Sinhalese Buddhists in Sri Lanka are “under threat” claimed nationalist organisation Bodu Bala Sena’s Chief Executive Officer in a wide ranging interview with by Zachary Walko earlier this month.
Dilanthe Withanage, who also chairs BBS’ political wing Bodu Jana Peramuna, said successive Sri Lankan governments “ignore(d) the protection of Buddhism in this country and even the Sinhalese” and went on to outline a series of threats he claimed the island was facing.
“When it comes to external forces, I first take, as the global Catholic action... I’m referring to when the Christianity, Catholicism. They have interests to promote their religion,” he said.
Mr Withanage went on to blame “global communist action” and “global Islamics” who were “very secretly, very silently” working on the island, as well as turning his attention to “global Tamil action”.
The BBS leader though denied there was a “a big ethnic issue” on the island and gave his thoughts on how “reconciliation” could be achieved.
“I think the easiest thing, right? The quickest thing, right? – now we have a limited number of Tamils, no? Government can spend huge, any amount of money and let them learn Sinhala. That is the first thing.”
During the interview, Mr Withanage also spoke on his group’s links to the growing ‘Sinhale’ movement. “Actually, I was behind promoting Sinha Le,” he said. During a 2014 convention of more than 6,000 Buddhist monks, Mr Withanage claimed he coined the term.
“In that [convention], we have specified that the name of the country should be Sinhale,” he said.
And both movements continue to enjoy political support claimed Mr Withanage.
“Some Joint Opposition people are behind promoting the Sinha Le, because what they want to do is … get certain groups away from BBS.”
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