{"id":42020,"date":"2015-03-05T02:23:50","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T09:23:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=42020"},"modified":"2015-03-05T02:23:50","modified_gmt":"2015-03-05T09:23:50","slug":"then-army-commander-categorically-denied-about-yahapalana-alleged-coup-attempt-by-former-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/03\/05\/then-army-commander-categorically-denied-about-yahapalana-alleged-coup-attempt-by-former-president\/","title":{"rendered":"Then Army commander categorically denied about Yahapalana alleged coup attempt by former president."},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Apeyrata.com<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h3><strong>It\u2019s all fabricated. There was absolutely no talk of retaining power; even if there was, we wouldn\u2019t have let that happen. This is the absolute story that took place.<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h3><strong>Army was not politicised.<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"rmSubject\">\n<h3><strong>Gota did a yeoman service<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymirror.lk\/65303\/the-army-was-never-politicised-gen-daya-rathnayake-spells-it-out\" target=\"_blank\">Read full interview at dailymirror.lk\u2026\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1012\" src=\"http:\/\/www.apeyrata.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/dayar-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"dayar\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>\u00a0<strong>Q Were you summoned by the President? Who called you?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>No. It wasn\u2019t the President; it was the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) who summoned us. So I suggested the procedure to the President\u2019s Secretary to issue a statement, or make some intimation to the people that he would hand over power by bowing down to the wish of the people. During the brief discussion, I also suggested that there should be a discussion with the then Opposition leader which was accepted and he was invited to Temple Trees in order to discuss the transition of power.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q Was there a discussion about a possibility of retaining power? A coup of some sort\u2026\u2026.?<\/strong><br \/>\nNo. There was nothing like that. It\u2019s all fabricated. Of course there were people who were shouting out on emotion asking to impose curfew. Both the IGP and I said there was no such need. I received updates every minute from all over the country about the situation through my intelligence services and operational arms which I kept feeding to the other commanders too. It was clear that there was absolute calm prevailing in the country and there was no need at all to impose curfew. I made it very clear that there was no need to declare emergency in the stand point of the security of the country, but I said that, if they wanted to, they should take legal advice and act accordingly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q So there was no talk of retaining power?<\/strong><br \/>\nThere was absolutely no talk of retaining power; even if there was, we wouldn\u2019t have let that happen. This is the absolute story that took place.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"_dytid_5224\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/m7XkDkIWB4k?feature=oembed&amp;start=956\" width=\"690\" height=\"518\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Apeyrata.com It\u2019s all fabricated. There was absolutely no talk of retaining power; even if there was, we wouldn\u2019t have let that happen. This is the absolute story that took place. Army was not politicised. Gota did a yeoman service Read full interview at dailymirror.lk\u2026\u2026 \u00a0Q Were you summoned by the President? Who called you? No. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42020\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}