IN FOCUS
In my capacity as the Director General of the National
Security think tank, I see this event as gross national security
negligence.
The Easter Sunday attack stands apart from previous faces
of terror. Nine extremists turned the entire nation to a state of
fear by killing the innocent. The targets were Christians and
foreign nationalities to get the maximum global attention.
Sri Lanka is a geo-strategically blessed paradise island
that lives with an ‘existential threat’ (as my book further
outlines). This is due to its internal disarray of politics and
external geopolitics. Countries facing an existential threat
for a long period of time tend to become a ‘national security
state’ according to John J. Mearsheimer. Out of its 71 years
of independence, Sri Lanka has fought a brutal terrorist war
for almost 30 years. Today there is another phase of terrorism:
violent extremism.
Certain liberal values introduced by the present government
made our nation vulnerable and a soft target for the terrorist
to breed and function. What was seen by the West as an
autocratic state under Rajapaksa was reset overnight, tagging
Sri Lanka to global liberal order. This was done at the expense
of an ensured demilitarization and the complete dismantling
and weakening of the country’s military apparatus.
It brought prosperity to individuals without understanding
the setbacks of liberalism. The principal of liberalism was
confused with nationalism. Some policymakers saw one
against the other to push agendas forward.
Many extra-regional nations came forward with certain
agreements which had direct and indirect infl uences on our
national security. Noncooperation with some powerful nations
may lead to the assumption that certain powerful nations may
have used a backdoor to enter the island using terror.
Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith explained at a press conference
warning that “powerful nations could be behind these
attacks”. It is an urgent area for Sri Lankan national security
to invest in serious research and investigation. This lacuna is
due to the lack of support by certain policymakers. A glance
at the support extended to Sri Lanka’s national security think
tank will reveal its rank on the State’s list of priorities. The
‘National Defence Policy’ is the leading document capturing
all threats. It remains a classifi ed document inside a cupboard
for three years. None of the policymakers bothered to take
this forward.
The National Security think tank (INSSSL) at its internal
Ministry of Defence discussion held in 2017 March identifi ed
the threat of extremism that could trigger in Sri Lanka and
documented in its monthly threat forecast written in March
and October of 2017 and subsequently in January of 2019
after the discovery of 100 detonators and explosives in the
West coast of the Island. How did such warnings go unheard?
This gross negligence was clearly due to the malfunction
of processes within the government, perhaps due to political
meddling within intelligence agencies and political division.
The consequence is devastating and has dragged the entire
nation to a “state of fear”, taking more than 350 innocent lives.
When the state cannot manage the consequence of
an extremist act, extremism presents a clear threat to
national security. Extremist groups can operate in emerging
democracies, while also fi nding operational space in failed
or failing states. Postwar Sri Lanka was a soft target for
extremists to creep in due to the political instability with two
sets of instructions fl owing in from the bipartisan government.
I have indicated multiple times the grave danger to national
security from the existing political instability of the country.
It was not even a month ago when President Trump
announced, “We just took over 100% of the IS caliphate,”
in a victorious speech seeing the end as the last bullet was
fi red in the IS-held Syrian town of Baghouz, on the banks of
the Euphrates River. Lina Khatib, an expert from Chatham
House, UK who analyzed the victory of the U.S., British, and
French-backed Kurdish and Arab coalition, said, “The group
itself has not been eradicated. The ideology of IS is still very
much at large.” She states that IS will revert to its insurgent
roots as it moves underground, using the territorial loss as a
call to arms among its network of supporters.
Joseph Votel, the top American general in the Middle East,
warned: “(The caliphate) still has leaders, still has fi ghters,
it still has facilitators, it still has resources, so our continued
military pressure is necessary to continue to go after that
network.”
In the same manner, Prof. Rohan Gunaratna, the
international terrorist expert, analyzed how this spilled over to
Sri Lankan attack. He stated, “With a vengeance, the returnees
from Iraq and Syria and diehard supporters and sympathizers
in their homelands responded to the call by the IS leadership
to avenge Baghouz, the last IS stronghold. The indoctrinated
personalities and cells attacked Buddhist shrines and broke
Buddha images.”
Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Diplomatist • Vol 7 • Issue 4 • April-May 2019, Noida • 63