PM apologises: says govt. takes collective responsibility

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday expressed regrets over the government’s failure to prevent the Easter Sunday attacks.

“As Prime Minister, I share in the collective responsibility for this. I express my sincere regret to the people of our country for the Government’s lapse. But, it is not enough to simply apologise. We have to make sure these mistakes are never repeated in the future. We must take measures to prevent such systemic failures, and commit ourselves to safeguard all human life. I vow to make this my mission,” the Prime Minister said addressing the nation,” the Prime Minister said.

In a tweet, the Prime Minister said everyone in the government takes collective responsibility for the failure to protect victims of tragic events.

“While I reiterate the fact that I did not receive this critical information prior to the attack, I do not run away from my responsibility,” he said during his address to the nation.

“The world is already at war against this ideological fanaticism. We now know that these attackers are linked to the ISIS network of extremists who operate from a large number of countries. This global terror has already infiltrated Asian countries such as India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and the Maldives. Therefore this terror cannot be fought alone by us at a national level. The explosion might be in Sri Lanka, but the trigger might be elsewhere. The planning and training could be done in a foreign country. The brainwashing could take place anywhere. Without weeding out all these elements, we cannot eliminate this danger,” he also said,.

In his address the Prime Minister said the following;

Sri Lanka has a very narrow definition of aiding terrorism. Therefore, we find that our existing laws are insufficient to deal with the extraordinary situation we are faced with. If we are to efficiently combat global terrorism, we have to broaden the scope of this old definition to allow us to arrest those aiding terrorism and confiscate their property. We also have to enact laws that deal severely with academic institutions that impart extremist religious views.

A number of clauses that deal with global terrorism were introduced into the Draft Counter Terrorism Act. We further planned to add more such clauses at the amendment stage. But these new laws have not been passed by Parliament yet.

That is not enough. We need a programme to rehabilitate those who don’t directly support terrorist acts, but harbour views bordering on extremism. We have seen instances in England where terrorist acts were carried out without a single weapon, by only using vehicles. That is why we need such countries to share their experience with us.

This is a tough challenge. But I promise you that we will eliminate this enemy with the help of every peace-loving Sri Lankan, and all the nations of the world. Leaders of many countries have already pledged us their fullest support.

We are all still reeling from the shock and sorrow of the terrorist attack on Easter Sunday. The goal of the perpetrators behind this inhuman act was to start a bloodbath in our country. But Sri Lanka stood together, and we have not allowed this tragedy to create conflict among our communities.

The Catholic Church, led by His Eminence the Cardinal, our venerable Mahanayakes and the Maha Sangha, Muslim and Hindu religious leaders, civil society organizations and village-level leaders, all committed themselves to maintain the peace that prevailed across the land before this calamity. The Muslim community proved their commitment to social harmony. Our people gave their fullest support to the police and security forces, the Premier said. (Yohan Perera)