Editor of the Daily News the Rajapaksa state-owned newspaper has accused minority groups of provoking the violence that broke out in Aluthgama and Beruwala while justifying the attacks against Muslims.

Rajpal

Quite infamous for his controversial stances, Rajpal Abeynayake has written the ‘incidents’ that occurred in Southern Sri Lanka, which resulted in three deaths and vast property damages, is the result of ‘considerable provocations’.

“The government has submitted the facts to the UNHRC and the video evidence is available,” he has asserted while adding, the evidence points to what he describes as ‘grievous provocations’ by some minority groups that incited the anti-Muslim violence.

Moreover, based upon his belief that the violence was instigated by certain minority groups, he has gone on to justify the attacks against the Muslims in the Aluthgama and Beruwala areas. “Violence begets violence and that is the eternal verity,” the editorial reads.

He has furthermore written that due to claims, which are being ‘spuriously’ circulated blaming a government-protected group for instigating the anti-Muslim violence, the involvement of minority groups in provoking the attacks have been discounted.

He has continued to state with certainty that it wasn’t this ‘much malinged outfit’ (a phrase Abeynayake has used instead of naming the Bodu Bala Sena that is being accused of instigating the violence) that provoked the violence.

We publish below the editorial in full;

DESPITE ALL THE LIES …

The opposition leader in an interview given to a private broadcaster says that there is no democracy in the country, and he adduces that as a reason for the failure of his party to win elections.

A democracy deficit however, is his description for the reality that people are not prepared to give him the power to govern on a platter.

He now as a matter of course comes out with the thickest and most barefaced lies against government programs such as the Mahindyodaya.

His acolytes come out with lies that better his own. Besides this, there is an entire sponsored civil society army whose sole job essentially is to lie in order to get a lackey Ranil Wickremesinghe government in power.

The foreign media is prepared to lie for Wickremesinghe as well, and as far as Western media goes this seems also to be the one job they are dedicated to.

Freedom of speech has never been so much in evidence, and never been so abused, and yet, Wickremesinghe’s main excuse for being in opposition and not in government is the argument that he is the victim of a democracy deficit.

Meanwhile, the web of lies against Sri Lanka — not the government but the Sri Lankan people — seems to pile up by the minute.

It has climaxed in the spurious probe effort that has been mounted by what is ostensibly a UNHRC sanctioned OHCHR panel.

It is a well known fact that it is the same Ranil Wickremesinghe and his political acolytes who will offer at least part of the fodder in the form of lies and exaggerations for this team whose mandate is not to investigate, but to destroy Sri Lanka.

In this context, Ranil Wickremesinghe, one learns, has not only the best team of liars at his disposal but also a maximum of free speech — untrammeled free expression — that can be unleashed against the government at his will and pleasure, and yet he complains of a democracy deficit!

The lies against the government are so substantial that most times they are capable of overrunning the facts on any given issue, and turning the entire narrative on its head.

This for instance seems to be the result of the propaganda that has been carried out with regard to two towns in the Southern coastal belt which recently witnessed unrest.

That the incidents though horrendous and not to be condoned were the result of considerable provocations, is discounted.

The government has submitted the facts to the UNHRC and the video evidence is available.

There were what certainly appear to be grievous provocations by some minority groups that caused tempers to flare, and violence to break out.

This should not have happened. Violence begets violence and that is the eternal verity.

However, the narrative line that came out of Aluthgama, and was spuriously despatched to the world as well, was that a group having the protection of the government was responsible for the incidents.

It is not this much maligned outfit that provoked the violence, though it’s bona fides should also be subject to scrutiny.

The biggest lie in this context was the fact that the government was majoritarian and is indifferent to violence against minorities.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In the teeth of egregious provocations the government has bent over backwards to accommodate Muslim and other minority groups, but the lies trump this truth.

In a situation in which lies and an enormous mountain of the most egregious and obvious of fictions form the case against the people of Sri Lanka, none of this comes as any surprise.

It’s germane in the above context however, that if there is a web of lies the biggest of them is the one that was articulated by Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe in his recent interview — the one about what is standing in the way of the people and a government headed by him.

This statement about a failure of democracy says a lot more about Wickremesinghe than it does about the state of the country!