The horrendous Easter bombings in Sri Lanka make little sense; the question remains, why? Following 30 years of civil war between the majority Buddhist Sinhalese (75%) and the minority and mostly Hindu Tamils (11%), who felt discriminated against after the country won independence from the British, it had enjoyed a decade of peace.
The Muslims are another minority in Sri Lanka. They have been under attack in recent years by a new aggressive Buddhism rearing its head. So why should Muslims attack Christians a fellow Abrahamic minority when there has never been any discord between them, and when they could be natural allies.
After ISIS claimed responsibility displaying faces-covered photos of the bombers (except for the leader whose face was uncovered), the murkiness of the circumstances precipitated out. He who pays the piper calls the tune they say, and the local group (National Thowheed Jam’aath) who were the instruments, did not have the wherewithal or the resources on their own — just a leader radicalized by attacks on Muslims by the extremists among Sinhalese Buddhists a year ago.
According to ISIS, it was revenge for the New Zealand mosque bombings but it was also designed to hit the tourist trade. Then too, Zahran Hashim the leader of the group, and who himself is thought to have carried out the attack on Colombo’s Shangri La Hotel was of Tamil background. The cycle continues.
Needless to say the attack on Christians also wrong-footed the security forces for they had intelligence reports since January, but clearly had little or no security presence. Will there be retribution? That is what Muslims fear (and ISIS wants) for it generates more recruits to continue the madness.
How did ISIS emerge? It might be repetitious to say so, but it takes the brutality of war to generate extremists. Think of the IRA, or the Tamil Tigers who invented the suicide bomber. The crazed path of destruction created in the Middle East and North Africa by the US will leave a trail many years hence.
And not only there, as the revolution fomented in Ukraine has led to a civil war, with Russia backing the ethnic Russians of the Donbass region in East Ukraine. Just this week, Russian president Vladimir Putin issued an order simplifying the procedure for them to obtain Russian passports. Is this another step towards eventual annexation?
Meanwhile, Mr. Putin has decided to fill the void left when Donald Trump in Vietnam walked away from what he called a bad deal with Kim Jon Un of North Korea. Kim had demanded an end to all economic sanctions before he would begin to dismantle his nuclear weaponry. Kim had a point: it is clearly not easy to replace destroyed armaments unlike sanctions.
Putin is now playing the role of global power broker with North Korea drawing the attention Trump had received briefly until the falling out. A new bromance? Perhaps, and one important enough for Putin to travel across seven time zones to Vladivostok for the meeting. Kim was met with great ceremonial pomp and treated to a lavish banquet laden with delicacies; thus indulging his twin weaknesses for deference and good food. No cheeseburgers, thank you — in marked contrast to Trump’s favorite food.
What does Putin get? Along with being seen as an influencer in North Korea, he could well become its intermediary, the go-to guy. The wily Putin seldom loses. He waits and watches, watches and waits. For Kim, his two neighbors Russia and China have been his strongest support for generations, to which he now returns.
He tried to emulate China, wanting capital and western firms to invest and kickstart a commercially moribund economy. But Trump’s price was too high. One wonders whether Trump will expound on the Art of the Missed Deal if he loses the next election. But then the ‘curiouser and curiouser’ Democrats might ensure that he does not have to.