Category: News

Impunity has a long history in Sri Lanka. The country is haunted by the ghosts of injustices occurring in both the distant and recent past. Traumatic centuries of Western colonialism left a brutal legacy scarcely acknowledged by the states at fault. 2023 marked the 40th anniversary of Black July – the days of state-sanctioned mob violence that, in 1983, killed some 3,000 Tamils, forced hundreds of thousands into exile, destroyed considerable property and plunged the country into full-scale war. More recent still are the unanswered crimes of the bloody final months of the 26-year civil war that ended in 2009. As government forces cornered the Tamil Tigers in the island’s north, eventually defeating the rebels, they also killed tens of thousands of civilians. Mothers of the thousands of missing, many of whom surrendered to the army and were never seen again, have been protesting continuously for more than five years, demanding (but not receiving) information about the fate of their children. The war saw atrocities committed by armed groups claiming to be defending either Sinhalese, Tamils or Muslims. Mass graves – remnants of government campaigns against both Sinhalese and Tamil insurgencies – dot the island. They continue to be discovered.

As members of the UN Human Rights Council prepare to convene in Geneva starting on 11 September, the challenge of impunity in Sri Lanka will be on the agenda, with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights due to report on the human rights situation in the country. For more than ten years, the Council has pushed Colombo to hold accountable perpetrators of atrocities during the civil war and in the years since, as well as to address the underlying governance problems that led to hostilities. It is the only international forum in which Sri Lankan leaders have been pressed to take the steps needed to move beyond the cycles of bloodshed that have bedevilled the country for too long. But this crucial venue could disappear in September 2024 unless a majority of members vote for a resolution that renews the basis for the Council’s regular engagement on these issues.

In present circumstances, a truth and reconciliation commission would have little to no chance of success.

Colombo is working to make sure this engagement lapses. Eager to move out of the international spotlight, the government has been taking steps that it hopes can forestall renewal, including by promising to set up an ostensible truth and reconciliation commission that, in present circumstances, would have little to no chance of success. The Council’s members should not allow themselves to be misled. Instead, they should use the year between the forthcoming Council session and the one in 2024 to urge Sri Lanka’s government to create the conditions needed for any such commission to do its job effectively – as well as to address the other concerns the Council has identified. Absent changes responsive to the Council’s requests, members should vote to continue its oversight.

A Struggle for Accountability

Since late 2022, Sri Lanka’s president and foreign minister have been saying they would form a “truth and reconciliation” commission of some kind to deal with the legacy of the civil war, which from 1983 to May 2009 (low-level clashes had begun earlier, in the late 1970s) pitted the Sri Lankan state against the Tamil Tigers. The supposedly reform-minded government led by President Maithripala Sirisena, in power from 2015 to the end of 2019, promised the Human Rights Council it would create a “truth-seeking mechanism” as one of four transitional justice processes. But it never made good on that pledge, or on many others, and the Council has kept up its pressure. Under a successor Council resolution, adopted in October 2022 and still in force, the government is asked to address a range of longstanding governance and human rights concerns, including by “ensuring investigations into, and accountability for, grave violations of human rights” and “promot[ing] healing and reconciliation”.

Against this backdrop, and in order to demonstrate its seriousness about dealing with the civil war’s litany of abuses, Sri Lanka’s current government, led by President Ranil Wickremesinghe, has returned to the unfinished business of a truth commission. In May, the cabinet approved a proposal to create a National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC) – which officials also refer to as the Truth-Finding Mechanism – with the intent of presenting legislation formally setting up the body to parliament later in the year. The initiative, reportedly modelled in part on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, comes on the heels of highly publicised study trips by Sri Lanka’s justice and foreign ministers to South Africa, which followed visits undertaken by senior officials from the three previous Sri Lankan administrations.

Yet it is not at all clear what all this activity will yield. The Sri Lankan state has struggled from its early years in the post-World War II period to acknowledge (much less atone for) repeated periods of state and state-sanctioned violence, beginning with the first anti-Tamil “riots” in 1958. When pressed, Colombo has relied on ad hoc commissions. While these bodies have sometimes gathered a considerable amount of factual information, they have rarely generated any recognition from the state of its responsibility. Nor have they made a dent in the systematic impunity with which the state commits its abuses.

Absent a major course correction by the state, there are strong reasons to doubt that anything would be different this time around.

Absent a major course correction by the state, there are strong reasons to doubt that anything would be different this time around. Rather than responding to the demands of victims, survivors and their families, or the larger community of human rights advocates, the NURC initiative is driven entirely by the government. The government has had only limited conversations with survivors, victims’ families or even the civil society elites with whom it normally makes more of a show of consulting on such issues. These meetings came only after it had announced the NURC’s design.

It is widely believed in Sri Lankan political circles that the government’s principal interest in such a commission is to influence opinion at the UN Human Rights Council. Since 2012, the Council has passed an unbroken series of resolutions calling for reconciliation, accountability and improved human rights protections in Sri Lanka. With the exception of Sri Lanka’s decision to co-sponsor Resolution 30/1 in 2015, governments in Colombo have chafed at Council oversight and resisted making the reforms it has called for. The government has made clear it is keen to see the current council resolution on Sri Lanka be the last. The president’s secretary told civil society organisations in July that “if this effort is successful, there will be no need for the country to go to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva for another year”.

The effort could indeed be successful if the traction it is gaining with important outside actors is any indication. The Japanese government has endorsed Colombo’s plans and the South African government continues to advise its Sri Lankan counterpart on the matter. The desire of these and other governments to encourage Sri Lankan initiatives to address the civil war’s legacy and build trust among communities is welcome. Still, Sri Lankan activist and survivor organisations are correct to worry both that the proposed NURC is not right now positioned to succeed, and that Colombo’s campaign to promote it could well lead the Human Rights Council to stop applying pressure for much-needed reform.

A History of Disappointments

Scepticism about the NURC initiative runs deep in Sri Lankan civil society. Among other things, the doubts reflect a lack of confidence in President Wickremesinghe, who was prime minister when the government first promised the Council it would establish a truth commission in 2015, the first year of Sirisena’s presidency; that promise was never kept. Moreover, when invited in 2017 to receive the report of a national consultation on transitional justice that his own government had commissioned, Wickremesinghe declined. This same administration, jointly led by President Sirisena, also refused to establish the special war crimes court it had told the Council it would create. Despite initial hopes, the two transitional justice institutions that Colombo did set up in response to international pressure – the Office on Missing Persons (OMP) and the Office for Reparations – were left under-resourced and too politically weak to offer any meaningful truth, justice or reparations.

The failures of these transitional justice initiatives were just the latest in a long history of the Sri Lankan state making promises and establishing flawed domestic mechanisms to reduce international pressure for deeper reforms. For example, in 2008, international observers troubled by blatant conflicts of interest and a lethargic pace of work resigned from the Udalagama Commission, which President Mahinda Rajapaksa had appointed to investigate seventeen separate massacres and assassinations in the first years of his administration. Three years later, in 2011, the government appointed the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), which had a mandate to look into the events of the civil war’s final stages and propose ways to promote “national unity and reconciliation”. This latter commission was widely seen as an effort to buy time and avoid an international probe of war crimes. Although it generated surprisingly robust recommendations – including calls to investigate government links to enforced disappearances – it downplayed military responsibility for civilian deaths, and none of its key recommendations were adopted. The follow-up inquiries it spawned led nowhere.

To date, there is no sign the government intends to discard practices that have preserved impunity and protected state power in Sri Lanka for decades. Instead, the evidence points to continued repression without accountability. Political activists across the island continue to be arrested and detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), which the government has proposed replacing with an even more draconian law. Police and army surveillance of Tamil civil society and families of those disappeared in the north and east during the civil war remains intense. The president and senior ministers regularly promote a distorted, politicised narrative that presents 2022’s historic protest movement – which led President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign – as a threat to democracy.

More than four years on, there has been no credible or independent probe of the 2019 Easter Sunday suicide bombings that killed 270 people, including 45 foreigners.
Meanwhile, the police and military continue to obstruct investigations into enforced disappearances – including by crippling the OMP – and a series of high-profile political murders and massacres cited in multiple Human Rights Council resolutions. More than four years on, there has been no credible or independent probe of the 2019 Easter Sunday suicide bombings that killed 270 people, including 45 foreigners. Instead, the lead police investigators were fired, arrested or forced into exile. Recent televised allegations from at least two insiders that military intelligence officials loyal to the Rajapaksas were complicit in the bombings have sent shock waves through the political establishment and strengthened the case for a transparent, independent inquiry with international involvement. (The main alleged culprit, who is now head of the State Intelligence Services, has denied the accusations, as has Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the ex-president.)

In such circumstances, there is little chance that the proposed truth and reconciliation commission will be able to engage in the free and open discussion of injustice and abuse of power that would be required in order for it to do its job. Recent government promises to stand up an “internationally recognised accountability process” are by themselves not credible absent major steps to enable it to work, as discussed below. Nor will it help to include international observers in the commission’s work – an idea the government has floated to build confidence in the body’s integrity – if the state remains as determined to maintain impunity as it has been in the past.

Against this backdrop, many fear the NURC will also come at a cost to the victims it is ostensibly meant to assist. The government has over and over again encouraged victims to tell their stories of pain and loss to the succession of insincere or disempowered commissions and other mechanisms it has set up, exploiting their hope that some trace of their missing loved ones might emerge. A member of the 2016 consultation process explained that a common sentiment expressed by those attending the public meetings was “overall exhaustion” from dealing with so many arms of the state supposedly serving the interests of justice – from permanent investigating bodies, such as the police, to ad hoc commissions. This person noted that it was “impossible not to be moved by the palpable grief, desperation and pain of countless family members who spoke of their loss and efforts to find answers, justice and other forms of redress”. Yet those commodities remained in short supply.

A Better Way

While it may be too late to block or insist on a fundamental reset of the NURC initiative, the Wickremesinghe administration’s desire for international approval gives influential governments – including those that have indicated various degrees of support for the proposed commission – considerable leverage. These states should make clear that their public endorsement of the NURC will depend on the government heeding the requests of victims, survivors and their advocates that key confidence-building measures be made prior to its launch. Among the actions the government should take to create the conditions for truth-telling and justice are:

implementing key recommendations of past commissions of inquiry – especially the LLRC and various disappearances commissions – aimed at challenging the culture of impunity. These recommendations include conducting credible investigations into the fate of the hundreds who remain missing after surrendering to the army in May 2009; creating more effective safeguards against arbitrary arrest leading to disappearance; and establishing an independent public prosecutor separate from the Attorney General’s Department;

releasing to victims’ families and their advocates – with due protection for the confidentiality of personal information – all relevant government documentation about the status of OMP, police and military investigations into disappearances and key human rights cases;

developing a plan for reviewing and categorising records from past commissions to ensure that the large volume of information already gathered from victims and other witnesses can be made accessible to and used by a new truth commission, should it be established;

in the service of creating conditions in which all Sri Lankans can engage safely in political speech, ending the use of the PTA and other laws to silence dissenters, and halting surveillance of civil society – especially victims’ groups in the north and east;

reactivating police and court actions on high-profile abductions and political killings and removing from office those senior police and military officials who are credibly alleged to have blocked investigations;

agreeing to international assistance in key investigations, including the exhumation of mass graves;

and, lastly, launching a public campaign explaining to both Sinhala and Tamil-speaking citizens why the country needs a genuine truth-telling process and what is being done to create the conditions for its success.

In the absence of meaningful progress toward these goals, outside actors that have engaged with Colombo on the NURC’s establishment, as well as other member states, should make clear that conditions for its success are not yet in place. Until they are, and until the full suite of key concerns identified in Geneva have been addressed, continued oversight by the Human Rights Council will be warranted. In the absence of such conditions, any ostensible truth and reconciliation commission will almost surely fail to deliver truth or reconciliation – and could even make them harder to achieve.

Lack of accountability by the powerful undermines the rights of numerous Sri Lankans, according to a hard-hitting report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk. The situation of human rights in Sri Lanka is on the agenda for the opening day of the 54th session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) from September 11 to October 13 when the regime will face tough criticism. Locally and internationally, others too have drawn attention to grave human rights failings and fresh allegations have been made about the Easter 2019 bombings.

“The economic crisis continues to have a severe impact on the rights and well-being of many Sri Lankans” and “it is essential that the burden of reforms does not fall unequally upon some segments of society,” the UN report emphasises. “Lack of accountability at all levels remains the fundamental main human rights problem. Whether it refers to war crime atrocities, post-war emblematic cases, torture and deaths in police custody, excesses in crowd control, corruption and the abuse of power, Sri Lanka suffers from an extraordinary accountability deficit that unless addressed will drag the country further behind.”

While it is mainly the Sri Lankan authorities’ responsibility to address this, recommendations set out how “the international community can play an important complementary role, including through supporting relevant criminal justice investigations and prosecutions, the use of universal jurisdiction, and consideration of appropriate targeted sanctions against persons credibly implicated in serious human rights violations.”

It is not just the HRC which has been flagging up concerns about the regime. A Sri Lankan civil society coalition recently highlighted the urgent need for democracy if serious economic problems were to be tackled effectively, pointing out that for “people to be able to hold their representatives and the stewards of public resources accountable, they need to be able to exercise their democratic rights and freedoms”.

A number of international human rights organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, pointed out “grave reservations about the Sri Lankan government’s proposed National Unity and Reconciliation Commission. Our concerns echo many of those already raised by victims of conflict-related abuses and their families”, who have often “already engaged in multiple similar processes over decades. The current proposals risk further re-traumatization, with little expectation that victims’ rights and needs will be addressed.” The Crisis Group has also expressed scepticism about proposals which do not have the confidence of those most affected and seem set to repeat the mistakes of the past.

A documentary broadcast by the UK’s Channel 4 included startling new allegations about the role of the Rajapaksas – still influential today in government circles – in assassinations and the terrorist explosions in 2019 in which 269 people were killed. Ex-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa has dismissed these as untrue. Whether or not every claim is accurate, the programme adds to already weighty evidence of collusion and cover up. Refusal by those wielding power to be held accountable continues to get in the way of a better future for ordinary Sri Lankans.

HRC to discuss social, political, cultural and economic rights violations

Serious and wide ranging abuses of Sri Lankans’ human rights had been identified in earlier sessions and the regime repeatedly urged to make changes. Yet it has stalled or brought in measures that offer little, if any, genuine improvement while people outside the inner circle of the ruling elite continue to suffer in a range of ways.

Missed opportunities have taken a serious toll on health and wellbeing, the High Commissioner’s report indicates. The summary states that “The crisis continues to have a severe impact on the rights of many Sri Lankans, with sharply increasing poverty levels. Victims of human rights violations continue to wait for truth, justice, reparations and measures to guarantee non-repetition. There are opportunities ahead to address these challenges through governance reforms and reconciliation initiatives, but these need to be accompanied by meaningful and independent accountability measures.” Progress “would be particularly timely in a year that marks both the 75th anniversary of Sri Lanka’s independence and the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

The economic crisis has caused a stark increase in poverty levels, which seem set to rise further in 2023, according to the report. The number of malnourished children also continues to grow. It warns that “possible austerity measures to overcome the crisis, such as increasing taxes, reducing Government expenditure, and limiting investments in health, education, and care services, may result in unintended and adverse impacts on various human rights” and emphasises that rights are indivisible. “In order to achieve a path to recovery and sustainable development Sri Lanka will need to address the longer-term serious governance and accountability deficits, as well as the continuing legacy of the armed conflict.”

New legislation is being pushed through that overrides human rights, including greater state control over broadcasting although more positively, same-sex relationships may be decriminalised. Although some people held under the deeply flawed Prevention of Terrorism Act have been freed, an acceptable alternative which meets basic principles of justice has yet to be proposed.

A heavy military presence in former conflict areas has heightened tensions, as has “the trend towards hard line nationalist rhetoric that undermined reconciliation between ethnic and religious communities” although “The President has set a different tone in several speeches…However, land disputes between the State and citizens from local communities continue to be reported, with 26 such disputes recorded between October 2022 and June 2023, mostly in the Northern and Eastern provinces.” Human rights defenders and nongovernmental organisations in the North and East have faced surveillance, intimidation and harassment while freedom of expression and peaceful assembly continue to be undermined.

Justice is still being withheld from victims and survivors of serious past violations including enforced disappearances and the Easter Sunday attacks in 2019 and their families. The government’s proposal for a truth and reconciliation mechanism falls far short of what is required to build trust and find out the truth, the report suggests.

As requested by the HRC previously and working closely with victims, survivors and civil society organisations, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has been gathering and analysing information and evidence. Four priority areas have been selected for further investigation: unlawful killings, sexual and gender-based violence and torture in detention settings, enforced disappearances and violations against and affecting children, including the recruitment and use of children in hostilities.

“It remains vital for the international community to remain engaged on the issue of accountability and contribute alongside national processes,” the report suggests. “There have been some encouraging developments in this arena, such as a number of States pursuing criminal investigations against persons implicated in violations and abuses and related crimes in Sri Lanka…It is to be hoped that the international community, through the United Nations and other multilateral fora, as well as individual States on a bilateral basis with Sri Lanka, will continue to work together to advance accountability.”

Reportedly the Sri Lankan government plans to respond in a low-key manner rather than sending a delegation of high profile figures. However work on a one to one basis to try to win backing by other governments is almost certainly continuing.

The situation in Sri Lanka is due to come up again later in the session. A report of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, likely to be discussed on September 19, states that the “Working Group continues to be concerned at numerous reports of acts of harassment and intimidation of relatives of disappeared persons and human rights defenders” and “at the scarce progress made by the Office on Missing Persons in delivering on its mandate to help families searching for their loved ones and establish the truth.”

Others share concerns amid squandered chances

The documentary Sri Lanka’s Easter Bombings: Dispatches conveyed the horror of what happened and anguish of survivors. It was also a grim reminder that violations of the human rights of any section of the population endanger the safety and dignity of people across the island. The ruthlessness of rule by the Rajapaksa family, as well as the corruption, deception and violence affecting even the Sinhalese Buddhist majority, were explored although some fresh claims made by whistle blowers will need to be verified. The backdrop to the bombings included the deaths of numerous civilians towards the end of the civil war, murder of journalists including courageous Sunday Leader editor Lasantha Wickrematunge, loss of power by the Rajapaksas and their allies and keenness to regain this in the 2019 election.

News reports have focused on the interview with Hanzeer Azad Maulana, who worked with politician and former rebel fighter Pillayan. Yet what was alleged by former senior police officer Nishantha Silva and a former high ranking government official whose identity was protected was also vitally important and tied in with what is already known or seems highly probable. Sadly many people have got used to a political culture in which critics of the state can be badly beaten or murdered with impunity and terror attacks not stopped despite warnings while serious wrongdoing is glossed over.

Various national and international bodies have been drawn into a controversy over attempts by Sinhala Buddhist supremacists (although deplored by many of the same ethnicity and religion) to disrupt Hindu worship and impose their own culture despite local people’s protests. MP Sarath Weerasekera, a retired admiral and former minister, was criticised by the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) and International Commission of Jurists, after seeking to undermine the independence of the judiciary by making inflammatory remarks with racist overtones about a judge. A Lawyers’ Collective has urged BASL to take a stronger stance on what it regards as President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s efforts to stifle democracy.

Over 80 trade unions and civil society organisations have written an open letter protesting against the damaging measures introduced in response to demands by the IMF. “IMF-backed reforms have disintegrated Sri Lankan society. Malnutrition has increased. The impact these years will have on the health of our children is unimaginable. Houses do not have electricity or running water. School dropouts have increased. The streets are overflowing with homeless people. Drug usage has increased. The mental health crisis is reaching a tipping point. There is a mass exodus of skilled people from Sri Lanka because Sri Lanka is no longer a country where people can scrape even a bare minimum living,” they warned. The reforms are in fact “crushing our economy”.

Supposedly there is a safety net for the most vulnerable, yet in reality it is full of holes, with drastic consequences.

Some in Sri Lanka and the international community may have confidence in the regime or wish to support it because they believe they may have something to gain. However it has repeatedly let down those who had hoped for consistent positive change based on commitment to human rights for all. As the HRC gathers in September, it will be hard to avoid local and international scrutiny of the unnecessary suffering being inflicted on numerous Sri Lankans.

Source: Groundviews

Distressful memories of the Easter Sunday suicide killer bombing of churches and hotels on 21 April 2019 were revived for many this week when the British TV Channel 4 aired a documentary in its “Dispatches” program on 5 September 2023. For some of us it fanned into poignant flames, the embers of memory, regarding our friend and colleague Lasantha Wickrematunge who was brutally assassinated on 8 January 2009.

The “revelations” made in the TV documentary by Hanzeer Azad Noulana and Nishantha Silva have alleged that the clandestine killer squad “Tripoly platoon” murdered Lasantha Wickrematunge on the purported instructions of then Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Azad Moulana is the former aide of Tamil Makkal Viduthalaip Puligal (TMVP) leader Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillaiyaan who is currently a state minister. Moulana said that he arranged a meeting between former military intelligence chief Suresh Salley and members of the radical Islamic movement National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ) in 2018. He alleged that the April 2019 bombings were done to create a climate of fear to facilitate Gotabaya getting elected as president.

Moulana claimed that after the meeting between NTJ and Salley was over “Suresh Salley came to me and told me the Rajapaksas need an unsafe situation in Sri Lanka, that’s the only way for Gotabaya to become president,” Moulana alleged that Pillayan and Salley engineered the release of NTJ from prison before he arranged for Salley to meet them. “The attack was not a plan made in just one or two days, the plan was two, three years in the making,” stated Moulana in the documentary.

Ex-police officer Nishantha Silva is the Police sleuth who probed the murder of Lasantha and interrogated Gotabaya intensively. He stated that his investigations revealed that members of the Tripoly platoon were at Lasantha’s murder scene. Both Azad Moulana and Nishantha Silva are reportedly living in Europe now having fled from Sri Lanka fearing for their safety.

Major-General Suresh Salley is currently the head of Sri Lanka’s State Intelligence Service (SIS). Gen. Salley has in a letter to Channel 4, said that the allegations against him were “outright false” and denied any contact with the individuals who spoke to the film-makers. He said he was not in Sri Lanka on the dates the alleged contact with the bombers was made. “I have no connection whatsoever in the Easter bombing,” Salley wrote. According to Channel 4 neither Pillaiyaan nor the Rajapaksa family responded to the TV’s requests for comment.

The Channel 4 film has once again drawn attention to Zahran Hashim and the National Thowheeth Jamaath. Although the documentary has only a few references and images of him, it reiterates the fact that Zahran Hashim was the “Amir” or leader of the group that was responsible for the Easter bombings.

Mohammed Zahran Mohomed Hashim known as Zahran Hashim the fiery Muslim preacher from Kattankudy in Batticaloa district was a man about whom very little was known outside of Islamic circles before the Easter Sunday bombings. Subsequently, he became well-known as the alleged mastermind behind the terror attacks on 21 April 2019. This column – with the aid of earlier writings – intends to focus on Zahran Hashim alias “Abu Ubaidah” in this article.

Kattankudy (Kaathaankudy)

Mohammed Zahran Mohomed Hashim was born in the Muslim coastal town of Kattankudy in 1985. Kattankudy pronounced in Tamil as ‘Kaathaankudy’ is situated 211 miles away from Colombo in the eastern littoral known as ‘Ezhuvaankarai’ (shore of the rising sun).

The thickly populated Kattankudy is arguably the most prosperous Muslim town in the East. It is said that Kattankudy is the busiest business centre in the Batticaloa District. The natives of Kattankudy are well-known for their entrepreneurial skills and business acumen. A very large number of leading Muslim commercial establishments in the East as well as in other areas of the island belong to people from Kattankudy.

However, in recent times Kattankudy has acquired the hallmarks of an Arabian town. Kattankudy today is a modern township bustling with women clad in black abayas and men sporting bristling beards. Date palms are grown within urban precincts and many signboards and street arches have Arabic lettering. Kattankudy has more than 60 registered and unregistered mosques. Except for a handful, most of them are in practice influenced by Wahabi ideology.

It must also be remembered that Kattankudy is the place where the LTTE in 1990 shot and killed people in four mosques while they were praying. 147 died in all. Kattankudy was affected badly by the 2004 tsunami too. 108 were killed and 93 reported missing. Some 2,000 dwellings were destroyed or damaged.

It is in this Kattankudy milieu that Zahran Hashim was born in 1985 to Hayath Mohomed Hashim and Sameema Hashim. It is said that the surname Hashim was earlier spelt as Cassim but later changed to Hashim. The family resided in the Ward 3 area in the town. Zahran was the eldest of five children. Following Zahran were two brothers Zain and Rilwan. The youngest two were sisters Madaniya and Yaseera. All of Zahran’s siblings were married with children.

Zahran Hashim himself was married in 2010. His wife Fathima Haadiya is from Kekunagolla near Narammala in the Kurunegala District. She was a student at the Kekunagolla National School when the wedding took place. They had two children, a boy and a girl. The boy was killed along with Zahran’s parents, siblings and their families at Saainthamarudhu in an explosion triggered off by Zahran’s brother. Zahran’s wife and daughter survived with injuries.

Jamiyyathul Al-Falah Madrasa

After obtaining primary and secondary education up to GCE O/L at a government school in Kattankudy, Zahran enrolled at the Jamiyyathul Al-Falah Madrasa (Theological College) in Ward 4 of Kattankudy in 2001. He was a very bright student but soon fell foul with his teachers due to his insolence and contrarian views. Young Zahran became very fluent in Arabic and was soon attracted to fundamental Islam and Thowheedism encapsulating the ‘indivisible oneness concept of monotheism in Islam.’

Zahran Hashim became extremely rebellious at the madrasa and argued vehemently with his teachers. He also refused to abide by norms and rules. As a result, he was expelled from Al-Falah Madrasa in 2007. Had he completed his full course of studies, Zahran would have become a ‘Moulavi’ or religious scholar/teacher. But he did not and therefore was officially denied such status. In later years, many of his followers addressed him as Zahran Moulavi and Hashim did not correct them. Some of his disciples opined that Zahran had completed his studies at a school in the South.

After being ejected from the madrasa, Zahran Hashim attached himself to Sri Lanka Thowheeth Jamaath (SLTJ). Thowheeth also spelt as, Tawheed, Thawheed and Tawhid, denotes oneness with God. The Oxford Dictionary of Islam states as follows: Tawhid is the defining doctrine of Islam. It declares absolute monotheism—the unity and uniqueness of God as creator and sustainer of the universe. Used by Islamic reformers and activists as an organising principle for human society and the basis of religious knowledge, history, metaphysics, aesthetics, and ethics, as well as social, economic, and world order. Jamaath on the other hand means assembly or congregation in Arabic.

National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ)

Zahran Hashim initially worked with the Sri Lanka Thowheeth Jamaat (SLTJ) in Kattankudy after his madrasa studies ended abruptly. But Zahran with his ultra-radical views was soon at loggerheads with SLTJ. He then struck out on his own and formed his own organisation called National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ). Associated with Zahran in this venture was his one-time mentor Mohamed Ibrahim Mohamed Naufer known as Naufer Moulavi. Neither SLTJ nor its off-shoot the Ceylon Thowheeth Jamaat (CTJ) had anything to do with Zahran Hashim’s National Thowheeth Jamaath.

Although short of funds, Zahran set up a makeshift prayer centre at a wooden shed in Kattankudy and got down to work. Hashim was a very powerful orator in Tamil and Arabic. He was forcefully effective in putting his viewpoint across. Soon Zahran Hashim became a popular figure in Kattankudy. Furthermore, he was invited by Muslim devotees in different parts of the island to conduct religious lectures. Zahran Hashim travelled to many districts in Sri Lanka to address Muslim congregations. It was during the course of such visits to the North-Western Province that he met his wife Fathima Haadiya in Kekunagolla and married her. She was introduced to Zahran by Naufer Moulavi who was married to Haadiya’s aunt.

Zahran Hashim with his ultra-radical views and fiery speeches in flowery language became a magnet for young people of both sexes. He opened a Tamil website for NTJ and propagated his viewpoint. This attracted many in Tamil Nadu as well as those from Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu who were working in gulf countries. He later operated a Facebook account on the same lines. Soon donations began to pour in.

The NTJ Mosque was now housed in a modern building at New Kattankudy – Ward 3. Although Zahran’s oratory was relished by many at meetings, not many participated in the prayers conducted at the National Thowheeth Jamaath Mosque also known as ‘Tharul Athar Athaviya.’ This may have been due to the proliferation of different mosques in Kattankudy.

Zahran Hashim also travelled around the country enrolling members for his Jamaath. The National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ) began to grow in strength and influence. Even as NTJ began developing into a significant entity, Zahran Hashim’s political thinking became more and more extreme. He began sympathising openly with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The turning point came in June 2014 when ISIS rebranded itself as Islamic State (IS) and announced the creation of a ‘Caliphate’ (Islamic State) erasing all State borders and making Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi the self-declared supreme leader of the world’s estimated 1.5 billion Muslims. Thereafter, Zahran Hashim became an avid propagandist of IS in Tamil. He kept posting news items about IS battlefronts in Tamil and also wrote opinion pieces in support. Zahran Hashim was seen as the voice of IS in some Muslim circles.

Baduriya Mosque

Everything seemed hunky-dory for him but Zahran Hashim got into trouble by overreaching himself. To most Wahabi influenced Muslims in Kattankudy, the Baduriya Mosque at the Aliyar Junction in Ward 6 is anathema. This is because Baduriya Mosque adheres more to mystical Islam known as ‘Sufism’ and adopts practices such as paying homage to saints and indulging in grave worship. Wahabis regard this as blasphemous and heretical.

So in an ill-advised bid to teach a lesson to Baduriya Mosque people, Zahran Hashim organised a NTJ meeting at the Aliyar Junction in close proximity to the mosque. When the meeting commenced on 16 March 2017, speaker after speaker made insulting references to Baduriya Mosque. The intention was to provoke Baduriya Mosque devotees. Zahran Hashim had brought clubs and swords clandestinely to the venue and kept them concealed on the stage. As expected, Baduriya Mosque devotees were provoked by the insults and retaliated by pelting stones at the stage. Zahran Hashim and his followers then set upon their rivals and attacked them with swords and clubs.

In the clash that ensued several persons on both sides were injured. Three sustained serious injuries and were hospitalised. The people of Kattankudy were incensed at the violence done in the name of religion. A protest demonstration organised by the Baduriya Mosque management opposite the Kattankudy Islamic museum was well attended. There was tremendous pressure on the police to take action. As a result, nine from NTJ Mosque and two from Baduriya Mosque were arrested and remanded for several months. These included Zahran’s brother Zain. Zahran himself was wanted by the police. He chose to evade arrest by absconding. A story was spread in Kattankudy that Hashim had gone to the Maldives.

There was also suspicion among some Muslim circles that Zahran and his National Thowheeth Jamaath were being clandestinely financed by Sri Lankan “intelligence”. This suspicion was reinforced when two policemen were killed in November 2018 at Vavunatheevu in Batticaloa. It may be recalled that the then Cabinet spokesman Dr. Rajitha Senaratne had disclosed that four military intelligence operatives had coordinated the killings of the two cops in Vavunatheevu. The minister also alleged that 26 members of the National Thowheeth Jamaath had been on the payroll of Military intelligence when Mahinda Rajapaksa was president and his brother Gotabaya the defence secretary.

Tamil Nadu and Kerala

Zahran Hashim left Kattankudy and moved to the North-Western Province from where his wife hailed. After spending some time in Sri Lanka, Zahran relocated to India where he began interacting with Muslim extremist groups in the South Indian States of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. His sojourns were mostly in the Malappuram District of Kerala and the Coimbatore, Trichy, Thirunelvely, Vellore, Nagapattinam, Kanniyakumari and Ramanathapuram Districts of Tamil Nadu. All these districts have sizeable Muslim populations.

It was during his lengthy stay in India that Zahran Hashim underwent a transformation. From a radical activist propagating fundamental Islamic ideology and eulogising the Islamic State, Zahran Hashim turned into an exponent of armed militancy and practitioner of violence. In a remarkable turnaround, Zahran Hashim resolved to return to Sri Lanka and promote violence for what he thought was the cause of Islam.

Jamaate Millat Ibrahim (JMI)

After returning to Sri Lanka Zahran began cultivating links with rich and educated supporters of the Islamic State (IS). The aim was to enlist more volunteers to go to the Middle-East and fight for the IS. But the anti-Muslim violence in Amparai town in February 2018 and the Kandy District anti-Muslim violence of March 2018 made him change his mind. Zahran now wanted to attack a symbolic target like the Ruwanweliseya in Anuradhapura or the Esala Perahera in Kandy. New members were recruited, arms and explosives collected and arms training workshops held. This re-invigorated extremist fervour caused a split in the NTJ. Zahran and his militant disciples broke away and began functioning as the extremely militant Jamaate Millat Ibrahim (JMI) group.

At some point of time, Zahran supposedly influenced by Naufer Moulavi put on hold his plans of attacking “Buddhist” targets. Instead he opted to take on the “Christian West”. It is presumed that Hashim thought this would grab worldwide attention and help ingratiate himself further with the Islamic State. Thus churches and luxury hotels catering mainly to Western tourists were selected as targets.

Islamic State (IS)

The Islamic State (IS) objective of eliminating or subjugating the “Kaffirs” (non-believers/infidels) and establishing a world-wide Islamic “Calpihate” was something which Zahran embraced wholeheartedly.

I have seen some video clips of Zahran’s speeches. They were very powerful spectacles of persuasive oratory of inhuman nature. He referred to the Christians as “Siluvai Vanangihal” (worshippers of the cross) and Hindus and Buddhists as “Silai Vanangihal” (worshippers of statues). While calling for the destruction of “Kaffirs”, Zahran emphasised one point strongly. He said that even if the Kaffirs were good people who were friendly and helpful towards Muslims, they had to be destroyed when necessary.

Those disturbing words came brutally alive when Zahran and his followers launched the Easter bombings of 21 April 2019. Two Catholic Churches, three upmarket tourist hotels and an Evangelical Church were targeted in Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa in the morning. Suicide bombers with explosives strapped to their bodies exploded themselves while worship was going on in churches and breakfast was being partaken of in hotels. 269 people were killed and over 500 injured as a result of that “bloody” Easter Sunday. As mentioned earlier it is suspected that the Islamic State (IS) persuaded Zahran into attacking hotels and churches. It is also believed Naufer Moulavi played a part in influencing Zahran.

“Islamic State fighters”

Two days after, the international ‘Jihadist’ or Islamic militant movement known officially as Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the terror and horror of ‘bloody’ Easter in Sri Lanka. It attributed the attacks to “Islamic State fighters”. A few days later in April 2019, the then-leader of ISIS Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi praised the attackers for what he called retaliation against “the West” for defeating ISIS the previous month in Baghuz, Syria.

The IS, known earlier as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), aimed at establishing a worldwide ‘Caliphate’ or a single Islamic government. In 2014, the IS controlled extensive swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria. Subsequently, the areas held by IS shrank greatly, thanks to the military defeats inflicted by the US-led coalition of forces.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the USA, men who were part of a group of ISIS supporters which called itself “ISIS in Sri Lanka” had collaborated with IS in carrying out the Easter attacks in Sri Lanka. It is believed that Zahran Hashim was the linchpin in this lethal nexus between the Islamic State and the “ISIS in Sri Lanka”.

“Abu Ubaidah”

Zahran Hashim alias ‘Abu Ubaidah’ was one of the two suicide bombers who targeted Shangri-La Hotel at Galle Face. A media release by the Aamaq news agency on behalf of the Islamic State (IS) revealed that Zahran had adopted the nom de guerre “Abu Ubaidah” in the IS.

Abu Ubaidah refers to Abu Ubaidah Amir ibn Abdillah ibn al-Jarra who was one of the 10 prominent companions of Prophet Muhammad. He later served as a commander of the Rashidun Army under Caliph Umar. Abu Ubaidah, credited with several military victories, was hailed then as the “commander of all commanders.

(The writer can be reached at dbsjeyaraj@yahoo.com.)

President Ranil Wickremesinghe will participate in the Summit of the Group of 77 (G77) plus China, which will take place in Cuba this month.

According to the President’s Media Division (PMD), the President will leave for Cuba next week.

President Wickremesinghe is set to address the summit after being invited by the present Chairman of the summit, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel.

The Summit of the Group of 77 (G77) plus China will be held on September 15 and 16 in the Cuban capital, Havana.

‘Current challenges of development: Role of science, technology and innovation’ is the central theme of the upcoming event.

The G77 plus China was founded in 1964 within the Non-Aligned Movement and is a coalition of 134 countries that promotes the collective economic interests of its member states and the creation of enhanced joint negotiation power at the UN.

In a compelling address to Parliament yesterday, Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka, a prominent figure in Sri Lankan politics and former Army Commander, urged for an international investigation into the Easter Sunday attacks following startling allegations made in a recent Channel 4 documentary.

The documentary has drawn global attention by linking the head of the State Intelligence Service (SIS), Suresh Sallay, to the planning and execution of the tragic Easter Sunday attacks in 2019. According to the documentary, the attacks were allegedly orchestrated as a means to bring the Rajapaksas to power.

During his address, Field Marshal Fonseka expressed his concerns about the SIS Chief’s alleged involvement in the attacks. He emphasized that Suresh Sallay had a history that raised suspicions, referring to him as a man who was once relegated to “cleaning the toilets” for the Rajapaksa family.

These shocking allegations have ignited fresh debates in Sri Lanka’s political landscape, prompting calls for a thorough and impartial investigation to ascertain the truth behind the claims made in the documentary.