You can like it or loathe it, but the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) investigating the Easter Sunday bomb attacks is unearthing information that provides much food for thought that arouses the interest of not only the hardened security experts but even of the average Sri Lankan.
The PSC has come under fire and political parties have their reasons for either supporting or opposing the Committee. The Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) believes such a committee is not necessary because President Maithripala Sirisena has already appointed a Presidential Committee to investigate the attacks- and they feel the PSC is an attempt to lay the blame at the feet of the President.
The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) argues that bringing key officials before the PSC under the glare of media coverage and having the day to day workings of the nation’s security apparatus dissected in public could only be detrimental.
However, what has been revealed so far is an object lesson on how not to run a country’s intelligence and security network.
Regardless of their political affiliations, the Tamil National Alliance, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna are participating in the PSC and it must be said that some of the revelations made at the hearings- such as, the fact that no meetings of the National Security Council were held for two months or that the Defence Secretary had no ready access to the President- are startling, if not downright ridiculous.
This week, more surprising details emerged. It was revealed that there were no VIP guests at the Taj Samudra Hotel, where a suicide bomber was seen on CCTV trying to detonate a bomb and then leaving when he failed to do so. Much was made of this by the General Secretary of the SLFP, Dayasiri Jayasekara.
In his own evidence before the PSC, Jayasekara strongly hinted that the suicide bomber assigned to Taj Samudra had second thoughts about detonating the bomb because ‘important persons’ were staying at that hotel. He appeared to imply that those connected to the Government were resident there. Now that he has been proved wrong, Jayasekara must apologise. Being a lawyer, he must at least now learn that careless talk can cost lives, as much as he needs to learn how to say ‘Disce Aut Discede’.
The other important issue emerging from the PSC deliberation is the revelation that there is no evidence that the international terror group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (or ISIS) was involved.
It will be recalled that in the immediate aftermath of the attack, there was a general assumption that it was the work of the ISIS because of the modus operandi and the religion of those involved.
Nevertheless, ISIS took its time in claiming responsibility for the attacks, doing so only a few days later. The organisation has a reputation for claiming responsibility for attacks which are not their own, when it suits their agenda. It now appears that while the attackers were inspired by ISIS ideology, there appears to be no evidence that the organisation was directly involved.
That is cause for serious concern. One does not have to be an intelligence expert to deduce that the Easter attacks were a well co-ordinated operation that required extensive planning, funding and meticulous attention to detail. The fact that there were many attacks occurring around the same time with near clockwork precision indicates that this is not the handiwork of a few misguided and disgruntled young men.
Where then is the hidden hand? Regretfully, the response to the Easter attack, both from politicians and from some sectors of law enforcement, has been to play the blame game, trying to shift responsibility to some other person or institution instead of engaging in introspection and finding out what really went wrong.
Political parties in the opposition too are only interested in shamelessly gaining political advantage. They have accused the Government of shielding wrongdoers because of the Muslim vote and are doing exactly the opposite- they are promoting anti-Muslim sentiment to woo the majority Sinhala Buddhist vote.
The mass hysteria surrounding the detention of a doctor at the Kurunegala Hospital is a case in point. We do not know whether he is guilty or not of what he is being accused of- forcible sterilisations- but it appears as if he has been already found guilty and now has to prove his innocence.
Meanwhile, the more important questions have gone unanswered. Who provided direction and guidance to the bombers to set up not one but a series of explosions on high profile targets? Where was the necessary finances coming from? Most importantly, whose agenda was this and who stood to gain from destabilising Sri Lanka which was only just recovering from the hangover of a thirty-year civil war and half a decade of political cronyism thereafter?
While fingers are being pointed in a dozen direction, that is being done mostly with one eye on the next Presidential Elections and despite presidential commissions and parliamentary select committees, it is fair to say that we are no closer to answering these critical questions than we were three months ago.
Much was made of the fact that all those responsible for the attacks had either died, been killed or captured.
The latter category amounted to only a few, making it hard for investigators to put the pieces of the puzzle together. While the alacrity and the efficiency of our law enforcement agencies in the wake of the attack is commendable, it appears that the masterminds behind the carnage are still not known.
What we do know instead is that our security agencies have been reduced to a shambles, focusing on the infighting within the Government’s topmost echelons instead of dealing with the enemy from outside.
The question now on most people’s minds is, what will it take for these authorities to get to the bottom of this mystery? Will we have to wait for yet another attack or will it be the next election?