By : A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA

Since Mr. Gotabhaya won the presidential election the anti Sri Lankan media outlets have unleashed a spate of reports and write-ups against Sri Lanka and President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.  Lanka-E-News (LEN) the UNP website published from London, access to which was restricted from Sri Lanka by the former President following harsh personal attacks on him and his family, has published several news items especially focussing the readers in foreign countries with the objective of building antagonism and hostility against Sri Lanka.

In one of these items it says that Gotabaya Rajapaksas visit to India was to deceive India and to join hands with China and to put the country in an irreparable nuclear danger.

It says that Gotabhaya has entered a confidentiality agreement with China to launch a non-commercial military nuclear power project on Sri Lanka’s Kachchativu Island, which is adjacent to India. In addition to that Gotabaya is trying to fill up another 400 hectares from the southern sea, join with the current port city and sell out to China and his is the reason that the Chinese government lavishly spent on Gotabaya’s election campaign and China has already started the work following Gota’s swearing in ceremony held on the 18^th but it does not say what work it has started.

The news item states that representatives of a Chinese nuclear power company, Dongfang Electric Corporation (DEC), the backbone of the Chinese central government, President Secretary P.B Jayasundera and a group of Sri Lankan Navy officers has gone on an observation tour to the Kachchativu Island in a helicopter on the 21st.

It explains that there is no people living in Kachchatheevu Island but people from India and Sri Lanka annually gather to the feast of St. Anthonys church situated in the island and if a nuclear project constructed in Kachchatheevu people entering it would be prohibited.

The news item further states that following their revelation Gotabhaya government may declare that they are working with China in Kachchativu to generate electricity using nuclear power, but the real story behind is different and that is the reason why pt is carried out in secret.

LEN states that to cover this story from Indian officials, Gotabaya in an interview with an Indian journalist said that he is going to revive the Hambanthota port already given to China and pretended that he is a pro Indian.

LEN adds that the Chinese nuclear project at Kachchativu is certainly a serious threat to India and giving addition of another 400 hectares of land to port city in Colombo will strengthen China’s power in the region and at the same time, the country becomes a ballpark of world powers that cannot be restored.

The news item concludes that although Gotabaya tries to hide this to all but could not hide this from European intelligence services. It says reports reaching Lanka e news confirm that this is one of the reasons that EU countries were not happy about Gotabayas swearing in.

The LEN also give much publicity to the Swiss Embassy drama and attempts to project as a true incident perpetrated by the government.  In this respect it make use of a disparaging article published by the New York Times saying A Swiss Embassy employee is abducted and asked about asylum applications and investigators are banned from leaving just days after Gotabaya Rajapaksa is elected.

Twisting the contents of the New York Times article to get its objects fulfilled LEN says fears of a potential crackdown on critics of the newly returned Rajapaksa political dynasty in Sri Lanka are rising just days after the election, as officials and journalists who investigated the Rajapaksas for human rights abuses and corruption began trying to flee the country.

It says a Sri Lankan employee of the Swiss Embassy in Colombo was abducted on Monday by unidentified men and forced to hand over sensitive embassy information, and the abductors have forced her to unlock her cellphone data, which contained information about Sri Lankans who have recently sought asylum in Switzerland, and the names of Sri Lankans who aided them as they fled the country because they feared for their safety after Gotabaya Rajapaksa won the presidency in elections this month.

It says on the same day of this abduction, Mr. Rajapaksa imposed a blanket travel ban on more than 700 members of the Sri Lankan police unit that had been investigating the family, and other police officers raided a news outlet critical of the Rajapaksas and forced several journalists to hand their computers over for analysis, in what the police said was an investigation into accusations of hate speech.

This particular website is making these malicious allegations because it is foreign based and some appropriate diplomatic action should immediately be taken against it before it causes irreparable damage to the image of Sri Lanka.