Colombo Easter Massacre: Can Islamic Terror Be A
Diplomatic Asset?
Saeed Naqvi
Dated: 19.07.2019
Prolific
punditry on the Easter Sunday massacre in Colombo has taken a pause because
investigations have reached a stage where all sides have to take a political
call. Different interests would like investigators to be nosy in different
directions.
A calamity on
a scale where nearly 300 people were killed and 500 injured immediately causes
Intelligence agencies to descend with angelic intent, armed with all the
technologies. A mystery which Hercule Poirot would leisurely solve over
delectable wines and gourmet food is, with the arrival of the agencies, not
solved in one go but incrementally, leaving space for stings and hisses, hints
and guesses.
The agencies
from the US, UK, Israel, Australia and India have been in a scrum according to sources.
Even though Intelligence and Security are the responsibility of President Maithripala
Sirisena’s office, the direction of the inquiry by the group is more to the
liking of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. China’s Belt and Road Initiative
has taken Sri Lanka in its embrace. This is not what the agencies listed above
are interested in promoting.
It remains a
puzzle why Sri Lanka did not take action when Indian Intelligence (RAW) alerted
them as early as April 4, weeks before the massacre. Have the differences
between the President and the Prime Minister percolated down to Sri Lankan
agencies too?
Clearly, Ranil
is keen to sign the Status of Forces Agreement with the US before the elections
next year. This would be anathema to the Chinese who share their confidences only
with the President.
Opinion in
Colombo is divided on India’s role. One view is that New Delhi and Washington
would join hands to impede the Chinese. Others believe it is not in New Delhi’s
interest to have the strategically located island transformed into a US base. New
Delhi would prefer a drastically toned down, cooperative foreign presence.
How strategically
important Sri Lanka is became clear to me during a visit to Mauritius some
years. My TV team did a feature on the tragic, homeless people from Chagos Island.
The story is not easy to digest. An entire island was emptied of its population
by the British along with the Americans to set up a base in Diego Garcia. The International
Court of Justice ruled in February 2019 to return the island to its citizens. Has
the Judgement been thrown in the waste paper basket?
New Delhi has
exerted its influence to keep Mauritius and Bhutan out of the Belt and Road
project. Everything else in SAARC has gone the other way. Credit must go to the
nimble, creatively ambiguous management of Foreign Policy. Modi-Xi Jinping
summit in Varanasi in October may be the culmination of important developments.
The events of
Easter Sunday have inspired important research. For instance, “Weaponization of
Religion as New Cold War Looms”. The paper has been written by Darini
Rajasingham Senanayake, a Sri Lankan scholar and writer.
She wastes no
time in coming to the point: China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative “may
well have been the prime target of the bombings that rocked the Indian Ocean Island
caught in the cross hairs of super power rivalry”.
According to
her, there is a clear effort to mislead Sri Lankans. She points to a video tape
of Islamic State leader, Al Baghdadi purportedly speaking about the attacks on
Sri Lanka. Arabic and French intelligence experts had no doubt that the tape
had been doctored.
Hotels that
were targeted were Cinnamon Grand and Kingsbury. And there, says Darini, hangs
a tale. These hotels were owned by Sri Lankan, conglomerates who are into property
development with the China construction company.
Four oceanic
scientists who were staying at Kingsbury hotel were among the six Chinese who
lost their lives. This has been confirmed by the Chinese embassy in Colombo. The
deceased were from the South China Sea Institute of Oceanography. Chinese state
run Global Times reported that two other scientists from the First Institute of
Oceanography, were scheduled to board the Chinese research vessel Shiyan 3. This
was to be the start of an important China-Sri Lanka joint exploration mission
in the East-Indian Ocean.
Darini sees a
design in the venues that were attacked: Churches located among coastal
communities with congregations whose livelihood depends on fisheries and other Indian
Ocean resources in Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa. As continuation of the
pattern, even luxury sea front hotels also became targets. No town in the
interior was targeted.
She concludes:
“Marine affairs and the ocean is the red threat that runs through the design
and detail of the selected targets.
It is puzzling
that instead of following the leads Darini Senanayake has focused on, the
foreign intelligence agencies have dwelt more on the clash of civilizations and
“religious strife” as their preferred theme of inquiry.
All sorts of
conspiracy theories begin to claim attention. A single column story from Nepal
where also Chinese are influential, on inside page begins to look significant
as part of a larger design. Near Lumbini in South West Nepal, the birthplace of
Buddha, five statues of Buddha are vandalized. Is someone trying to create
Buddhism-Hindu strife in the Himalayan state? It is difficult to see what
political spin can be given to this vandalism.
Likewise what
earthly purpose would be served by promoting strife between two Sri Lankan
minorities – Muslim and Christian.
There is
another way of looking at Sri Lankan developments, exactly as Darini’s headline
suggests. Since 2012 I have written consistently on Islamic terror being
controlled by the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia as “assets” to unsettle societies
with sizeable Muslim minorities – Xinxiang in China, Caucasus in Russia. Since
this is Salafi Islam, it may have its uses against Shia Iran too. There is that
whole turf of Central Asia. And, why forget India? For an elaboration of “Terrorism
as an asset” see here.
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