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    T H E M O N K S A R M Y

    A founder of Sri Lankas Army of Buddhist Power tries to explain

    his militant views on Muslims, and how they fit with thegovernments triumphant story of post-war reconciliation.

    W O R D S B Y E R I C E L L I S I M A G E S B Y P A U L A B R O N S T E I N

    Bodu Bala Sena general secretary Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara reaches out to the protesters.

    Sri Lankas raffish capital, where we begin our series, is in economic catch-up mode.

    Colombo is replacing the colonial-era roads and railways built when Churchill was a

    boy and Ceylon was a languid tropical afterthought for the British who ruled the

    plantation island.

    Though it took its time 10 years to be completed, a sparkling new tollway to the beachyRajapaksa heartland in the south has cut the journey from Colombo from a congestedthree-to-six hours to just one.

    In the conflict-ravaged Tamil north, Indian engineers are re-connecting the war-severedtrain line that once carried passengers from Colombo to Jaffna.

    In the mostly Sinhalesedeep south of the island,President Mahinda Rajapaksas homeregion of Hambantota is being lavished with the countrys biggest infrastructural project, aUS$1.5 billion stampede of white elephants thats giving the town a new port, internationalairport and cricket stadium all named after President Rajapaksa and a convention

    centre and even analternative Bollywood complex.

    http://www.lanka.com/sri-lanka/deep-south-945.htmlhttp://www.lanka.com/sri-lanka/deep-south-945.htmlhttp://www.lanka.com/sri-lanka/deep-south-945.htmlhttp://visit.sp.gov.lk/2011/02/01/tele-cinema-villagehttp://visit.sp.gov.lk/2011/02/01/tele-cinema-villagehttp://visit.sp.gov.lk/2011/02/01/tele-cinema-villagehttp://visit.sp.gov.lk/2011/02/01/tele-cinema-villagehttp://www.lanka.com/sri-lanka/deep-south-945.html
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    A Korean-financed convention centre rises in the Presidents home turf of Hambantota,one of the town's many mega-projects keeping some Sri Lankan and many foreignconstruction workers employed.

    Beijing is the main player behind all this construction, as it adds yet another stronghold to

    its string of pearls Chinas network of strategic boltholes around the Indian Oceanintended to counter Western commercial influence in the region.Beijing financedmost ofthe Hambantota projects and shuttles Chinese workers in to build them; this in a regionsuffering crippling unemployment.

    In Colombo, work has started on a Dubai-style Port City replete with de rigueur FormulaOne circuit to be built on land Chinese companies are reclaiming from the sea. In

    http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2011/07/17/chinese-economic-hitmen-and-the-rajapaksas/http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2011/07/17/chinese-economic-hitmen-and-the-rajapaksas/http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2011/07/17/chinese-economic-hitmen-and-the-rajapaksas/http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2011/07/17/chinese-economic-hitmen-and-the-rajapaksas/
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    November this year, all this will be flaunted in a diplomatic coup for the Rajapaksa regime Colombo is hosting the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).

    Colombo may still be one of Asias poorest capitals, but its Rajapaksa-linked businesscommunity is re-arranging the skyline on borrowed money. It is studded with the new

    skyscrapers of hip hotels and soaring towers in various states of completion, which theyhope will be filled by the ambitions of international tycoons. Australias James Packer, forexample, has teamed with a Rajapaksa crony to build a US$350 millioncasinocomplexhere.

    But of the many towers now poking through Colombos fast-fading colonial vista, few havegone up as fast or been fted with as much official attention as the Sri SambuddhathvaJayanthi Mandiraya, a massive temple and office complex now soaring over the capitalsleafy southern suburbs.

    Opened in 2011, just two years after the war ended, the complex claims to be the worldsbiggest repository of Buddhist texts. Its modern foyer has the air of a busy library, criss-crossed by orange-hued tourists and locals in search of their inner Gautama. Lessadvertised, however, is that an adjacent wing is home to the headquarters of a shadowyultra-Buddhist activist group called Bodu Bala Sena, which was formed in July 2012.

    That translates as the Army of Buddhist Power. Patronised by senior governmentofficials, the BBS was born after militant fringes of the main religious party in Sri Lanka, theJathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), or National Heritage Party, broke away because they felt theJHU was too moderate.

    THE BBS CHOOSES TO SEEANTIBUDDHIST DEMONS WHERE NONE

    EXIST.

    Since then, the BBS has emerged as the self-proclaimed true protector of Buddhism on theisland, and many say it chooses to see anti-Buddhist demons where none exist. Sri Lankamay be at peace, with Sinhalese Buddhists in command and a pious and powerfulpractising Buddhist in the presidency, but to hear the BBS hierarchy tell it, Buddhism andSri Lanka have never been more at risk.

    Part vigilante group, part religious police, partly a Sri Lankan Tea Party, the BBS has beenbehind many of the attacks on Muslim practices and businesses here, and on Christiangroups too,often encountering little police intervention. BBS members make mostlyunchallenged claims, on scant evidence, that Muslims dominate Sri Lankas businesscommunity and foment religious fundamentalism, and that Muslim doctors secretlysterilise Sinhalese women. The group has also taken aim at Christians, warning churchesagainst expanding their flocks by converting Buddhists.

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    Secularist Sri Lankans are alarmed. Social Integration Minister Vasudeva Nanayakkara hasdescribed the BBS as extremist. Prominent Sri Lankan diplomat Dayan Jayatilleka labels itas an ethno-religious fascist movement from the dark underside of Sinhala society, whilethe islands most prominent Buddhist intellectual, the Venerable Professor BelanwilaWimalaratana Anunayake, has dissociated Sri Lankas sangha, the mainstream Buddhist

    clergy, from BBS extremism.

    Tamil leaders are also concerned. I think this is a game that they are playing, saysKumaravadivel Guruparan, law lecturer at Jaffna University and civil-society activist in thewar-ravaged north-east. We thought you cant get more Sinhala Buddhist-extremist thanthis government, but then groups like the BBS suddenly emerged on the government sideso now they [the Rajapaksa regime] start looking like a moderate.

    President Mahinda Rajapaksa graces the official opening of a centre built in the name of his astrological adviser, theSumanadasa Abeygunawardena library in Galle.

    The post-war rise of militant Buddhism in Sri Lanka, which mirrors similar activism inreformist Burma and elsewhere in South-East Asia, has particularly sinister overtones here.

    One of Sri Lankas most controversial post-colonial dynastic leaders, SolomonBandaranaike, was assassinated in 1959 by a Buddhist monk who felt betrayed thatBandaranaikes pro-Sinhalese policies which many Sri Lankans believe sparked theseparatist Tamil uprising in the north-eastdidnt go far enough to advantage the Sinhala-speaking majority. (There is another view that the assassin, who converted to Christianitybefore his execution, was hired by a senior monk avenging the loss of businessopportunities.)

    The BBSs layman chief executive and program co-ordinator of its Buddhist LeadershipAcademy, Dilanthe Withanage, metThe Global Mailat the groups nerve centre, a blandsuite of offices that wouldnt be out of place in the new corporate Sri Lanka.

    A nuggety man in his 40s, Withanage wears civilian garb, in contrast to the orange-robedmonks drifting through the office. He speaks English and Russian by virtue of his Soviet-era-sponsored education in Georgia.

    According to Withanage, the BBS came into being because we felt that Buddhism is notprotected in this country and Buddhists face a big danger locally as well as internationally.This despite the fact that as many as 75 per cent of Sri Lankans identify themselves asBuddhist Sinhalese.

    Many Sri Lankans believe that the BBS is a creation of the government, in particular ofPresident Rajapaksas brother Gotabaya, SriLankas unelected Defence Secretary, a formersoldier and the mastermind of the 2009 victory over the mostly Hindu Tamil rebels.Gotabaya hasdenied any involvementin the emergence of the BBS.

    http://www.dailymirror.lk/opinion/172-opinion/31838-i-deplore-any-form-of-extremism.htmlhttp://www.dailymirror.lk/opinion/172-opinion/31838-i-deplore-any-form-of-extremism.htmlhttp://www.dailymirror.lk/opinion/172-opinion/31838-i-deplore-any-form-of-extremism.htmlhttp://www.dailymirror.lk/opinion/172-opinion/31838-i-deplore-any-form-of-extremism.html
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    The BBS seems to be a Lankan re-run of Indias ethnocentric Mumbai-based Shiv Senamovement; and of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the National Patriotic Organisationof Hindu extremists, which shadows Indias nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.

    Withanage rejects such comparisons. We dont have any political influence, he claims.

    But if the presidents powerful brother is not an architect of the BBS, Gotabaya Rajapaksaseems at the very least to be a patron of the organisation. In March, he officiated at theopening of a BBS outpost in the southern port city of Galle, which has a big Muslimcommunity centred on its ancient fort.

    Gotabaya came to open something donated by a German fellow to the Buddhist CulturalCentre. Weve decided to use this facility as a training centre, says Withanage.

    Muslim students from an Islamic school in Colombo watching for the moon when the first day of Ramadan will begin.

    But thats not quite how the German fellow, a Buddhistcalled Michael Kreitmeir, sees it.He told The Global Mailhis Meth Sevena retreat outside Galle, set up in 2007 as part of hisinterfaith charity,Little Smile,had recently become embroiled in an ownership dispute. Hesaid he had approached the Buddhist Cultural Centre in Colombo for co-operation, but wasmost surprised to discover it had some connection with the BBS, and that GotabayaRajapaksa then showed up to open his project. Meth Sevana is not and will never be acentre of Bodu Bala Sena, Kreitmeir says.

    Earlier this year, when Milinda Moragoda, an erstwhile presidential advisor and leadingfigure in Colombos civil society lobby,brokered a cross-religious community dealovercattle slaughter and the halal certification of food products, Buddhist and Muslim leaderslinked hands in a public display of unity.

    But the Moragoda deal fell short of the blanket ban on halal labelling demanded by the BBS.Outraged, the BBS then accused Moragoda of creating an unholy inter-religious alliance,and attempting to destroy our learned monks [who were] now in the grasp of infidels.These monks, the BBS lamented, were pseudo Buddhist leaders who never stood againstMuslim extremism and Christian fundamentalism.

    For his part, Morogoda told The Global Mail,as a practising Buddhist in my view, trueBuddhism is all about the Middle Path, moderation and tolerance. That is the Buddhism

    that I follow. Extremism is antithetical to the teachings of the Lord Buddha who preachedmoderation and tolerance. There is no need for self-proclaimed protectors of the doctrine.

    GNANASARA TURNS VERY ANGRY AT THEMERE MENTION OF MUSLIMS AND ISLAM,

    http://www.littlesmile.de/Little_Smile_Children_Village.113.0.html?&L=0http://www.littlesmile.de/Little_Smile_Children_Village.113.0.html?&L=0http://www.littlesmile.de/Little_Smile_Children_Village.113.0.html?&L=0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev98ftft_uk.%20http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev98ftft_uk.%20http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev98ftft_uk.%20http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev98ftft_uk.%20http://www.littlesmile.de/Little_Smile_Children_Village.113.0.html?&L=0
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    WHICH IS HARDLY THE DEMEANOUR ONEEXPECTS OF A PIOUS BUDDHIST MONK.

    RELIGION is a private thing, Withanage tellsThe Global Mail. And many conflict-weary

    Lankans would agree.

    But in recent months Withanages group has chosen to make some very public religiousprotests.

    In January, the BBS hierarchy got hold of an event-planning document for a dinner that wasto be hosted at a resort hotel south of Colombo. The hotel is much favoured by Frenchtourists and owned by Sri Lankas biggest company, John Keells Holdings.

    Keells is a sprawling enterprise, straddling interests in IT, banks, plantations, hotels andretail, and is as yet outside the expanding corporate grasp of the ruling Rajapaksa clan.Businessman Susantha Ratnayake is chairman of Keells, and also chairs the CeylonChamber of Commerce (CCC), which had helped to broker the inter-faith halal deal withMoragoda and the various religious lobbies. Ratnayake and the CCC have since been in theBBSs crosshairs, because the BBS claims they fail to safeguard Buddhist businessinterests on the island.

    The Keells document that fell into BBS hands discussed the theme the hotel staff hadplanned for the dinner; it described the meal as nirvana with a cosy Buddha Bar loungefeel. Intended for French holidaymakers, this function seemed intended to evoketheParisian music and food phenomenonfashionably fused by French-Tunisian DJ Claude

    Challe, which became the chill-out soundtrack of the 2000s for hipsters from Bali toBudapest.

    But the BBS response was anything but chilled. An orange army of militant monks led bythe groups secretary-general, Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara, stormed the hotel andsucceeded in having hotel management carted off by the police on a charge of hurtingreligious feelings.

    The BBS moved on the hotel, Withanage told The Global Mail,because of the alcohol, thedancing, the behaviour.

    When asked whether the BBS is againstpeople having a good time, Withanage railed: Whydo they use the menu Nirvana? The name Buddha should be used appropriately. Weshould respect any religion. The context is different, its not appropriate to use in a hotel, inthe evening party. He adds that calling a drinks venue the Jesus Bar might similarly bedeemed hurtful by Christians.

    http://www.buddhabar.com/en/http://www.buddhabar.com/en/http://www.buddhabar.com/en/http://www.buddhabar.com/en/
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    Prayers: Sunday Mass at St. Mary's Cathedral in Jaffna (top) and evening Ramadan prayer atthe Jumma Mosque in Colombo (bottom).

    Although a self-appointed guardian of public morals, the BBS is oddly unfussed by the

    plethora of casinos in Sri Lanka. Many of these are owned by business associates of theRajapaksa clan, including the government-approved $US350 million development plannedby local tycoon Ravi Wijeratne and Australian James Packer on a prime downtownColombo site, which happens to be adjacent to Colombos oldest Hindu temple.

    Lord Buddha is not against anything, says the BBS executive Withanage, when askedabout this apparent moral inconsistency. He never asked kings to stop things.

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    In Sri Lanka, there are a couple of casinos. No-one protested about them, he says. Butwhen this Australian guy wanted to start, they all talk about casinos. What we [the BBS]said was if we attack that person, we should attack the other parties also.

    If we want to stop casinos, its everybody, Withanage says. We should not attack only

    one casino because that turns us into being against investment. If youre against casinosyou should be against all casinos in the country.

    Personally, I think it is better that we dont have gambling but we [BBS] dont have anyproblem with it, he says.

    The BBS would, however, like Buddhism to be Sri Lankas official state religion. The currentconstitution, passed in 1978, holds that Sri Lanka is a secular state guaranteeing its citizensfreedom of religion, with Buddhism holding the foremost place. There is no mention ofHinduism, Islam or Christianity in the document.

    The BBS claims Buddhism was the islands state religion before the British colonisedCeylon in 1815 after deposing its Kandyan aristocracy. We think whatever we had beforethe British should come back, says Withanage.

    Hinduism has been practised by large numbers on the island for millennia, and today asmany as 15 per cent of the island Sri Lankas Tamil communities lay claim to beingHindu. Its presence on the island is even mentioned in the epic Hindu poem, the Ramayana,which dates from around the 4th century BC. Hinduism was also the state religion of theJaffna Kingdom in the north of the island that fell to Portuguese invaders in 1624.

    But that doesnt seem to factor in the BBSs version of history. Withanage rules outHinduism as a co-state religion in Sri Lanka, and any official recognition for Islam andChristianity too. Before the British came into this country, Buddhism was the state religionso therefore Buddhism should be the state religion provided all other religions have duerespect and freedom to practice.

    A tall 40-something man in a luxuriant vermillion robe and furiously tapping at an iPadjoins us. He exudes authority, and Withanage stops mid-sentence to genuflect to thenewcomer. I recognise him as Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara, secretary-general of the BBSand one of the groups founders.

    Bespectacled BBS general secretary Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara addresses a protest outside the Indian High Commissionin Colombo, following a recent attack on the Bodhgaya temple in India.

    Withanage introduces him and they continue railing about the real or imagined threats toSri Lankan Buddhism. I ask them why they see their faith as under threat on an islandwhere ethnic Sinhalese Buddhists comprise around 75 per cent of the countrys 20 millionpeople leaving Sri Lankas other ethnic and religious groups clearly in the minority and

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    given that the president is a very publicly devout Buddhist and a vocal champion of thefaith.

    Its not just Sri Lankan Buddhism that the BBS is campaigning for, Gnanasara explains, butfor others in the Buddhist world too. He cites the recent banning from circulation of an

    issue ofTime magazine in Sri Lanka, because it described the outbreak of Buddhistmilitancy in nearby Burma asThe Face of Buddhist Terror.

    I ask about recent attacks on Muslim interests blamed on the BBS. The men deny that theBBSattacked a prominent Muslim-owned clothing chain, Fashion Bug, in suburbanColombo, as was widely reported in Sri Lanka, even in the government-owned media.

    Gnanasara turns very angry at the mere mention of Muslims and Islam, which is hardly thedemeanour one expects of a pious Buddhist monk. Withanage's previous, more moderateexplanations of BBS activism now pale before a bilious Gnanasara who seems to rail at thenotion of anyone who isn't a Buddhist.

    Dont talk with us, Gnanasara yells. Any Muslims, they are very bad people here. Theyare creating all problems here.

    All Muslims? I ask.

    Yes, all Muslims same! Gnanasara yells. No chance here! We want to stop this extremistwork of Muslims. They are not going to destroy our culture. Buddhist people are verypeaceful.

    Withanage chimes in, insisting that Sri Lankas Buddhists have been very tolerant despitewhat he sees as the cultural provocations around them: Muslims are living peacefully,Muslims have all facilities here. The mayor of Colombo is a Muslim, Withanage declares.Do you allow in your country a Muslim to be a mayor?

    Yes, I answer, Australia has a number of elected public officials who are Muslim.

    But Withanage is unconvinced. The governor of this province is a Muslim so you cant sayMuslims cant live peacefully? he says.

    I remind him that I didnt say that, but that his boss, the BBS secretary-general Gnanasara,did barely a minute earlier, insisting that all Muslims were bad. I ask Gnanasara aboutHindus? Christians? Foreigners? Does the BBS have any problems with them?

    We are against only extremist groups, and fundamentalists, he says.

    What about Buddhist fundamentalists, I ask?

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    Where? Gnanasara asks.

    Maybe here? I suggest. I cite the remarks of various prominent Sri Lankans in civil-societycircles, such as the diplomat and intellectual Dayan Jayatilleka and the politician MilindaMoragoda who negotiated the halal compromise. Both have publicly condemned BBS

    extremism.

    They are mad people, he says. Very bad people. They get funding from various people,Christian and other groups, to speak against Buddha, with NGOs.

    I cross-check, asking: So Jayatilleka, a career diplomat and Sri Lanka's former UNambassador, and former Minister Moragoda are mad?

    A very bad man he is, snarls Gnanasara. They are funded. You look at their background.Are they Buddhist? There are some groups created by the church and they want to destroy

    Buddhist culture. His [Jayatillekas] background is not Buddhist, Milinda is not Buddhist.

    Moragoda, however, had said: "As a practising Buddhist it would be improper for me todirectly comment on a statement attributed to a member of the Buddhist clergy.

    President Rajapaksa charms them at the astrology centre.

    Is President Rajapaksa a good Buddhist? I ask Gnanasara. And what of his brotherGotabaya, the Defence Secretary?

    Gnanasara pauses, and smiles. Yes, yes, he says, his anger suddenly dissipating. His

    [President Rajapaksas] wife is a Catholic, no?

    I think so, I say. Is that a problem?

    Very good, he offers. No problem.

    Translating Gnanasara's Sinhala into English, Withanage says that Western media andother foreigners like to attack Sri Lanka because we are a poor people, we are a smallcountry, threatened by international pressures. And media, because you have money, youcan travel. We would also like to come and interview your Prime Minister, but we donthave money and you have enough money to do that.

    International media have an agenda to destroy Buddhism and show the world thatBuddhists are extremists, but when your prime minister talks about extremist ideas inAustralia no-one talks about these things. Please fund us, so we can show that.

    We dont trust the foreign media, adds Gnanasara, via Withanage. Most of you come withhidden agendas. A lot of false information about BBS is spreading around the world.

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    The latest media report to upset the BBS leaders came from Xinhua, the Chinese state newsagency. China has essentially kept the Rajapaksa regime afloat since 2005, financing hugeinfrastructure projects in the Presidents home region of Hambantota, and providing muchof the military matriel used by his military to conquer the Tigers.

    But on July 8, Xinhua reported that BBS had demanded a ban on the wearing of the Muslimhijab in Sri Lanka.

    Withanage says the Chinese are wrong. Citing similar laws in Europe, he says the BBS isntseeking a specific ban on the wearing of hijab in Sri Lanka, but a general public ban onanyone covering their faces. We also dont need that here, he insists.

    The fact that pretty well the only Sri Lankans culturally inclined to cover their faces on theisland are members of its Muslim community is incidental, he claims, a mere coincidence.This has nothing to do with religious matters, Withanage insists. We never talkabout thehijab. We dont have any problem with that.

    I ask Withanage why the BBS is staging regular mass protests outside the Indian HighCommission in downtown Colombo.

    Because India should protect Buddhist heritage, he says.

    What hasnt India done? I ask.

    Withanage cites the July 7 bombing attempt at the holy site in Bodhgaya, in the Indian stateof Bihar. Without any compelling evidence, South Asian politicians have variously blamedthe bombing on Islamists from India and Pakistan, extremist Hindus and Indias militantMaoists. Sri Lanka's Prime Minister himself has pinned responsibility for the bombing ondiaspora remnants of Sri Lankas defeated Tamil Tiger separatists.

    This is the birthplace of Buddha, Withanage says of the Bodhgaya site. And it should beprotected.

    Theres a problem with his assertion, a possibly revealing anomaly, given that the BBSstyles itself as Sri Lankas true protector of the Buddhist faith. Even the humblest Buddhistwould know that Bodhgaya isnt Lord Buddhas birthplace. It is widely agreed that Gautama

    was born in present-day Nepal. Religious archaeologists have cited a number of otherpossible locations in India and Nepal as his birthplace, but none in Bihar.

    To Buddhists, Bodhgaya is where Gautama attained enlightenment. The holy site in Biharmay be regarded as the place where Buddhism was founded, but thats a very differentthing to the BBSs position, and Withanages justification for the disruption outside theIndian mission.

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    STRDEL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

    Buddhist monks perform a traditional dance at a monastery in Bodhgaya, India, known as the place where Gautama Buddhaobtained enlightenment.

    I ask Withanage whether Tamil, the mother tongue of the islands Hindu Tamil and Muslimcommunities, should continue to be an official language alongside the Sinhala spoken by SriLankas majority Sinhalese Buddhists. It was the Sinhala Only Act of 1956, enacted soonafter what was then Ceylon attained independence from Britain, and which failed toofficially recognise the Tamil tongue spoken by around 25 per cent of the population, whichmany Lankans believe led to the long-running separatist war in the Tamil north.

    Four years after fighting ended, and with Sinhalese nationalism rampant, the languageissue has again reared its head. There are indications that the Rajapaksa regime wants todilute the so-called 13th Amendment of the constitution which currently guarantees Tamilequal status with Sinhala as an official language.

    Gnanasara fudges an answer. I think you need to understand history you cant just askquestions like this. Withanage pipes up again: We dont have any issue with Tamils. Nextmonth we will organise a large number of rallies in Tamil areas. The Tamil people want usthere.

    We have never killed Tamils. We killed terrorists. Withanage doesnt elaborate on whothe we that hes referring to are.

    The monks wind up the interview. I prepare to leave, and Gnanasara barks brief and urgentinstructions to Withanage in Sinhala. Withanage catches me up on my way out.

    When he said that all Muslims are bad explains Withanage that was a joke. We donthave anything against Muslims.

    He then claims Gnanasaras remark that all Muslims are bad was my fault, because I, theembodiment of the despised foreign media as painted by the BBS raised the subject.

    Sri Lanka still has a long way to go before it can claim to be Paradise.