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Monday Nov 25, 2024
Tuesday, 24 June 2014 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The Aluthgama attack on the Muslims was followed by several incidents, the exact nature, causes and perpetrators of which have yet to be ascertained. These include the acid attacks on the Police in Mawanella, and the fire that gutted the ‘No Limit’ store in Panadura. To me what seems to be happening is that someone or something is stepping up the pace or is out of control. This is eerily reminiscent of violent neo-fascist movement in Italy in the 1970s, which committed acts of terrorism as part of what it termed ‘a strategy of tension’.
What is most troubling is the possible existence of Sinhala-Buddhist terrorist cells and their possible embedding within, interface with and resonance in the State apparatus itself. In the right conditions and atmosphere of perceived external threat and internal opportunity, a tipping point could be reached, spiralling downward into assassination (as in 1959) and/or a military putsch by mid-level ‘Young Turks’ sanctified and legitimised by Buddhist ayatollahs.
Rise of contemporary Sinhala Buddhist ultra-nationalism
The history of this descent dates back at least to the interregnum of President D.B. Wijetunga, when the deliberate process of de-Premadasaisation took the form of the revival of the Sinhala Buddhist conservatism which was a long-running current within the UNP. President Premadasa’s multiethnic, multi-religious, multilingual policy, which didn’t save him from being murdered by the Tigers and probably helped ensure it, was overthrown in favour of a Sinhala Buddhist conservatism best exemplified by President Wijetunga’s creepy line of the majority and minority being akin to a tree and creepers.
The second stage of the rise of contemporary Sinhala Buddhist ultra-nationalism was the backlash against the adventurist ‘union of regions’ political package of President Kumaratunga in 1995 and 1997 (her August 2000 draft was a far more moderate version with bi-partisan authorship). The Rev. Soma phenomenon thrived in that atmosphere.
The Sinhala backlash grew most rapidly during Ranil Wickremesinghe’s CFA. The armed forces felt helpless and targeted by the Wickremesinghe administration, especially after the humiliating and wholly unjustified arrest of Directorate of Military Intelligence operatives at the safe house in Athurugiriya. This led to a two-way traffic.
The JVP, of which the most prominent element at the time was Wimal Weerawansa (who was more of a nationalist and less of a Marxist than his peers such as Anura Kumara Dissanayake), and the JHU of Patali Champika Ranawaka, understandably and rightly championed the cause of the military. Sources within the military began to seek out and ventilate their grievances, again understandably, to these two parties and in the media controlled or influenced by them. It is as part of the traffic on this two way street that the more militant Buddhist monks began to interface with the military.
The PTOMS deal between President Kumaratunga and the LTTE generated a backlash from the patriotic Sinhala nationalist forces that had mobilised in support of her to oust Ranil Wickremesinghe and win the election that immediately followed. The open bloc between candidate Ranil Wickremesinghe and incumbent though outgoing President Kumaratunga in 2005 left Mahinda Rajapaksa with the prospect of an SLFP which had a strong loyalty to the Bandaranaikes and a bureaucracy that was instinctively sympathetic to the UNP. He felt he had little choice but to lean on the JVP and JHU – and their supportive intelligentsia — when taking over the reins of power. This move reminded me of President 
Premadasa’s desperate attempts to construct a counter-bloc to the Establishment by reaching out variously to the SLMP of Vijaya Kumaratunga and later Ossie Abeygoonesekara, the JVP, the EPRLF, EROS and LTTE.
It is this unavoidable wartime bloc that Mahinda Rajapaksa felt constrained to construct that formed the bridge for the traffic that would follow. When the final war began, the relationship between the ultranationalist Buddhist clergy, the ultra-nationalists political formations and their front organisations such as the National Movement against Terrorism (NMAT) and elements within the security apparatus/the military had reached a level that went beyond the usual invocations and ritualistic blessings. The orders or signalling that resulted in the Trinco-5 incident were traced in the newspapers of that time to an advisor within the security bureaucracy, who was a member of an ultra-nationalist political party.
When the war was won, the most organic representative of the new ideological amalgam—the old amalgam with boots and bayonets—was not Mahinda Rajapaksa but Sarath Fonseka, which is why the latter felt confident enough to mount a serious challenge to the former. In a brilliant move Rajapaksa drew him out of the fortified institutional arena into the much larger national political arena where Sinhala nationalism was far less martial, and bested him. Gotabaya Rajapaksa was correctly moved in to guard the flank, but became Fonseka’s ideological successor – while Fonseka had repositioned.
Something born out of sight
While all of this went on at the visible and macro level, something had been born out of sight. In other parts of the world and at other times, ranging from the Italian fascists and the Nazi movement to the Ku Klux Klan and the French OAS, such phenomena have involved elements within the armed forces and police or former members of both. In the 1930s they captured the State in Italy and Germany, while in other places they functioned as death squads or armed militia, engaging in assassination and ethno-religious mayhem.
In Sri Lanka these elements grow in a socio-psychological atmosphere. It is vital to forestall their acceptance by the armed forces at large and the successful leveraging of the armed forces and STF as part of their project. The acceleration of their appeal within the ranks of the armed forces will come with the confluence of several factors:
