More than 300 people have been reported dead in the attacks, with hundreds more injured. As the death toll threatens to rise even further, Sri Lankan officials have veered from promising to pull the nation together, to tearing each other down.
Tension between president and prime minister
More than 300 people have been reported dead in the attacks, with hundreds more injured. As the death toll threatens to rise even further, Sri Lankan officials have veered from promising to pull the nation together, to tearing each other down.
The country was split by a political crisis last year, when President Maithripala Sirisena attempted to replace the incumbent Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, with a favored candidate. Wickremesinghe was reinstated in December after the intervention of the Supreme Court.
There appear to have been communications failures within the government. Speaking at a press conference Monday, government spokesman Rajitha Senaratne said that multiple security warnings — both domestically and from Indian and US intelligence, according to officials — were not acted upon.
Economy minister Harsha de Silva said the prime minister was “kept in the dark” about the warnings, while Senaratne added that an attempt by Wickremesinghe to call a meeting of the national security council was ignored by the rest of its members.
“I think this is the only country in the world where the security council does not like to come when summoned by the Prime Minister of the country,” he said.
Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the Colombo-based Centre for Policy Alternatives think tank, said that “very clearly the disagreements and tension between the president and prime minister has affected this (situation), to what extent it has needs to be uncovered in the investigation.
