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State action on Easter Sunday attacks: Complex realities hidden by simple narratives 

26 Jan 2021

By Swasthika Arulingam    Last week, local as well as cable television news channels were brimming with news of Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris taking oaths as the new President and Vice President of the United States of America (US). News junkies or political pundits or not, we were all aware (or made aware) of this development – that the “tremendously ignorant-bigly lost-p***y grabbing” Donald Trump lost the 2020 US presidential election and that in his place, Biden (no adjectives or titles, because 44 other Joe Bidens have occupied the seat of the American President),  and Harris, “the first woman – the first woman of colour – the first black woman – the first woman of South Asian descent – the first woman who spoke Tamil on an election platform (just one word, but still)”, became the Vice President of the US. Representation matters. Adjectives count. Words repeated through news, fake news, fact-checked news, counter-facts news, Twitter news, and Facebook news, imprint images in our heads which are hard to shake. Sometimes, these images instill hope. Trump was no doubt a “tremendously ignorant-bigly lost-p***y-grabbing” man who had to be dethroned for a semblance of normalcy (country-specific) to return to the US, and Harris was in fact “the first woman – the first woman of colour – the first black woman – the first woman of South Asian descent – the first woman who spoke Tamil on an election platform (just one word, but still)” to become the Vice President of the US. These stark, contrasting images of an egocentric man being replaced by a woman breaking the glass ceiling of racial oppression sends strong vibrations of hope to the American people no doubt, so that they can heave a sigh of relief and return to normalcy.  In other times and places, these images wreak havoc in the lives of ordinary people.  [caption id="attachment_116182" align="alignright" width="510"] The people were made witness to a media spectacle of the Police and the Army raiding into houses and mosques, unearthing swords and Islamic literature, with the police officers proudly displaying their production to the media to see[/caption] In the morning hours of 21 April 2019, our country witnessed eight bombs detonated one after the other by suicide bombers. More than 250 people died that day. Hundreds more were injured. The person who headed the group responsible for these killings, Zahran Hashim, was a warranted suspect searched for not only by the local Batticaloa Police but also by the Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) as well as the Interpol.  There were signs that sinister activities were taking place in the East which could lead to violence and the deaths of people long before the Easter Sunday attacks. As far back as 2013-2014, Sufi Muslims in the Eastern region had made complaints to the Police against Hashim and his group. Once again in 2017, a group of Sufis were attacked by Hashim and his group. Once again, a complaint was lodged with the Police and a case was lodged with the courts. An arrest warrant was issued on Hashim and two others. Hashim managed to escape arrest. In July 2018, the TID had obtained an open warrant from the Colombo Chief Magistrate to apprehend Hashim. However, Hashim’s name did not capture the popular imagination until the Easter Sunday attacks. There was no widespread knowledge or awareness or media reporting on a man in hiding who was a suspected criminal with the potential to cause grave harm to communities until the Easter Sunday attacks. However, hours after the Easter Sunday attacks, it became known to us through a leaked letter signed by Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Priyalal Dissanayake that at least 10 days before the bomb attacks, sections of the Police and the intelligence community knew very specific details about who was planning the attack and the mode of attack. It later became known to us that 268 very important persons (VIPs) knew about this attack and did not reveal this to the public. A former Director of the State Intelligence Service who testified to the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) probing the bombings on Easter Sunday, stated that nearly 15,000 persons in positions of power knew about these attacks. None thought that it was wise to tip the public. None thought that the people less powerful than them had a right to know. There was gross failure of leadership and a callous disregard for life on the part of those who sat in power and remain in power to date.  To us, the people observing this unfolding horror, the sequence of events, and those responsible for the deaths of over 250 people, one thing was clear. This was that the Government and their intelligence and the 268 VIPs and their security personnel who sat on specific information given to them about the attacks and nothing about it and did not keep the general public informed while they saved themselves, should have all been the subject of arrests and criminal investigations.  However, a new ideology of criminality was pushed by the people in power in order to escape liability. The action of violence, the bomb attacks itself, was no longer the crime. Ideology, belief, and thought were being made a crime by the State and the media. The cause of this violence was the “terrorist fetus” which was “developed and sustained” within the Muslim society, said one Member of Parliament. This ideology the “terrorist fetus” is armed with, is more potent than any weapon, he declared. Therefore, the responsibility was on the Muslim society to raise their voice against this and to defeat this. The Parliamentarian who developed the theory of the “terrorist fetus” declared further: “In the move to defeat this lunacy, the security services and the Police can arrest those involved in the incident, raid relevant sites, and seize goods. However, where does this fetus develop? We believe it develops and is sustained within the Muslim society”. It was said and repeated that the cause of violence which killed more than 250 people was an extremist ideology and that this had to be eradicated. The “terrorist fetus” theory in one form or the other was repeated through news, fake news, fact-checked news, counter-facts news, Twitter news and Facebook news. Within a few weeks of the Easter Sunday attacks, it was hard not to be convinced that the cause of violence and bloodshed was none other than extremist ideology within the Muslim community. However, law does not cater to eradicating ideology. Law does not make thought a crime. But that is exactly what the Government did with the support of its faithful companion the media.  More than 2,000 Muslims were rounded up and arrested after the Easter Sunday attacks. A pregnant woman was kept for weeks in detention for wearing a headscarf. A Muslim activist was arrested for warning Muslim youths to not be strayed by extremist ideology. His mistake was that he wrote in Tamil and the intelligence community did not think it important to translate his posts before they arrested him. A translator was arrested for using the word “jihad” on a Facebook post and was kept for months in detention. The reasons for the arrests were frivolous and under ordinary circumstances, would have been scorned upon. But these were extraordinary times and fear instilled in the general public about future violence made anything done in the name of national security, legitimate. The primary accused in this drama, the Government and their intelligence, the 268 VIPs and the 15,000 individuals in power, were left off the hook by the people to unleash terror on the Muslim population for suspected thought, for suspected ideology.  The people were made witness to a media spectacle of the Police and the Army raiding into houses and mosques, unearthing swords and Islamic literature, with the police officers proudly displaying their production to the media to see. “Why do Muslim people have so many swords?” was the question asked by many. But, few asked the more important questions – how did media channels known for extreme views become privy to raids and arrests carried out by the Police and the Army? Was the Police and the Army tipping off the media to follow them in their raids? If so, why? What was the purpose of making a spectacle out of these arrests?  The creation of images and simplified narratives through raids, arrests, and “terrorist-fetus” theories, that any Muslim by virtue of their religion was a potential extremist and therefore a reason for the Easter Sunday bombing, was done seamlessly by those in power and the media. This project was fuelled by the confusion and anger and the reserve of racism which all Sri Lankans seem to possess in the back of our minds about the “other”. This imaging and narrative had two desired consequences to those in power; firstly, the mystifying of the cause of violence a gross failure of responsible action by those in power to prevent bloodshed where even the name of the accused, the potential places of attacks, and even the mode of attack was known weeks before the attacks, and secondly, the creation of a new enemy which would be used whenever governments in power fail to deliver on their promises to the people.  For instance, Tamils were the enemy of the State for decades and still continue to be. Even after the war, whenever a diversion was needed, former Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) cadres were rounded up and arrested by the Government. For instance, on 30 November 2019, two police officers were murdered in the village of Vavunathivu in Batticaloa. The Police immediately went on a raid and arrested former LTTE cadres because the simplified narrative has been laid out that only the LTTE can carry out murders against the State. Two former LTTE cadres were thus arrested. One of them was an elderly man whom I met, and who repeatedly said that he had nothing to do with the murder. He was kept in the tiny remand cell in the Batticaloa Police Station for months. He said his knees were hurting due to illnesses caused by both old age and war, and that he did not know what to do because no one would believe him. When I met him, he was allowed his break outside the Police cell, where he was allowed to sit on a steel chair to which he was handcuffed near the entrance to the Police Station. Both the persons arrested were released after several months when it became clear that the killings were carried out by the same persons responsible for the Easter Sunday attacks. No compensation was paid to both. A non-racially profiled investigation might have resulted in arresting those responsible for the Easter Sunday attacks long before the incident. However, the enemy at that time was the Tamil former LTTE cadre, the easy victim, an easier political distraction. The end result of this racial imaging of the enemy was more deaths and more destruction.  Simple narratives often hide complex realities.  No doubt Harris was “the first woman – the first woman of colour – the first black woman – the first woman of South Asian descent – the first woman who spoke Tamil on an election platform (just one word, but still)” to become the Vice President of the US. However, this narrative hides the fact that Harris in her term as the Attorney General (AG) for the State of California, had defended the death penalty, had fought to keep prisoners incarcerated even after the US Supreme Court found that the overcrowding of prisons amounted to a violation of rights, and resisted pressure calling to investigate police shootings. The US’ law enforcement is racially charged, often targeting Black and ethnic minorities unfairly. Harris, as a woman of colour, as the AG of a state, could have championed criminal justice reform which would have benefited Black and minority communities, but she failed to do so. Today, she is imaged as representing the very people she did not do enough to protect while occupying one of the top positions of law enforcement in a state. Similarly, no doubt violence preached in the name of Islam propelled nine criminals to detonate bombs, killing and maiming hundreds. However, violence and extremism is preached by certain theologians and some leaders of all religions, yet most persons of religion do not resort to extremist violence. The Easter Sunday attacks raise several questions about the way of life of sections of the Muslim community and their coping mechanisms when subjected to systematic racism by the majoritarian politics, which hopefully the PCoI on these attacks will answer.  However, violence cannot be eradicated through state violence (arrests, incarceration, and punishment) on thought and ideology, however extreme and sinister it may be. When the Government and its media resort to simple narratives (usually coloured in racist imaging), and we believe it, the victims are inevitably us, the “others” (the non-268 VIPs, the non-important masses), who, before the days leading up to the Easter Sunday attacks, were not important enough to be made aware of life saving information.    (The writer is an Attorney-at-Law and a Member of the Liberation Movement)

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