IC failing to impose mediated solution, ultimately responsible for escalating Sinhala chauvinism

Even though one feared the outbreak of an anti-Muslim pogrom immediately after the Easter attacks, silence prevailed for two weeks. Then the mob violence targeted the properties of Muslim traders. It was not an act of immediate responsive impulse, but an engineered move instigated by an organised force.

 Despite their differences in the scale, there are certain similarities between the 1983 Black July anti-Tamil pogrom and the post-2009 anti-Muslim pogroms, says Batticaloa-based human rights activist Kathir Barathythasan. During the war, the International Community (IC) was acting as a mediator. But, it was also abetting the SL State, causing massive civilian deaths. The IC, now wants the anti-terror legislation to fit its global designs ignoring the drastic internal consequences. The IC must, therefore, be convinced to deliver a negotiated settlement to the national question, he said. 

Explaining the inherent ethnic religious bias towards the Sinhala Buddhist hegemony in the unitary state system and the workings of the rulers from JR Jayawardene in 1977 to Ranil Wickramasinghe of 2019, the [West-leaning] leaders of the SL State have equally deployed the external tendencies to the advantage of the institutionalized Sinhala chauvinism as the other ruling sections. 

The national question could never be resolved through internalising the discourse, the human rights activist from Batticaloa reiterated in a video interview.