Colombo Correspondent, July 15, 2019
President Maithripala Sirisena alleged on Sunday that the April 21 Easter Sunday ISIS-style suicide bombings were carried out by the international drug mafia.
“Whatever anyone may say, I maintain that the terrorist attack on April 21 was the work of international terrorists. It was done to reverse my anti-drug initiatives and to bring me into disrepute. There are various views on the April 21 attack, and I state that it was the work of international drug kingpins,” Sirisena told a group of farmers in Embiliptiya.
He pledged that he will not abandon his war against the drug mafia.
Sirisena’s statement linking the April 21 attacks to the drug mafia echoes sentiments often voiced by some members of the Buddhist clergy in Sri Lanka such as the BoduBalaSena (BBS) who have maintained that the Lankan drug mafia is led significantly by the island’s Muslim minority.
President Sirisena further said he would declare a “National Day of Mourning” if a bill to abolish the death penalty is brought in parliament by the ruling United National Party (UNP).
“The country will be ruined by drug lords and their mafia, if death sentence is outlawed, “avisibly emotional Sirisena said.
He was addressing a public gathering at a rural development project inaugural ceremony to grant land title deeds to farmers.
The President had signed four death warrants because he wanted “to save the children of the country from the drug mafia.”
“The day the death penalty is abolished Sri Lanka would become a kingdom of the drug lords. Indiscipline will be the order of the day. The mafia will thereafter rule the country. Right now, because there is the death sentence, there is some fear. When I signed the death warrants for four persons, it was prevented by going to courts. Now a bill is to be bought to parliament abolishing the death sentence. Who will enjoy victory in this case other than drug lords?” the President asked.
Protection of future generations cannot be assured if every government and every opposition party has connections with mafia leaders, he said.
He had initiated a war on powerful drug lords and got them arrested even from foreign countries and brought them to Sri Lanka to see to it that they do not escape from the long arm of the law. No other political leader had touched this issue, he claimed.
“When we award the death sentence this will be a disciplined country. There will be fear. With fear society will be a good one,” he said, stating that many countries in the world, including India and Singapore have the death sentence. Even in America in several states there is death penalty.
A few weeks ago, American President Donald Trump said that the death penalty should be introduced throughout the country to destroy the drug mafia.
“The President of the US says that but their representatives tell us not to have the death penalty,” Sirisena said in a direct reference to the Western nations which are perturbed over his plans to implement the death penalty.
Sirisena appealed to all Lankans to get together to build up protest against the planned abolition of the death penalty. He further said the proposed bill is being introduced at the whim of a few persons in the UNP government.
The President began his campaign against drug lords in Sri Lanka in mid last year and has continued relentlessly, even going to the extent of stating that he will follow Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s harsh methods of controlling the drug menace.
During his official visit to the Philippines in January this year, Sirisena declared Duterte’s methods of controlling drug proliferation as a text book example but later admitted that all of the steps taken by the Philippine President cannot be implemented in Sri Lanka.
President Duterte allowed the police and even civilians to kill drug dealers and users. According to Amnesty International, the government financially rewards policemen and vigilantes for killing suspected drug users and dealers.
In Sri Lanka’s case, according to the Alcohol and Drug Information Center, there are an estimated 80,000 drug users in a total population of 20 million.