A week ago, Sri Lankan tourist guide Ricky Costa was preparing for a typically e...
COLOMBO - A week ago, Sri Lankan tourist guide Ricky Costa was preparing for a typically easy Sunday ferrying backpackers between Colombo’s tea shops and beach bars in his canary-yellow rickshaw. Then the blasts began.
President Maithripala Sirisena has announced a total overhaul of the security establishment, blaming them for failing to communicate several warnings they had about potential attacks, including one from India hours before the first bomb. Costa’s analysis is a simplification, but some experts agree that a lack of preparedness was a significant factor that led to a little-known Islamist group being able to orchestrate the deadliest attack of its kind in South Asia’s history.
“We have passed the necessary information to the relevant authorities. But what is the legal background the military has to control extremism? A person being radicalized is not an offence in our country,” he said. The military has also been more focused on monitoring the country’s Tamil population and preventing another separatist insurgency than on a Muslim community that makes up only 10 percent of the population, defense sources and experts said.
Concerns raised about a more radical strain of Islam emerging over the last five years went unheeded, civil society groups and Western diplomats say. Many Sri Lankans believe a deep rift between Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe has also undermined national security.
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