{"id":177749,"date":"2017-05-22T15:50:41","date_gmt":"2017-05-22T10:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=177749"},"modified":"2017-05-29T19:26:44","modified_gmt":"2017-05-29T13:56:44","slug":"yahapalanaya-unleashes-rabid-dogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/yahapalanaya-unleashes-rabid-dogs\/","title":{"rendered":"Yahap\u0101lanaya Unleashes Rabid Dogs"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Hilmy Ahamed<\/a> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Hilmy Ahamed<\/p><\/div>\n

Postwar Sri Lanka saw Buddhist extremism targeting the Muslim community with the euphoria of the victory over the Liberation Tigers of Thamil Eelam (LTTE). The Mahinda Rajapaksa government allowed these extremists a free reign and cause extensive damage to the Muslim economy, which resulted in the Muslims voting en-block to overthrow the once indispensable Rajapaksa regime.<\/span><\/p>\n

The regime change brought about a lull in Buddhist extremist activity but restarted with the Mussali Muslim issue claiming that the returning Muslim IDPs from the 1990 eviction by the LTTE were being settled within the Wilpattu<\/a> reserve. Even President Maithripala Sirisena made public statements claiming that the former Minister Basil Rajapaksa who headed the Presidential Task Force for Northern Development had allocated Wilpattu land. Later he retracted and said not a single inch of Wilpattu reserve has been encroached. The extremist continued their racist campaign to deprive the Muslim IDPs of their right to return.<\/span><\/p>\n

This led to a build up of the racist campaign of the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS<\/a>). Sinhala Ravaya and Ravana Balaya.\u00a0 <\/span>Soon, they were joined by few more facebook warriors of Mahason Balaya, <\/span>The Sinhale Jathika Balamuluwa (SJB)<\/span> and\u00a0 <\/span>Dan Priyasath’s who have used the freedom new media technologies offer, as a destructive force to create hate and cause violence. Most of these groups found this as a lucrative business to hoodwink Buddhist corporates and Sinhala Diaspora in South Korea, Australia, Europe and America to fund the saviours of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. It is tragic that anyone with a smart phone has become the saviour of their community.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the absence of stern action by the Government or the Buddhist hierarchy of Mahanayake’s, Ven. Galagoda Atte Gnanasara<\/a> and company went on a major racist offensive against the minorities. Did Yahapalanaya consider these racist assaults as freedom of expression or did the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government of good governance provide subtle support to these extremists in the hope that they could break the dominance of the Sinhala Buddhist vote bank by the Rajapaksa’s joint opposition. Evidence proves to be the latter as no action has been taken despite numerous police complaints and legal action instituted by Muslims.<\/span><\/p>\n