Danger of dividing communities and destabilising the country

It is common knowledge that Ven. Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero was used by successive governments to preach hatred towards Muslims and incite violence to suit their destructive political agendas.  

He emerged from nowhere and was present everywhere when attacks on Muslims took place. These include Aluthgama, Beruwala and Dharga Town to Teldeniya, Kandy, Ampara and many other places.

In many ways he remains the Sri Lankan counterpart of Myanmar’s Asin Wirathu, described by TIME magazine in its cover page as the ‘Face of Buddhist Terror’. Wirathu was given a rousing welcome in Sri Lanka when he visited the island during President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s presidency. Ven. Gnanasara Thero was in the forefront in all ceremonies. 

Lawless Ven. Gnanasara was given so much importance that former President Maithripala Sirisena, humiliating the presidency, visited him in prison, released and entertained him for tea.

Thero claims that he had addressed 800 political meetings to bring the present Sinhala Buddhist-only government to power. Since then, he was quiet. 

However now that the Government is facing problems on many fronts, he has come out again with his vicious agenda. As part of this, he accused Allah of being the mastermind for the Easter Sunday attacks, aimed at provoking peaceful Muslims to react. Probably the hope was that if they reacted, violence could be unleashed on them to divert the country’s attention from the current burning issues affecting people’s daily life.

Fortunately, the Sinhalese have woken up and even Buddhist monks openly criticise Ven. Gnanasara Thero and his racist conspiracy.

Adding fuel to fire, days later Minister Sarath Weerasekara made controversial remarks about Muslim youth and the ISIS ideology. A minister in charge of the Police making such derogatory remarks about the third largest community is dangerous. 

Condemning this statement, human rights activist Ambika Satkunanathan said, “This is racial profiling and can lead to discrimination of Muslims, arbitrary arrest/detention and other human rights violations. We are witnessing bigotry in Parliament.”

Most people do not know that ISIS – Islamic State of Iraq and Syria – has nothing to do with Islam or Muslims. It was created by United States, UK and Israel during their wars on Iraq and Syria to divide Middle East into small states to ensure Israel’s supremacy.

There were numerous reports of Israelis fighting alongside ISIS while injured ISIS fighters were taken to Israel for medical treatment. 

ISIS operates in landlocked areas of Syria and Iraq. The question to be answered is how did the ISIS enter there and cross the desert with a full-fledged army with advanced artillery to capture a territory larger than the United Kingdom? Who provided military training? 

It was also a conspiracy to set the Sunnis against Shiites who lived in peace and harmony before the advent of Israel and US-European invaders. ISIS was oiled by all forms of extortion, kidnapping for ransom, bank and jewellery robbery and taxing of residents. But the main income for ISIS comes from oil smuggling. 

According to an estimate, the so-called Caliph of ISIS controls oil fields and refineries in northern Iraq plus oil fields in north-eastern Syria. They sell all this oil at a cut-rate making roughly $ 2 million a day, and everything is paid for in cash or bartered goods. No one knows who’s buying from the Islamic State’s complex distribution network of middlemen, but the fact is the oil flows from ISIS-controlled ‘Syraq’ to Turkey and Jordan. 

In 2015, Fars News Agency reported that the US-led coalition planes had been dropping supplies and weapons to ISIS mercenaries.

A senior Iraqi lawmaker disclosed on Monday 16 February 2015 that Iraq’s army had shot down two British planes carrying weapons for the ISIL terrorists in Al-Anbar province. Baghdad was receiving daily reports from Al-Anbar province on numerous flights by the US-led coalition planes that airdrop weapons and supplies for ISIL-held areas.

In an article titled ‘ISIS, Oil Politics and Islamophobia’, Indian columnist Prof. Ram Punyani wrote that the US dictum for this area has been ‘Oil is too precious a commodity to be left to control of natives’. The job of understanding this has become easy with a small video clip of Hillary Clinton. Very smartly and briskly she tells us that it was US which created Taliban and Al Qaeda by indoctrinating the Muslim youth. A peep into the history of the region tells us that this indoctrination was done by using a distorted version of Islam.

This version suited the Saudi ruling family in keeping their control over oil resources and suited the US designs. As such US has been out to play ‘divide and rule’ like the earlier colonial powers. 

Meanwhile in a Sunday Express report on 14 August 2014, Yasmina Haifi, a senior official from the Dutch government, has stated that ISIS had nothing to do with Islam. It’s part of a plan by Zionists who are deliberately trying to blacken Islam’s name. 

Yasmina Haifi, who worked for the Dutch Justice Ministry’s National Cyber Security Centre, made this statement on Twitter. Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reported.  

NCSC/NCTV terminated her services with immediate effect. However, Haifi refused to withdraw her statements and said: “Freedom of expression is apparently only for certain groups. I have taken the liberty to express myself and obviously I have to pay for it. I do not know why I should take it down; this is what I think.”

Unfortunately, the mainstream Sri Lankan media, is not understanding this conspiracy.

Under the circumstances, Sri Lanka in general and Sinhala Buddhists in particular do not need enemies. Gnanasara Thero is doing an excellent job in dividing communities and destabilising the country to serve his political masters’ agendas.