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10-07-2014

PRESS RELEASE:

BBS is an anti-national project aimed at destroying Sinhala-Muslim amity

The National Shoora (Consultative) Council (NSC) , a grouping of national level Muslim Organisations, including a cross –section of the community’s intelligentsia and activists is not surprised at the BoduBalaSena’s  (BBS) call to ban the NSC.  The call exposes the BBS as an anti-national project, dedicated to destroying centuries of peaceful amity and co-existence between the Sinhalese and the Muslims of this country by spreading hate, based on falsehood.

Following its fully paid visit in October 2011 to Norway, a country which nearly succeeded in creating ‘Eelam’ in Sri Lanka, where the BBS met a group from the Tamil diaspora and Islamic-phobic  Norwegians, it appears most convincingly, that the BBS has undertaken  a dubious contractto spread  anti-Muslim venom aimed at destabilizing Sri Lanka through racial conflicts. Western powers behind the Norwegians will benefit in the UN Human Rights Council. Sri Lanka regrettably will have to pay for the crime BBS is perpetrating on the country.

We have not forgotten that the BBS’s first target  was the All Ceylon Jammiyathul Ulama (ACJU), the President of which went to the UNHRC in Geneva in March 2012 in defense of the country against the  Western sponsored resolution on Sri Lanka. That was a patriotic role of the ACJU notwithstanding the benefits to the Muslims from the resolution. Shockingly, the BBS in an anti-national move, took up the Halal issue, later on, as a pretext to spew insults on the ACJU and the Muslims. The Chambers of Commerce know very well that the Halal Certification benefitted mainly the non- Muslim exporters. BBS side tracked the benefits to the Sinhala exporters and launched an unforgivable attack on the ACJU following the Muslim organisation’s pro- Sri Lankan role in the UNHRC. The BBS’s vituperative attack on the ACJU exposed the anti-national role of the BBS.

Within a month of the ACJU returning from Geneva, the Dambulla Mosque came under ‘death’ threats at a time when the BBS was at its formative stages. Since then, we have seen how the ordinarily harmless Muslims of this country, became the singled out target of an unceasing hate campaign launched by the BBS, from post-Dambulla beginnings down to the Aluthgama mayhem.

Every one of the issues raised by the BBS against the Muslims was false, fabricated or exaggerated.

Violence unleashed in Aluthgama on June 15 and 16 followed directly from the hate speech of the BBS General Secretary. Any law student will know, the speech is a text book case of incitement to violence against the Muslims of Aluthgama and Beruwala. The world knew the truth overnight, without Muslims having to brief anybody.

Did those who incited the crowd at Aluthgama against the Muslims think of the damage to the country and to Buddhism world-wide? Did they not put the millions of Sinhalese sweating in Middle-East Muslim countries to shame? If the hate speeches in Aluthgama and the subsequent destruction which disgraced Sri Lanka across the globe and for which BBS needs to be made accountable, are not anti-national, what then are they?

We have not forgotten, that it was the Muslims of Aluthgama and Beruwala-not the BBS-at the call of the Sheikh of the world famous Buhary Masjid inBeruwala, who gathered in their thousands opposite the US Embassy in Colombo on 15 March 2012 to protest against the US sponsored resolution against Sri Lanka, notwithstanding the fact that the resolution would have benefitted the country’s Muslims. On that occasion too, the Muslims acted in the greater national interest of the country sacrificing their communal benefits. Now listen to the speech of the BBS at Aluthgama on Youtubeand tell the country,  whether, was it right for a Buddhist monk to have incited the Sinhala youths to destroy the economy and with it the hearts of those very same Muslims of Aluthgama and Beruwala, who protested against the powerful US? If these are not anti-national crimes committed by the BBS, what then are they?

BBS has turned the wheel a full circle, to the detriment of the country! Aluthgama Muslims were entitled to expect the nationalist Buddhist monks to have come to their rescue. But it was the US that made the strongest plea on behalf of the very Muslims who demonstrated against the US. BBS has lost on the good-will that existed between the Sinhala and Muslim communities by its anti-national charade. The US has won them over. Can anyone deny that the BBS is an anti-national project? With the BBS in full charge, Sri Lanka does not need any other enemy!

The NSC is therefore not surprised at the BBS’s request to ban the NSC. We at the NSC will not ask for banning the BBS because we need this dialogue with the people of the country, whose mind the BBS had sought to poison with falsehood. BBS must respond to these questions, without seeking to veil us by banning. We are equally keen that all those responsible for the carnage in Aluthgama must be prosecuted and welcome the positive steps taken by the Bar Association of Sri Lanka to stand for justice for the victims.

NSC is not an NGO. It is a grouping of national level Muslim organisations, a cross-section of the Muslim intelligentsia and activists. It is led by Tariq Mahmud, son of former Minister Dr. Badiuddin Mahmud and comprises several former Ambassadors of Sri Lanka, well known professionals, heads of affliated Muslim organisations and activists, all of whom are volunteers who have merged together after the emergence of the BBS.

The NSC has absolutely no link whatsoever with anyone using the name Shoora elsewhere in the Muslim world. The NSC is funded entirely from the voluntary contributions of its members and affliatedorganisations. We have declined foreign invitations to present our internal issues elsewhere and also offers of foreign funding. We liked to be identified as a traditional self -reliant grouping of volunteers, whose love for the country will always be beyond question. We strongly believe that all these passing problems could be internally resolved, knowing well  the depth of good-will that exists amongst all communities in the country.

For

Tariq Mahmud

President

National Shoora Council