One minute silence to honour the dead Archbishop of Colombo His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith has reiterated his earlier sentiments and called on the public to commemorate the one year anniversary of the Easter bombings from home by observing a moment of silence. Secretary to Archbishop of Colombo Fr. Denington Subasinghe said that they request the people to carry out commemorations from home. “His Eminence will address the people in a statement through the media. Therefore, we ask the people to observe two minutes of silence,” he said. The Cardinal, issuing a statement, said that it was disappointing that the Government at the time had failed to prevent the attacks despite prior warning and urged the current administration to ensure transparent, independent investigations are conducted and no culprit was allowed political patronage. “We are aggrieved that those responsible for governance at that time did not take seriously the repeated warnings received concerning these attacks and so not only allowed this massacre to take place, but also sought to hide their culpability in different ways after the attack. Still more serious is the responsibility of all those who masterminded these attacks by planning, funding, and encouraging the perpetrators and deliberately covering up the facts of the case. Some of them surely knew this was coming. “We thank the incumbent President for his insistence in investigating these attacks thoroughly and for ensuring that those responsible are brought to book. We are indeed sad and shocked to hear that some educated and elitist people, some of whom are connected to the legal sphere, are trying to bring pressure on the President to cover up these investigations and possibly hide the authors. What are human rights when they try to use such to cover up the perpetrators and associates of those who violated the basic right to life of so many innocent human beings – men, women, and children? "We also wish to affirm our confidence in the Presidential Commission of Inquiry appointed for this purpose and we are hopeful that we will be able to ascertain who orchestrated these attacks and who shirked their responsibility to prevent them and why.” By Skandha Gunasekara