The UNP said yesterday that the government having used the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) to attack Muslims in Alutgama and Beruwela was now shedding crocodile tears to pacify the Arab nations.
Matara District UNP MP, Mangala Samaraweera, addressing a news conference in Colombo, said that leading figures in the Rajapaksa regime controlled the BBS like a puppet on a string, to unleash violence as and when it thought necessary.
The strategy of the government was quite clear. It wanted to create conflicts and tensions among different communities with a view to covering up its economic failure and corruption.The BBS and other Sinhala extremist organisations were being nurtured and protected by very powerful persons in the ruling UPFA, MP Samaraweera claimed.
The MP said that having achieved its objective of creating mayhem and chaos by instigating communal disturbances in Alutgama and Beruwela, the government was looking for scapegoats though the whole country knew that a clash between two drivers had been distorted and exploited to unleash ethnic strife and loss of life and property.
The BBS leader Galagodaatte Gnanasara Thera was well protected by the powers that be Samaraweera noted, adding that the thera had been questioned by the Police over two weeks after the June 15 violence merely to give an impression to the international community and especially Arab countries that investigations were being carried out.
Commenting on the United States decision to cancel the entry permit that was issued to Galagodaatte Gnanasara Thera, MP Samaraweera said that all right thinking people would welcome the move.
by Zacki Jabbar
Source: The Island (Sri Lanka)
