Easter attacks: Anniversary mired in conundrums
Come Thursday (April 21) and it will be the second anniversary of that terrible, probably avoidable Easter Sunday bombing that shook the country, rocked the country's intelligence gathering apparatus and accelerated the ouster of the political leadership of the time.
The Cardinal is blowing hot and cold on the entire issue. On the one hand, he is, in true Christian spirit, preaching the gospel of forgiveness and mercy to the perpetrators of this dastardly crime; on the other, he is all fire and brimstone, demanding what he calls “justice" for the victims. What he means by the latter is imposing severe punishment not only on the mastermind(s) behind those coordinated attacks on churches and hotels (who are still ‘in the realm of the unknown’), but also prosecuting those whose negligence allowed the attacks to happen.
The Attorney General is under pressure from the Church, which detractors of these 'pressure tactics' call 'Catholic Action’ (from the lexicon of the botched coup attempt of 1962). The AG’s office is expected to wade through reams of evidence from multiple agencies and a Presidential Commission of Inquiry to indict persons, among whom is a former President.
Proponents of the outspoken Cardinal publicly voicing his displeasure at the slow pace of investigations and prosecutions would, however, argue that sans this pressure, it is quite possible that this public posturing from all quarters would be 'much ado about nothing', just another file that would gather dust like so many other cases.
The Government is in a quandary. It seized the opportunity presented by virtual happenstance as far as it was concerned in April 2019 to bring National Security into the forefront of its campaign agenda and to have the sitting Government ejected from office for its miserable failure to avoid the Easter Sunday bombings of that year. Government leaders promised the Church speedy redress. Now they find the political leadership of the time (the then President) seated in their ranks as coalition partner. Furthermore, it has now transpired that the leader of the gang of suicide bombers who blew themselves up that fateful day had been on their payroll (for different reasons though).
Additionally, geo-politics has the Government in a tangle in meeting Opposition grilling on how come an external spy agency seemingly knew of the bombers’ every move, but left gaps in passing crucial information just when it mattered most and could have made a difference.
No doubt, there was a yawning gap in the local intelligence services. Clearly, political interference had crept into the intelligence gathering system with political leaders giving higher priority to their own agendas rather than the security of the state.
There is also a massive trust deficiency in regional information sharing cooperation between South Asia's intelligence agencies. This is because some of these agencies are themselves involved, at the behest of their respective Governments, in meddling in the internal affairs of their neighbouring countries in their own 'national interest'.
Outward displays of bonhomie, solidarity and good neighbourliness are just sugar coatings for cloak and dagger espionage and triggering means of destabilisation. Undercurrents prevail, and issues like cross-border terrorism, religious and ideological extremism, narcotics smuggling and the like get downplayed or are pushed to back-burners due to geo-political considerations. No one knows for sure who is friend or foe.
For the victims’ families and the injured, the anniversary is an unbearably painful reminder of the tragic loss they have to live with. The anguish lingers and the suffering is clouded in the fog of a political circus on display.