Justice is often just a high-definition performance meant to distract a grieving public from structural rot.
The recent court order to extend the detention of Sri Lanka’s former intelligence chief regarding the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings is the latest act in a long-running theater of the absurd. The mainstream media frames this as "accountability." They want you to believe that if we just lock up enough high-ranking bureaucrats, the ghosts of 270 victims will finally rest.
They are wrong.
Detaining an intelligence chief isn't a victory for national security; it is a confession of systemic failure. By focusing on the individual "failure to act," the state successfully dodges the more terrifying truth: the entire architecture of Sri Lankan intelligence was—and likely remains—a fractured, politicized mess that no single man could have steered to safety.
The Myth of the Omniscient Spymaster
The prevailing narrative suggests that intelligence is a clean stream of data flowing to a central desk where a "chief" decides whether to hit a red button or a green button. If the bombs go off, he clearly hit the wrong button.
This is a cinematic fantasy. In reality, intelligence in South Asia is a swamp of competing agencies, ego-driven silos, and "deep state" actors who often hate each other more than they hate the insurgents.
During the lead-up to the 2019 attacks, the rift between the presidency and the prime minister’s office didn't just create a "communication gap." It created a total blackout. Intelligence isn't a product; it’s a process. When the political process is weaponized, the intelligence process dies.
Locking up an intelligence head for "negligence" assumes he had the functional authority to bypass a paralyzed executive branch. He didn't. In the Sri Lankan context, intelligence chiefs are often glorified secretaries to the powerful. Punishing the secretary for the boss's arson is a convenient way to keep the boss in office.
Why Intelligence Failures are Actually Policy Successes
Every time a massive security breach occurs, we ask, "How did they miss this?"
The better question is: "Who benefited from the chaos?"
I have watched various administrations across the globe handle "intelligence failures." Almost invariably, the failure provides the exact political capital needed to pass draconian laws, increase surveillance budgets, or crush domestic dissent.
In Sri Lanka, the Easter Sunday bombings fundamentally shifted the political trajectory of the country, paving the way for a return to hardline ethno-nationalist governance. If an intelligence failure delivers a total political victory for a specific faction, calling it a "failure" is technically accurate but functionally misleading.
The detention of former officials serves as a pressure valve. It lets the public scream at a face behind bars so they don't look at the hands that hold the keys.
The Warning Label Nobody Wants to Read
Let’s talk about the "specific warnings" from Indian intelligence that were supposedly ignored. The lazy consensus says: "They knew. They did nothing. Therefore, they are complicit."
Here is the nuance the competitor's piece avoids: The Noise Problem.
Intelligence agencies are flooded with hundreds of "specific" warnings every week. 99% are junk. To filter the 1% that matters, you need a cohesive state apparatus. When you have a fractured government where the President is actively trying to fire the Prime Minister, "specific warnings" become political footballs.
If the chief had acted unilaterally, he would have been accused of a coup or overstepping his constitutional bounds. By not acting, he becomes a convenient villain for the next administration. He was trapped in a bureaucratic "no-win" scenario.
Accountability as a Weapon of Retribution
We need to stop pretending these court cases are about the victims. They are about the current administration's need to signal "purity" by purging the remnants of the previous one.
In many flawed democracies, the judiciary is used as a cleanup crew for political transitions. You don't just defeat your predecessor; you criminalize their existence. By keeping the former intelligence chief in a cell, the state maintains a narrative of "previous incompetence," which shields the "current competence" from scrutiny.
But look at the data: Has the underlying culture of intelligence sharing changed? Have the silos been dismantled? No. The players changed, but the board stayed the same.
The Real Cost of Scapegoating
When you make "failure to prevent" a jailable offense for intelligence officers, you don't get better security. You get CYA (Cover Your Assets) Intelligence.
Future officers will now spend 80% of their time documenting why a failure isn't their fault rather than actually preventing the failure. They will flood the system with every minor tip to ensure they can never be accused of "withholding information."
The result? A massive increase in "false positives" that will bury the real threats even deeper. By punishing the man, the court is inadvertently guaranteeing that the next attack will be even harder to spot because the system will be screaming "Wolf!" at every shadow to avoid a jail cell.
The Actionable Truth
If you actually care about preventing another April 21st, stop cheering for these arrests. They are bread and circuses.
Instead, demand three things that actually matter:
- The Depoliticization of the SIS (State Intelligence Service): Intelligence heads should have fixed terms that do not align with election cycles.
- Legislative Oversight with Teeth: Not a court case five years too late, but a bipartisan committee with the power to audit intelligence flows in real-time.
- The End of Sovereign Immunity for Politicians: If a chief is jailed for not acting on a memo, the politician who received the same memo should be in the cell next to him.
Anything less is just a performance.
The former intelligence chief might be guilty of many things—incompetence, perhaps, or even a lack of moral courage. But his detention isn't a sign that the system is working. It's a sign that the system is still hiding.
Stop looking at the prisoner. Look at the people who put him there and ask what they are doing to ensure they aren't the ones "ignoring warnings" today.
Justice isn't a cell door closing; it's a window opening. And right now, the curtains are still drawn.
The next time a headline tells you a "chief" has been detained, don't clap. Ask yourself which politician just got away with it.
The bombs of 2019 were filled with ball bearings and explosives, but they were detonated by a decade of institutional rot. You can’t fix rot by throwing a single brick in jail.
You have to burn the whole house down and start over.
Until that happens, keep your eyes on the exit. The theater is still on fire.
