How Sri Lankan authorities could have acted differently to avoid 2019 Easter Attack
What could be a root cause for the 2019 Easter Terror Attack
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Now that we have passed more than a year since 2019 April Easter attack, it is evident that the relevant authorities received certain specific Intelligence Information such as two of suicide bombers details(Names, National Identification Card Numbers, Photographs) and whereabouts to be attacked (i.e. Catholic churches,Indian High Commission of Sri Lanka etc.) and yet the attack ended up killing around 269 , injuring over 500 people, from which few sustained the injuries to this day.
There was a political & bureaucratic turmoil subsequent to the event, where the blame devolved from the topmost authorities to the administrative officers, who cumulatively failed act, even with some significant intelligence in hand.
So what actually went wrong?
Weeks after the attack, a parliamentarian select committee was formed. A number of valuable information was revealed to the public during these sessions. We can sum up these into two crucial points:
- Relevant authorities had significantly important specific information about an attack days, weeks or even months prior to the attacks.
- Authorities failed to take sufficient actions to avoid the attack.
Why did this happen?
When I first listened into the statements given by the authorities in front of Parliamentarian Select Committee, I couldn’t resist but recall few stories I read in the Book Black Box Thinking, by Matthew Syed.
In his book Part I- ‘Logic of Failure’, Chapter 1 & Chapter 2, Matthew brings up two stories, one is related to United Airlines 173, and the other is a story from Medical sector called ‘Just A Routine Operation’.
United Airlines 173 story in brief.
UA 173 was piloted by an experienced captain, co-pilot and a flight engineer. There were 189 passengers, including 8 crew members, heading towards Portland International Airport. Moments before landing into Portland Airport, as the captain was lowering the landing gear, the crew felt an abnormal vibration and yaw of the aircraft, with lack of an indicator showing the gear was lowered successfully.
They aborted the landing and requested a holding pattern until diagnosing the problem. As per the instructions received from Captain, flight engineer went and checked from the cabin whether the landing gear’s bolts by the wing are visible, and also few other checklist items, it all appeared that the landing gear was lowered properly, yet few things including the light seemed not to be properly indicating such thing.
In the light of the events, captain and the co-pilot lost the track in time, fuel was shrinking along with the time that had left to stay in the air. While being aware of these events, the flight engineer attempted to let the captain know about the status of fuel, so that they can make into the airport safely.
Captain, however in the light of the events, apparently failed to focus on the warnings made by the flight engineer, where ended up crashing the airplane miles away from the airport, while killing 8 passengers and 2 crew members, including the flight engineer, who warned him about the fuel levels.
(Later reviled that the landing gear was lowered properly)
Just a Routine Operation: A Medical story in brief
In Part I, chapter 01 : Routine Operation, the author describes how a patient was brought to the operation theater, for an operation generally considered as ‘non-critical’. During the anesthetic, however, the Doctors couldn’t get the mask into the patient’s mouth, due to tightness in the patient’s jaw muscles.
After two minutes the patient turned into blue due to lack of oxygen, while the well-experienced doctors were trying their best to put the mask into the mouth.
Then the doctor attempted a tried-and-tested method called tracheal incubation, which didn’t quite work at the time. During this time, oxygen level further dropped to the lower limits, heartbeat started dropping along, and the margin for error started shrinking.
In this moment, experienced nurses suggested another last-resort way of acting, to doctors, called tracheotomy. Doctors however, while in the light of the event, gave a glance to the nurses, and tried to work the tracheal incubation over and over again.This caused heavy brain damage bringing surprises to the family (Because the said operation was considered to be ‘non-critical’ ) and after few days patient passed away.
So what actually went wrong in these two scenarios?
As you may have already guessed, while the experienced, top-in-hierarchy person trying to work something, someone from lower of the hierarchy ‘suggested the correct course’ but still, failed to get the people in charge acted, ultimately leading to causing a catastrophic failure.
Sounds familiar with Sri Lankan Context?
For an example, if we take the testimony by Chief of National Intelligence (CNI) DIG Sisira Mendis, he states that the information relating to an attack received around 8th of April, and informed relevant authorities under the heading ‘Eyes Only’. He also emphasizes the fact that he had not used such terminology, in any document prior to that, meaning he understood the weight of the situation.
Moreover when then Hon MP Dr.Nalida Jayatissa asks, (loosely translated as)
“Is there a way for you to communicate this matter to the State Minister of Defense or the Minister of Defense?”
CNI replies (loosely translated as)
“ No there was no method as such to communicate such thing to the state minister of defense or Minister of Defense (then H.E President of Sri Lanka)”
And a follow up question,
“Whom are you reporting to?”
- “Secretary of Defense”.
“ There is no such practice for IGP to inform (such sensitive) Intelligence information to the H.E President, directly”
Furthermore, when we look into the testimony of the Secretary of Defense, then Hon MP Sumanthiran asks
“ On 20th evening and 21 Morning when this information was related to you, you knew President (also the Minister of Defense) was not in the country, did you think the Prime Minister would have been informed”
The secretary of defense answers
“ No Sir. <…> I was not an independent secretary, I have to get instructions from (the) president for every little thing”
A Communication Disaster
One thing is clear from the above statements is that the relevant authorities had some specific information, and could have avoided the disaster, if a proper weight was given to the information and was passed to the relevant authorities.
Why the authorities might have acted in this way? There could be many answers, following are 3 key things:
- Fear of being wrong
- Hierarchy
- Consequences
If I quote Matthew Syed from his book Blackbox Thinking, he states,
“This is now a well-studied aspect of psychology. Social hierarchies inhibit assertiveness. We talk to those in authority in what is called ‘mitigated language’. You wouldn’t say to your boss: ‘It’s imperative we have a meeting on Monday morning.’ But you might say: ‘Don’t worry if you’re busy, but it might be helpful if you could spare half an hour on Monday.’
This deference makes sense in many situations, but it can be fatal when a 90 tonne aeroplane is running out of fuel above a major city”
…
“The problem was not a lack of diligence or motivation, but a system insensitive to the limitations of human psychology.”- Syed, Matthew. Black Box Thinking
How to mitigate this?
Following the crash of United Airlines Flight 173, the Crew Resource Management was changed to mitigate this hierarchical issues. Among many things, during the training, crew is taught PACE method to mitigate this. This was later adapted in Medicine.
PACE method (for Graded Assertiveness)
In the simplest form, PACE stands for:
- Probe
- Alert
- Challenge
- Emergency/Escalate
If we put a few words related to our context (Ester attack)
:A Subordinate to a Secretary to a Ministry:
- Probe:
[Around 8th/9th of April 2020] : “Sir there is some information relating to an attack. Could you have a look and direct the relevant authorities to work on this matter”
- Alert:
[a day or two after, or even less]:”Sir Easter is few days apart. No matter how uncertain the threat is we need to act on this”
- Challenge:
[18th/19th of April]: “Sir we need to act now or , there will be a disaster soon”
- Emergency/Escalate
[20th early morning or earlier]:”I am letting Minister in Charge know this/ I am letting Prime Minister/ H.E President know this/ I am letting police know this”
Conclusion
This blog post is just one way of looking at this. I am pretty sure there could be a number of reasons, but analyzing and understanding something like this is very crucial, mainly to stop something from happening in the future.
The above examples with related to the parliamentarian commission are mere examples, and should not be considered lightly as I am focusing on the respective personals described in the examples. These should be considered in a broader and in a general sense.
One last story
[This could be a fabricated story but facts around this seemed to be true]
Pablo Escobar was in war with Colombian Authorities at the end of 1980s & in early 1990s. Then Presidential Candidate César Gaviria was believed to be taking Avianca Flight 203 to attend one of his campaigns in Cali .
Netflix portrays this scenario in Narcos series.
Background:
Prior to this event, DEA in Columbia, following an investigation on Escobar receives an (unconfirmed & little ambiguous) intel, which leads to information related to a planned bomb attack.
The DEA agent, with uncertainty in hand guessed the target could be the presidential candidate Gaveria. The following dialog is related to the said scene.
Scene: In Bogota International Airport, Presidential Candidate Gaviria sees Agent Murphy of DEA approaching towards him)
Presidential Candidate Gaviria: “Agent Murphy, what are you doing here”
DEA Agent Murphy: (To Head of Security of Gaviria) : “No no no, he (Presidential Candidate) can’t go, no no”
Presidential Candidate Gaviria: “What?”
DEA Agent Murphy: “There could be a bomb waiting, He goes, he dies”
Gaviria’s Head of Security: “ What are you talking about? “
DEA Agent Murphy, to Gaviria’s Head of Security: “This is your job, your call, but I know something is gonna go down”
Gaviria’s Head of Security: “Do you have Proof?”
DEA Agent Murphy: “ I got my gut”
Gaviria’s Head of Security: “What if you are wrong?”
DEA Agent Murphy: “I hope to god I am, What if I am right?”
Head of Security decides to listen to agent Murphy, and the presidential candidate did not take the flight. A few minutes afterward after takeoff , a Bomb went off in the flight Avianca 203, killing all 107 passengers in the plane.
However, Gaviria became the President of Colombia on the following year, and few years later under his administration, Pablo Escobar was killed.
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Only if we had few Agent Murphy s with us.
