{"id":89012,"date":"2019-05-18T15:28:10","date_gmt":"2019-05-18T22:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=89012"},"modified":"2019-05-18T15:28:10","modified_gmt":"2019-05-18T22:28:10","slug":"gotabaya-rajapaksa-confirms-presidential-run-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/05\/18\/gotabaya-rajapaksa-confirms-presidential-run-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Gotabaya Rajapaksa confirms presidential run – report"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy Ada Derana<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Former defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, accused by rights \ngroups of war crimes during the final months of Sri Lanka\u2019s long-running\n civil war a decade ago, has confirmed he plans to run for the \npresidency in the wake of the Easter Sunday attacks that have shattered \nthe country\u2019s uneasy peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rajapaksa, the brother of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, told Al\n Jazeera that he would stand as a candidate in elections due by late \n2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Definitely I\u2019m contesting,\u201d Rajapaksa said with a chuckle during an \ninterview in the book-lined study of his home in the capital, Colombo, \nphotos from his military career hanging from the walls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have decided long time. Otherwise, there\u2019s no need for me to renounce my US citizenship.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There has long been speculation that Rajapaksa, a Sri Lanka-US dual citizen, will campaign for the presidency. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rajapaksa has to renounce his US citizenship in order to run for \npresident. His name does not appear on the most recent quarterly filing \nto the US registry on those who have lost their citizenship, which \ncovers the three months until the end of March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He insists he is not being an opportunist in revealing his plans in \nthe wake of the attacks on churches and luxury hotels that killed more \nthan 250 people and have fuelled a wave of mob violence against Muslim \ncommunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t consider it as an opportunity,\u201d he told Al Jazeera. It is \nnot the elections, but it is our country and nation. Something I focused\n on is destroyed. I\u2019m worried and saddened because of that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Strongman\u2019s appeal\u2019
\nInvestigative journalist Lasantha Ruhunage said Rajapaksa would have a \nstrongman\u201d appeal given his role in defeating the rebel Liberation \nTigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in a conflict that came to a bloody end on a\n narrow strip of beach on the island\u2019s northeast in 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There would be an appetite for him among the masses,\u201d Ruhunage said.\n But it\u2019s not just him; it\u2019s the \u2018strongman\u2019. People are moving towards\n military strongmen rather than the traditional politicians because of \nthe record of the incumbent politicians.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Easter Sunday bombings exposed the depth of ill-feeling between \nPresident Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe \nas each blamed the other for the government\u2019s failure to act on detailed\n intelligence warnings that attacks were imminent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rajapaksa claims the government\u2019s decision shortly after it came to \npower in 2015 to detain and investigate senior military officers amid \nallegations of wartime rights violations contributed to the failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But during the decade that he was defence secretary, the military was\n accused of a wide range of abuses – from torture to enforced \ndisappearances and extrajudicial killings – creating a climate of fear \namong journalists, activists and government critics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A United Nations panel found breaches of international law by both \nthe Sri Lankan government and the LTTE. It also said that some 40,000 \ncivilians died in the army\u2019s brutal final push against the Tamil \nTigers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charu Lata Hogg, a researcher at Chatham House in London who has \nbriefed the UN on Sri Lanka, said Rajapaksa\u2019s return would be a step \nbackwards\u201d for justice and accountability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The real significance is that someone who led an army that has been \naccused of perpetrating war crimes will not be held to account and will \nbe in a position of political strength,\u201d she said. It\u2019s also symbolic \nin the sense of being a slap in the face for Tamil justice and is not at\n all supportive of reconciliation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As defence secretary, Rajapaksa said he ran what he describes as a \nsophisticated and well-trained\u201d network of 5,000 military intelligence \nagents, and dismissed accusations of human rights abuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those are all baseless allegations,\u201d he said. You talk about human \nrights, you talk about freedom of individuals, you talk about \nreconciliation, but all these depend on national security. If you don\u2019t \nhave national security what happens \u2026 do you have freedom? Everything \ndepends on national security.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His voice becomes increasingly shrill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a military that defeated such a ruthless, dangerous, \npowerful terrorist organisation,\u201d he said, referring to the Tamil \nTigers. I\u2019m wondering whether all this was done by rogues. Murderers \n… Are we saying that our military\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There can be individuals. But if you take the whole picture you are \ngeneralising. Even internationally, they are generalising this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Search for justice
\nThe Sinhalese, who are Buddhist, make up around 75 percent of Sri \nLanka\u2019s 22 million people, but the island has significant numbers of \nmostly-Hindu ethnic Tamils, as well as Muslims and Christians and has \nstruggled with rising communal tension since independence from the \nBritish in 1948.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a series of measures that privileged the Sinhalese over the \nrest of the population, the Tamil Tigers began their violent campaign \nfor a separate Tamil homeland in the island\u2019s north and east in the \n1970s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ten years after the fighting finally came to an end in 2009, there \nhas been little attempt to address the lingering resentments that helped\n fuel the conflict – even though Sirisena came to power promising \nreconciliation and accountability. A 2015 pledge to investigate wartime \natrocities is still to be met.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Amnesty International, Sri Lanka has one of the world\u2019s \nhighest number of disappearances – as many as 100,000 over the past \nthree decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analysts say Rajapaksa, who remained in his post for five years after\n the war ended, also bears responsibility for the instability that \ncontinues to plague the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Justice is an essential part of achieving a sustainable peace,\u201d \nAnjali Manivannan, senior legal analyst at People for Equality and \nRelief in Lanka (PEARL), told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cause of the conflict, the structural discrimination, the \nSinhalese Buddhist nationalism and supremacist beliefs that place \nSinhalese Buddhists at a higher level than other communities on the \nisland \u2026 None of that has really changed. They defeated the LTTE and won\n an armed conflict, but there have been no steps to address why that \nconflict started.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rajapaksa himself has been accused of war crimes and extra-judicial killings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In April, Ahimsa Wickrematunge, the daughter of murdered journalist \nLasantha Wickrematunge, filed a lawsuit accusing Rajapaksa of \ninstigating and authorising her father\u2019s killing in 2009. He is also \nfacing a case filed by a Tamil man who says he was tortured in 2007 \nafter being detained by the police\u2019s Terrorism Investigation Division, \nwhich came under Rajapaksa\u2019s command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rajapaksa has denied the allegations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the election is called, and Rajapaksa formally launches his \ncampaign, many believe that the past will probably matter little to the \nmajority of voters, while Rajapaksa will portray himself as the man who \ncan restore stability to a troubled island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t see him limiting his use of existing or new emergency laws \njust to focus on the problem of Islamist extremism,\u201d said Darsha \nJegatheeswaran, senior researcher at the Adayaalam Centre for Policy \nResearch in Jaffna.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the last (few) years, there have been communities that have \nbeen critical of the government, of him, human rights people have gone \npublic \u2026 My concern is that if he comes back to power and his focus is \non a \u2018threat to the nation\u2019 in the past that has been anyone critical of\n the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think he would be quite heavy-handed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: Al Jazeera
\n-Agencies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy Ada Derana Former defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, accused by rights groups of war crimes during the final months of Sri Lanka\u2019s long-running civil war a decade ago, has confirmed he plans to run for the presidency in the wake of the Easter Sunday attacks that have shattered the country\u2019s uneasy peace. Rajapaksa, the brother […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89012","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=89012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}