On April 21, 2019, a flurry of headlines, including words like “attack,” “American citizens,” and “tourists and Christians,” inundated the news feeds of people worldwide. On this Easter Sunday, suicide bombers associated with National Tawheed Jamaat, an extremist group sympathetic to the self-proclaimed Islamic State, conducted a series of coordinated attacks, killing over 290 people and leaving at least 450 wounded. The locations attacked included prominent churches, such as San Sebastian’s Shrine in the coastal city of Negombo, and famous hotels often used by Western tourists, such as the Shangri-la Hotel in capital city Colombo. Multiple U.S. citizens were among the dead or missing. The bombings, which took place in 8 locations across the nation from capital Colombo in the West to Batticloa in the East, were strongly condemned by the US government and the Catholic Pope in press releases. In response, over 70 people linked to the attacks were arrested. Although the day of the attack itself and the ensuing criminal investigations were heavily covered by Western media, the lasting effects on the native Sri Lankan population and the tensions that have bubbled up must be tackled directly by Sri Lankan government officials and other leading political and activist figures within and without the nation.
Unfortunately, the Easter attacks continue to echo in the political and psychological landscape of Sri Lanka, increasing tensions in an already shaky nation. The attacks hearken back to the atmosphere of recently-ended multi-decade civil war between Mahindra Rajapaksha’s majority Sinhalese government and the terrorist group of the Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eelam, colloquially known as the Tamil Tigers, who fought for the creation of a Tamil state in the North and East of the nation. After horrifying battles, over 100,000 people killed, a series of civil rights violations on both sides, and failed external initiatives to end the war, the Sri Lankan army defeated the Tigers in 2009, bringing an end to the war. Almost a decade of tense peace ensued with political stability. However, the 2019 attacks shattered the veneer of peace, breeding suspicion and hostility between the two sides and opening up the possibility of the civil war restarting. In fact, after the attack, curfews were instituted in Colombo, and social media platforms such as FaceBook and WhatsApp were blocked, creating an atmosphere of unease in the nation.
Resurgence of Civil War-era Tensions
These terrorist attacks have resulted in tensions among the religious and ethnic groups within Sri Lanka that block the nation’s path to recovery. With the civil war, recent related political infighting, and other religious threats fresh in the nation’s memory, the Easter day attacks were enough to exacerbate the undercurrents of tension within the nation and possibly signal a return to the “bad old days” for the nation’s citizens.
A large portion of the attacks’ victims were Sri Lankan Christians—a minority community that make up less than 8 percent of the nation’s population of 21.4 million. As members of both the minority Tamil ethnic group and the majority Sinhalese group, these individuals are unfortunately not strangers to discrimination and violence, having seen disruptions on each Easter Mass for the past eleven years. Over the course of 2018, 86 incidents of verified threats, discrimination, intimidation, and violence, against the Christian community have been recorded, according to the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka. These incidents have often been caused by extremist Hindu groups inciting larger communities to action.
However, the shocking large-scale attacks on the Christian population have resulted in angry backlash from other communities. The Easter terrorist attacks have fostered more discrimination against the Sri Lankan Muslim minority, mirroring the recent wave of hate crimes against Muslims in the United States.
Historically, the Sri Lankan Muslim community, making up approximately 9.7 percent of the total national population, has been targetted by Buddhist extremist groups due to rumors of radicalization of local Muslims. In 2013, a mob of Buddhist extremists attacked a mosque with stones, resulting in 13 injured and a Muslim counter-protest on the streets. However, Christian and Muslim communities had peacefully coexisted for years in locations such as Negombo, with Muslims enrolled in Catholic schools. Unfortunately, immediately following the attacks, both Buddhist and Catholic communities targeted Muslims, including the Pakistani refugee population residing in Negombo, in mob attacks on Muslim-owned houses and shops. Many of these Pakistani Ahmadi refugees were thrown out of their homes and forced to flee to the West coast of Sri Lanka.
In the government, nine Muslim ministers resigned in response to protests by thousandsand accusations of the ministers being linked to extremist groups. However, some of the ministers were reinstated after being cleared of terror charges. Furthermore, face veils, chosen to be worn by some Muslim women, have been banned in Sri Lankan streets in the name of national security. However, this reactionary decision has also been viewed as the result of distrust of the Muslim community — a product of both the Buddhist anti-Muslim campaign and the recent attacks. Although the All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama, a body of Islamic scholars in Sri Lanka, has backed the move, many women who wear face veils feel that their freedom to practice their religion and express themselves has been encroached upon.
Alongside these building tensions exists a slump in the tourist industry, an important engine of growth for the Sri Lankan economy. Even before the attacks, the economy had been floundering, with the International Monetary Fund providing a $1.5 billion loan to support the economy. The Sri Lankan rupee reached record low values last year during the political uproar following Rajapaksha’s appointment. The terror attacks, however, have further deteriorated the economy. Throughout the entirety of the civil war, tourists were never targeted, demonstrating the importance of the tourism sector to the Sri Lankan economy. However, these recent attacks have steered tourists away from Sri Lanka, which had just been named Lonely Planet’s top tourist destination, negatively impacting an already-struggling economy and exacerbating the economy’s condition. In the weeks following the attacks, the number of tourists dropped by 70% and multiple travel advisories were put in place by other nations. In an attempt to bolster the industry, the government has instituted loan payment deferment for a year for hotels and other tourist attractions as they repair after the attacks and has waived visa fees for visitors from over 40 countries in order to increase the amount of tourists by easing their passage to Sri Lanka.
Solutions have been attempted to recreate calm for the nation. This past July, an interfaith summit between representatives of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism emphasized the unity of the religions and provided Muslim leaders with a chance to fully denounce the Islamist extremist groups’ actions. Speaking for the Muslim community, the All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama organisation, with the secretary-general of the the Muslim World League in attendence, vehemently condemned “these act[s] of terrorism on our Christian brothers and sisters while at worship in their churches and various other places.” They also requested that authorities “bring those who were responsible for this attack before the law and mete out maximum punishment.” Although this religious reconciliation may signal the end of the stirred tensions within the nation, it is doubtful whether the outward solidarity among the religions professed by religious leaders truly exists on the ground.
Most recently, the election of current President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the civil war-time chief of defense associated with human rights abuses and the creation of “death squads” to hunt down Tamil fighters and government critics, has further widened the chasm between the Sinhalese-Buddhist majority and other religious and ethnic minorities. Rajapaksa, who ran on a platform that prioritized security in the face of the Sunday Easter attacks, has promised to repeal Sri Lanka’s commitment to a UN human rights agenda to reconcile atrocities committed in the civil war. In the wake of this polarizing election, Muslim and Tamil minorities remain concerned, especially about the rise of Sinhalese-Buddhist nationalism.
Despite this air of fear permeating the atmosphere of the nation, the past does not have to define the future. Sri Lanka’s reactions to individuals practicing Islam should not mirror the rejection exemplified in other Western cultures. Hope remains for this diverse island nation; Sri Lanka has the potential to recover by strengthening inter-religious relations and easing tensions, providing an example of unity for the world.
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