauma. To do so, they need to be secure in the knowledge that everything possible is being done to prevent a recurrence; that they will be adequately warned of future threats and constantly kept informed by credible information. Sri Lankans developed resilience during the Eelam ‘wars’, and the 2004 tsunami. There is no reason they cannot do so again.