10th anniversary of LTTE attack on sacred Temple of the Tooth Relic in Kandy

today falls the 10th anniversary of the LTTE attack on the sacred temple of the Tooth Relic , the Sri Dhalada Maligawa in Kandy.Dhalada Maligawa is the most sacred of all the places of Buddhist worship and some thing that’s equal to the Mecca for Islam or Jerusalem for Jews and Christians.

LTTE on 25th January 1998 exploded a powerful bomb laden truck within the temple precinct and followed by a attempt to raid the temple with 2 more suicide bombers.however the suicide bombers were prevented from entering the temple by two heroic Police personal but 13 people lost their lives and many more got injured in this attack.

this attack was clearly an attack to create a Sinhala-Buddhist backlash against the minority Tamils as the LTTE expected island wide riots and mass scale attacks against innocent Tamils and Tamil owned businesses in the rest of the country.however soon after the attack all most all the leading religious leaders in Sri Lanka and India condemned the heinous attack and called on the LTTE to take up responsibility .a backlash that the LTTE expected never materialised , however there was intense pressure from the public and mainly Buddhist organisations towards then President Chandrika Bandaranayake Kumarathunga to act strongly.

interestingly , no so called ‘Civil Society’ leader nor so called International Community condemned nor stated a single word against the LTTE over the attack. they simply issued statements that basically said they were sad and hoped things get better.

no one today talks about the LTTE targeting places of religious worship, let alone sacred sites nor the LTTE use of such sites and places as cover for launching attacks against military.today we hear so much about the LTTE or ‘Tamils’ being denied of so many rights but fails to ask how much the LTTE has done to destroy rights of believe a religion , place to worship etc.

LTTE continuously use places of worship as launch pads for military attacks and use them in a two pronged strategy. primarily LTTE used the sacred or holy places as cover and expect a military counter attack on the site as a example of SL Military attacking religious sites on a secondary basis. this is a time tested tactic for the LTTE, which they horned against the IPKF when they were in North and East Sri Lanka.

the LTTE used and continue to use the grounds around and within the sacred Madhu church to launch attacks against the military and during these days , with the continuing military operation against the LTTE in Mannar , the LTTE uses the Church grounds to launch Artillery attack against the Military forces. this is a known fact and for some reason the Church of Mannar and the Bishop of Mannar seems to be silent on this. when the SLMM was here , they too denied such use and went to the extent of stating that they have found ‘evidance’ of Military attacking the Church and its vicinity.

10 years on after the deadly attack against the Dhalada Maligawa , we not only remember the attack but also realise well , what the true face of the LTTE is and also take solace in understanding that even with such a devastating attack against the Buddhist faith , we the Sri Lankans , especially the Sinhala-Buddhist never yielded to terror nor wielded violence against innocent Tamils (against the wishes of V.Prabakaran ).