May 3, 2019 · 10:18 am

After the Easter Sunday Terror, 4/21: The Way Forward

Zahrah Imtiaz, D.B. Subedi, and Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, in Eurasia Review, where the title is “Sri Lanka’s 4/21 Moment. A Way Forward to Countering Violent Extremism” ….. https://www.eurasiareview.com/01052019-sri-lankas-4-21-moment-a-way-forward-to-countering-violent-extremism-oped/ … with highlighting emphasis added by The Editor, Thuppahi

Sri Lanka is once again in the spotlight of the world; regretfully for ugly and vile reasons. This is Sri Lanka’s 4/21 moment (aka 9/11 in the USA and 11/26 in India). The Easter Sunday massacre of gigantic proportions (253 dead and still counting among a total population of around 21.5 million in the island nation) calls for genuine soul searching as regards how the people of this island nation should arise from this tragedy.

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May 3, 2019 · 8:11 am

Explosives! US Embassy Plot in Colombo sniffed out by Police Dogs?

Special Item Lanka Enews, 30 April 2019, entitled  “Police dogs render US diplomats speechless!” ….. https://lankanewsweb.net/news/special-news/42367-police-dogs-render-us-diplomats-speechless

In the wake of the recent suicide bombings at three luxury hotels on Easter Sunday, the management of Hilton Hotel Colombo had recently requested defense forces to inspect the hotel premises.

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May 3, 2019 · 4:12 am

Slippages: Where “Muslim” is an Ethnic Label as Well as a Religious Typification

Michael Roberts

From Waleel Aly to Greg Sheridan and Brendan O’Neill[1] the foreign writers who have ventured to comment on the recent Islamic jihadist attacks in Sri Lanka have invariably considered the category “Muslim” to be a religious identity. This is not completely erroneous. But this reading obscures the fact that the term is also an ethnic concept when placed in juxtaposition with the terms Sinhalese (Sinhala) and Tamils. Within the island one must attend carefully to the context of usage. Not surprisingly, these foreign reporters are unaware of these nuances.

A Moor gentleman -as depicted in Wright’s Twentieth Century Impressions of Ceylon 1905

Those whom we refer today in Sri Lankan English as “Muslim” were described till about the 1930s as “Mohammedan” and/or “Moor.” The term “Moors’’ was a racial category rendering them different from the term “Malay” – so that the Malays were a separate category under “RACE” in the 1921 census and counted as distinct from the Sinhalese, Tamils, Moors, Europeans, Burghers & Eurasians, Veddas and “Others.”[2] This differentiation is enshrined in the Sinhala speech insofar as Malays are identified as ja, javun or javo; while the Moors are described as yon or marakkala or thambiyo.

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May 3, 2019 · 3:41 am

Queensland Sri Lankans and FOG set up Fund for Batticaloa Victims

APPEAL from Jayantha Pathikirikorale, President, Federation of Sri Lankan Organisations of Queensland Inc.

Dear friends,  ….. You will be aware of the terrible events in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, April 21. A wave of terrorist bombings of churches and hotels claimed the lives of 253 people and injured more than 500. The island nation, its people and indeed the world has been left in shock by these senseless acts. Sri Lanka has had more than its share of horrors and sorrows in the past three decades. The country endured a 26-year civil war that had a heavy death toll; the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami claimed more than 35,000 lives, and this latest atrocity has shattered its spirit.

A relative of a Sri Lankan victim of an explosion at a church weeps outside a hospital in Batticaloa [Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP]

How much more can one country bear?

As the world rallies to help, we in the lucky country, Australia, are called on to do our bit to support the families of victims. As in the past, the Federation of Sri Lankan Organisations of Queensland (FSOQ) is initiating an appeal for help. In consultation with the Honorary Consul for Sri Lanka in Queensland, Anton Swan, and the founder of the Foundation of Goodness, Kushil Gunasekera, the FSOQ will support affected families in Batticaloa, in eastern Sri Lanka – one of the terrorist targets. Immediate past president of the FSOQ Bill Deutrom will oversee the project in Sri Lanka. Continue reading →

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May 2, 2019 · 7:02 am

The Skirmish at Sainthamaruthu and the Suicidal Deaths of Some Wahhabi Jihadists -Jeyaraj as Investigative Journalist

DBS Jeyaraj, in Daily Mirror, 2 May 2019, where the title is “Battle of Sainthamaruthu Zahran’s family members dead in Sainthamaruthu skirmish between security forces and Islamic State terrorists”

Sri Lanka’s security forces have engaged in many battles and armed confrontations during the long war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The military defeat of the LTTE in May 2009 brought an end to the conflict. Thereafter for ten years, the country has been experiencing peace and relative tranquillity. The armed forces too were confined to barracks most of the time as there was no enemy to combat. The Easter Sunday suicide bomber attacks on Churches and Hotels on April 21st shattered this blissful situation. Sri Lanka was in peril and once again the sacred duty of guarding the nation beckoned to the armed forces after the guns of the Tigers were silenced a decade ago.

  • The firing went on for about three and a half hours from 7.30 p.m. to 11 P.m. 
  • fifteen bodies consisting of six men, six children and three women were found amidst the wreckage
  • One came outside & threw bundle of 5,000 notes in the air As the currency notes scattered the youth shouted out

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May 2, 2019 · 3:56 am

The Dilemma facing Moderate Muslims and the State in Sri Lanka: Incisive Thoughts from Ranga Jayasuriya

Ranga Jayasuriya, in Daily Mirror, 30 April  2019, where the title is “How Wahhabism was fostered until it’s too late”

On Friday, the imam of a Sufi mosque in Saindamarudu was alerted by the locals about a suspicious crowd in a house in the neighbourhood housing scheme called, Bolivia village. That is an exclusively Muslim housing scheme of 400 houses built after the Indian Ocean tsunami. The owner of one of the houses there had given his residence on rent to a man who claims to be a telecom engineer from Kattankudy; since new tenants moved in, he has observed a stream of unusual visitors to his house.

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May 1, 2019 · 5:26 pm

Police Deaths in the Line of Duty

News Item in Ceylon Today + Adaderana + themorning.lk  …with headline “Police officers killed in Dematagoda posthumously promoted”

he three police officers who died in an explosion at a housing scheme in Dematagoda yesterday (21) have been posthumously promoted on the instructions of the Inspector General of Police (IGP). Accordingly Sub-Inspector (SI) Rohana Sandun Bandara has been posthumously promoted to the rank of Inspector of Police (IP) while Police Constables (PCs) Bathiya Ratnayake Bandara and Lahiru Umesh Dulanjala have been promoted to the rank of Police Sergeant.

The three police officers, who were attached to the Colombo Crimes Division (CCD), were killed while conducting a search at a suspected safe house in Dematagoda, when its occupants apparently detonated explosives to prevent arrest.

A FURTHER NOTE from A PAL in Melbourne

THREE NAMES
1 Police Sg Bhatiya Bandara Ratnayake of Ketakumbara, Kandy/married with two children
2 Poice sub  Inspector Rohana Sadun Bandara of Madapatha, Piliyandala – OIC of anti Corruption unit of Western Province /married and has a daughter and 10 months old baby
3 Poiice constable Lahiru Dulangana of Mathugama Married and has a 10 months old baby
FROM one page  article in Sunday Divaina of 28th April with the heading…Lion hearted heroic sons…Heroic song on the day the traitors made noises

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May 1, 2019 · 3:22 pm

Sri Lanka Cricket supports Archbishop Ranjith’s Victims Fund and finalizes its Tour Managerial Appointments

N Krishnamurthy in CRICKET AGE, 1 May 2019

CRICKET AID : Sri Lanka Cricket decided to donate Rs. 2 million to the Relief Effort Fund set up by His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, The Arch Bishop of Colombo to support the victims of the affected areas and parishes, following multiple ‘Easter Sunday Attacks’.

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May 1, 2019 · 8:34 am

Bishop Illangasinghe’s Pastoral Sermon encompassing People of All the Faiths in Lanka

Bishop Kumara Illangasinghe, with this title in Colombo Telegraph, 27 April 2019, “Post Easter Reflections 2019″

“Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing”.   Luke 23:34

Sri Lanka is once again in deep shock and saddened by the attacks on the peaceful worshippers on Easter Sunday and the innocent visitors from abroad and from within Sri Lanka, who were at the hotels. The carnage is unprecedented in the recent times, when as a nation Sri Lanka was struggling to emerge from the depths of racial, ethnic and religious divide. This is the largest number of innocent civilians in the recent history of the country who have been killed in one day. It is the most vulnerable in the community, the women, young people and children, who have been mainly affected.

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May 1, 2019 · 3:51 am

Hospital Staff in the Line of Duty: Easter Sunday 2019

A Sri Lankan Medical Specialist, in Daily News, 1 May 2019, where the title is “Unsung heroes of Easter Sunday” **

It must [have been] just 9.15 in the morning on Easter Sunday, April 21, when I received a call from my wife to inform me that there had been bomb attacks on some churches.She wanted me to come home immediately. I was examining my last patient at a private hospital. I got into the car and was driving along the main road when I received a text message. Usually, I would not have looked at it immediately, but in the light of the information given by my wife, I stopped the car by the side of the road and read it. It was a SOS from a medical academic organisation asking doctors to go immediately to the Accident Service of the National Hospital in Colombo and the General Hospital, Negombo, to help with treating the injured. The message did not have any details, but the nature and tone of it was such that it implied a major catastrophe. I phoned my wife and told her that I was going to the Accident Service and drove straight there.

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