Sri Lanka’s President Vows a Search of Every Home, as New Violence Erupts

Having twice visited Sri Lanka and with some friends there, I am really shocked at the depth of the terrorist’s organization. That to me is really scary.

No one has mentioned the endemic corruption that pervades Sri Lanka. Indeed, it's been said that decades-long civil war was needlessly prolonged because the country's large war budget made it much too easy for war profiteering. According to some estimates, it allowed many junior officers to move into the best real estate.

This is how the Sri Lankan civil war ended: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/may/18/tamil-tigers-killed-sri-lanka Sri Lanka had no compunction at all about putting a complete end to that situation, and it would be foolish to expect more compunction now, when it would be even more wildly inapplicable.

Sirisena has to go. A President on his back foot is a dangerous person--many of his proposed measures are foolhardy.

The world is watching Sri Lanka. Mr. Sirisena obviously does not have the humility or vision to accept his monumental failure. I do hope the citizens collectively ask for his resignation. He should not be calling the shots. What if he is compromised and did not act on the intelligence reports because of financial backings from the very terrorist organization that caused this massive destruction of so many churches and innocents. How about being first in the line and offering up his own house and financials to the police?

So their government knew that the attacks against Christians were coming and did nothing to stop them. Now the police are guarding the mosques, ostensibly to deter revengeful violence. It seems the government has been, and continues to be, complicit with Sri Lankan Muslims, to the extreme detriment of the rest of its citizens. Announcing that every house will be searched only serves to alert those plotting to continue the attacks that they need to cover their tracks and or their future plans.

The casual nature of Sri Lankan establishment to warnings that came from Indian authorities is shocking even when notice to the defense and polices includes the word " strict instructions" for look out. This truly stands out in this vicious attack on innocents: absolute and total failure of a system to protect its citizens despite warnings. What is point of house to house search now. The world has seen utter incompetency of a nation's establishment to protect its citizens.

The government headed by President Sirisena has been dysfunctional especially from October last year, when he sacked his Prime Minister, violating the constitution. Fortunately, the Supreme Court ruled against him. He is also the Defence Minister, and cannot blame others for what happened. The armed forces and the police come under his control. Nothing was done about advance intelligence of potential attacks. His meek response has been to appoint a Judge to report on it. The Leader of the Opposition, former President Rajapakse, and his cronies are crying foul but their track record of corruption, killings and disappearances are well known. President Sirisena's government has failed to prosecute those responsible. The fear now is that human rights and civil liberties will be affected.

People who say this is caused by unemployment or lack of education are wrong. These things don't only afflict one community. The attackers had degrees from foreign universities - they were likely better off than the average Sri Lankan. In fact, 2 of the attackers were the sons of a wealthy merchant. What this shows is that no amount of education or wealth can prevent radicalisation. In other words, this is not something which can be curbed by "providing opportunity". These attackers had it good. They had ample life opportunities compared to the average Sri Lankan. But what did they do? After years of studying for their degrees, they decided to (mis)use their expertise and kill people. And I used to think education could help solve this issue. I have come to conclude that upbringing is critical. They kind of ideas you are exposed to since young leave an indelible mark on one. What did they hear from their parents? What did they discuss with their friends, I wonder? What spawned this collective effort?

"Sri Lankan security officials had written a memo 10 days before the attacks describing the threat of bombings, with names, addresses and phone numbers of those believed to be involved, but the president and prime minister say the warning never reached them." That is unbelievable, who is running this country? the president and the PM should stop their infighting and concentrate on national security to save this country from terrorists. Who excluded the PM from the security meetings? "President Sirisena cast is saying his campaign against illegal drugs might have been a factor in the attacks because of the connections between drug gangs and terrorism". Why should drug gangs attack only Christians? there is enough evidence that this attack was caused by the National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ) with the help of ISIS. If the NTJ is really the source of problem, then its presence in Tamil Nadu (India) needs to be examined carefully. And if the ISIS has indeed played a role, then the impact of the ISIS ideology despite the decimation of the ISIS, will have to be assessed. India will have to be work more closely with likeminded neighbouring countries such as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to evolve a pan South Asian approach to this disturbing trend.

Good. This is the way to deal with terrorism. In a country like Sri Lanka where sectarian tensions are already high, the ideological poison of radical Islam, even if confined to a small group of people, can tear the country apart. In such a situation, civil liberties have to take second place to safety and peace. And after arrests there should come surveillance and reeducation, just like China is doing with the Uighurs. The Chinese way of dealing with potential terrorists may seem harsh but the religious wars that devastated the Balkans, Chechnya, Nigeria, Syria and other countries are much worse. Of course, this belated toughness of the Sri Lanka authorities does not excuse the intelligence failure before the attack.

When events like this happen, individual humanity is lost, and things like this happen where there needs to be searches. People get even more scared and for a small country coming out of years of war and separation, this might not help. I understand it is for safety, but for such a large search something will be forgotten and possibly can happen again. Also I believe that t could have been prevented because of the knowledge they had on people joining such organizations, and taking action after such a large event was not the right thing to do in my opinion.

This is what happens when police searches do not require probable cause. According to the article: "...Sri Lanka will conduct a house-to-house search of the entire country to root out terrorists..." Sri Lanka has about the same population as the State of Florida. If we compare this to the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in the U.S., a house-to-house search of Florida would have yielded nothing, but would have squandered enormous police resources. The police would have been labelled as 'incompetent'.

These fools knew about this before it was going to happen. They could have stopped it or prevented some of it. Now, thousands of innocent people are going to be disrupted so that they can look "tough" and "thorough" after the fact. This is why authority becomes questioned and distrusted.

Ah. Civil liberties and privacy went up in the smoke of those bombs, then. The kind of thing that has made others say things like "the terrorists have won."

For Mr. Sirisena, the motto seems like me first and the country and the rest second.