The Cardinal may be a citizen of Sri Lanka, but he reports to the Vatican, not to the Sri Lankan President. Thus, his orders are based on what the Vatican issues. His address, relayed by numerous local media channels, raises more questions than answers, and whether legal action can be pursued regarding the open threat made against the State remains unclear.
Can the Church be used for political regime change – to change governments and oust leaders?
This is what the media reported.
We accuse foreign elements of intimidating voters and citizens, yet what can be said about clergy influencing citizens and arousing their sentiments against legitimately elected governments?
A shameful and unprecedented undemocratic situation was created in 2022 when the Church stood guilty, along with other co-opted players, rallying people to defy the laws of the land, undermining law and order to oust an elected leader.
The Cardinal even called the protestors “an inspiration for the country” while urging the leaders to “go home”.
Mr. Sena Thoradeniya captured the culture of the protestors that the Cardinal praised with precision and detail.
The so-called peaceful protestors eventually left taxpayers to cover millions in damages and compensation, having burned houses and precious personal belongings that can never be replaced, as well as vehicles, property, and illegally occupied State buildings while stealing, damaging, and destroying what belonged to the State. Some of these ancient artefacts were destroyed beyond repair.
The ousted President even accused the Church of having a role in his ouster.
This is why the sitting President should not take the veiled threats by the Cardinal lightly.
The former President Gotabaya Rajapakse, in his book The Conspiracy to Oust Me from the Presidency, claims the Church played a key role in the protests that blamed him for the economic crisis.
Some excerpts from his book:
“The most visible presence at the Galle Face protests was that of the Roman Catholic clergy.”
“The Catholic clergy would turn up every morning for the protests.”
“Catholic priests and nuns came out openly onto the streets.”
“On 9 July 2022, when mobs took over the President’s House, Catholic priests and nuns were seen among the intruders.”
“I and my wife would occasionally be invited to dinner with the cardinal.”
The Easter Sunday attacks took place on 21 April 2019. Two hundred and seventy-nine innocent people, including 37 foreign nationals, were murdered by eight Islamic suicide bombers who attacked three churches and three hotels.
Despite the perpetrators being eight Islamic fanatics, it was none other than the Cardinal himself who claimed a “foreign conspiracy” to destabilise Sri Lanka behind the Easter attacks in July 2019, and that the power struggle between Sirisena and Ranil ignored attention to national security. He went on to say “they weakened and demoralised the intelligence services to please their international partners and international NGOs”.
However, INTERPOL even congratulated former President Sirisena in August 2019.
The Cardinal, who accused Sirisena and Ranil of demoralising the intelligence services in July 2019, did a U-turn to accuse the intel and align with sensational lies by the infamous Channel 4, even issuing congratulatory messages hours after its release.
Why is the Cardinal not accepting Justice Imam’s report? He must present counter facts and evidence and cannot simply be making loose statements. If he has evidence to support his claims, he must officially table them. Politically motivated speeches are upsetting and disturbing the peace.
Cardinal also called the mass murderers “misguided Muslim youth” and even forgave them. The Cardinal even quoted from a report in Divaina newspaper that the head of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (now dead), was being sheltered by the US (but referring to the “most powerful country”). The Cardinal did not spare the UN, claiming they were only interested in the welfare of the suspects and not the survivors.
The Cardinal used the “go home” tag in 2019 too when he referred to Sirisena and Ranil as having “no backbone”.
Later, the Cardinal changed his tune to infer blame on the Rajapaksas, to which the ousted President in his book replied:
“What was now being alleged in so many words was that eight Muslim fanatics had launched suicide attacks in order to make me president.”
“For anyone to suggest that I had the capacity to organise suicide bombings by Muslim terrorists when I was out of power in order to create the political environment needed to bring me to power is totally absurd.”
“In early 2022, when the Cardinal started making the accusation that I had somehow orchestrated the Easter Sunday bombings in order to create the political conditions for me to get elected to power, I instructed Sri Lankan Ambassador Mahinda Samarasinghe in Washington to explore the possibility of obtaining the US government’s Federal Investigation Bureau (FBI)/ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) assistance in the investigations.”
The FBI and many other intelligence agencies immediately landed in Sri Lanka and conducted their own investigations. These all constitute the “international investigations” the Cardinal demands.
In May 2021, the FBI confirmed Maulavi Naufer as the mastermind of the Easter bombings.
The US Country Report on Terrorism in Sri Lanka 2019 states: “ISIS-inspired terrorists conducted a series of suicide attacks against churches and hotels across Sri Lanka on Easter Day, resulting in hundreds of casualties. Then ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi publicly praised the attacks.”
On 8 January 2021, the FBI charged three Sri Lankans with conspiring to provide material support to ISIS.
“The men were part of a group of ISIS supporters which called itself ‘ISIS in Sri Lanka.’ This group is responsible for the 2019 Easter attacks in Sri Lanka, which killed 268 people, including five US citizens.”
“Two days after the attacks, ISIS claimed credit for the terrorist acts, attributing the murders to ‘Islamic State fighters.’ In late April 2019, the then-leader of ISIS praised the attackers for what he called a retaliation against ‘the West’ for defeating ISIS the prior month in Baghuz, Syria.”
“ISIS’s Easter attacks in Sri Lanka killed 268 people, including five Americans, many while they were worshipping,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers. “Today, we charge these defendants with bearing their share of the responsibility for these deaths.”
While the Cardinal accused President Sirisena of being spineless, the former President also raised the issue of the mismanagement of Easter Sunday funds to the tune of Rs.500m. The State had given compensation to all victims of the Easter Sunday attacks. But can the Cardinal give an account of the distribution of funds given to the victims by the Church (not only to Catholics)? Can the Church give a breakdown of the disbursement of funds meant for all victims instead of simply refuting President Sirisena’s claims?
The Church claims Rs.460m was distributed only after Sirisena claimed such an amount was received by the Church. Can the families of the victims confirm receiving funds from the Church? Why the self-defence, and why wait five years for the Church to confirm what Sirisena alleged?
While the Cardinal continues to harp on “conspiracy theories”, in October 2020, the former head of the SIS, Senior DIG Nilantha Jayawardena, told the Presidential Commission of Inquiry that nearly 15,000 people would have been aware of the attack ten days before the attacks (i.e. by 11 April 2019) and this included diplomatic missions and Parliament. How is it that none of the 15,000 who would have known, informed the Cardinal or the Church? Or did they? This is something we all have to seriously think about. Did none of the 15,000 inform the Church/Cardinal? Why would they keep such a matter secret knowing that churches were to be targets? Yet, none of the Church fathers were even injured, and none of the parliamentarians attended Easter Sunday mass. Zaharan had been on the red flag list since 2016; SIS had filed 340 reports to arrest Zaharan. The SIS head had also written on 7 April 2019 of a possible attack to the CNI, Sisira Mendis. All those who failed in their duties have violated Article 41 (1)(2)(3).
How much money has been spent on these Commissions based on the Cardinal’s conspiracy theories? Those who are guilty are not only the suicide bombers but those who knew of an impending attack and did nothing about it. Some of these are back and placed in the same seats. The Cardinal is on record asking for them to be put into the same seats!
The Cardinal is accused of turning the Church into a political gamechanger. His own speeches have given him away. What he stands guilty of is manipulating people to oust a President in 2022. Before that, he was also party to the 2015 regime change. Then he played a role in bringing the current government to power, and now he wants to remove them from power. There is a judiciary to give judgments, there is an executive to rule the nation, there is a legislature to create the Acts, but the Cardinal has no role in any of these. The Cardinal must concentrate on his role, not interfere in areas not under his control.
Let us also remind the Church and Cardinal that if we are to demand investigations, the first investigation should be the Church’s links to LTTE terrorism and why the Church did nothing against the Bishops/Fathers/Sisters who not only openly sided with LTTE terrorism and separatism but unabashedly opened LTTE offices (1970s Bishop Rayappu Joseph opening LTTE’s first international office in London), heads of LTTE fronts, and the Church that ran LTTE orphanages from which child soldiers were created. This constitutes a grave crime, and this should be investigated first.
We have also not forgotten the over 500 years of Church crimes during colonial rule, which is being carried forward under the neo-colonial banner.
The Cardinal’s voice cut is a warning to the President – who must now wonder whom the Cardinal plans to replace him with. Gotabaya was replaced with the second in command, PM RW; is history going to repeat itself in less than a year? The President should not wait like the ousted President but formulate a plan to deal with the scenario about to unfold.
