Archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith said today that international forces were behind the Easter Sunday terror attacks stating that his remarks he made on Sunday evening had been misunderstood as he was not referring to any local political group being directly involved in the Easter attacks. 

 

"My remarks on Sunday has been misunderstood by many. I did not refer to a local political group when I said politics was behind the Easter Sunday attacks but international forces. There are some forces who develop weapons and uses religious and ethnic extrimsm such as Wahabism to create conflicts. This is done to market their weapons. I was referring to such groups," the Cardinal told a press conference today. 

 

"Only a small group of Muslims are involved in extremism. Therefore I would like to appeal to Muslims in Sri Lanka who have co-existed in this country with other ethnic and religious groups for more than 1000 years  to maintain that co-existence and teach their children that as well," he added. 

 

Asked about the comment he made about former President Maithripala Sirisena , the Archbishop said the latter has told certain persons who sought his advice on arresting Zahran Hashim that one must not play with snakes.  "Besides the report of the Presidential Commission has mentioned much about the former President. It has also mentioned that former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had  adopted a soft approach when it came to dealing with growing extrimsm in Sri Lanka," he said. 

 

At the same time the Cardinal said there could be a connection between the probes on Easter Sunday attacks and getting the support of Muslim MPs to get the 20th Amendment approved in Parliament.

 

"Leader of one Muslim political party voting against the 2Oth Amendment and other MPs from the same party voting for it and releasing of the brother of Rishad Bathiudeen are all questionable. These events could be part of a deal," he said. (Yohan Perera)