Day of infamy – January 25, 1998

By Janaka Perera

Soon after Sri Dalada Maligawa was attacked by LTTE in January 1998

“The attack on the Maligawa – a veritable storehouse of Sinhala Buddhist culture – compelled the Government to proscribe the separatist terrorist organization. India had already done so following Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in 1991.  But Sri Lanka’s ‘peaceniks’ were unhappy because such proscription according to them was an ‘obstacle’ to the ‘peace process’ (which was already a farce).  To these foreign-funded ‘anti-war crusaders’ it was not the Tigers’ terrorist acts that worried them but the ban on the LTTE.”

Fourteen years ago on January 25, 1998 the LTTE clearly demonstrated to the world its determination to make a mockery of any peace process in Sri Lanka.  It was the year after the start of Norway’s ‘peace efforts’ (1997-2009) which had the full backing of the so-called international community.  The dastardly attack on the Dalada Maligawa (Sacred Temple of the Tooth) in Kandy – a world heritage site 10 centuries old – killed around eight innocent people, including a two-year-old infant. The Tigers exposed their vile nature by timing the attack nine days before the country’s 60th Independence Anniversary Celebrations which were planned to be held in the historic hill capital.  The attack compelled the government to shift the celebrations to Colombo.

Although it was obvious to everyone in the island who was behind the truck-bomb blast in the city centre international do-gooders while vehemently condemning the attack did not have the guts to name the culprits – least of all the Norwegians.

As the Australia-based Society for Peace and Human Rights in Sri Lanka (SPUR) noted at the time the Maligawa attack demonstrated one of the Tigers’ main objectives. It was to vandalize Buddhist temples, kill Buddhist monks (as was done in Aranthalawa on June 2, 1987 when 33 monks, including young novices, were massacred) and destroy ancient sites of Sinhala civilization as part of the LTTE’s ethnic cleansing policy.

Earlier in 1995 the Tigers had abruptly ended negotiations with the Chandrika Bandaranaike Government by blasting two naval vessels in the Trincomalee Harbour – less then a year after the government opened peace talks with the LTTE.  In January 1996 they struck again killing nearly 100 people in the Central Bank, Colombo Fort and in July the same they blasted two bombs in a train killing around 60 passengers returning home after work at Dehiwala.  The writer was on board the same train but had a narrow escape which was reported in the Sinhala newspaper Divaina.

The attack on the Maligawa – a veritable storehouse of Sinhala Buddhist culture – compelled the Government to proscribe the separatist terrorist organization. India had already done so following Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in 1991.  But Sri Lanka’s ‘peaceniks’ were unhappy because such proscription according to them was an ‘obstacle’ to the ‘peace process’ (which was already a farce).  To these foreign-funded ‘anti-war crusaders’ it was not the Tigers’ terrorist acts that worried them but the ban on the LTTE.  The ‘peaceniks’ never tired of repeating the need for reaching a ‘negotiated settlement’ with Prabhakaran at any cost, which however was the last thing the vast majority of people in this country wanted.