Ousted Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa faced calls for his arrest yesterday after returning home from self-imposed exile under the protection of the government that took charge when he fled.
Rajapaksa fled the island nation under military escort in July after a huge crowd stormed his official residence following months of demonstrations against his administration.
The 73-year-old announced his resignation while in Singapore, and spent weeks under virtual house arrest at a Bangkok hotel as he lobbied his successor to allow his return.
Photo: AP
Leaders of the protest campaign that toppled his administration said Rajapaksa, who lost his presidential immunity after leaving office, should be brought to justice.
“Gotabaya returned because no country is willing to accept him, he has no place to hide,” said Joseph Stalin, the leader of a teachers’ trade union that helped mobilize demonstrators.
“He should be arrested immediately for causing such misery for the 22 million people of Sri Lanka. He should be prosecuted for his crimes,” said Stalin, who was named after the former Soviet leader by his leftist father.
Rajapaksa’s administration was accused of chaotic mismanagement as the Sri Lankan economy spiraled into an unprecedented downturn.
The crisis saw acute shortages of food, lengthy blackouts and long lines at gas stations for scarce fuel supplies after the country ran out of foreign currency to pay for vital imports.
“He can’t live freely as if nothing has happened,” Stalin said.
Rajapaksa arrived at the main international airport in Colombo and was garlanded with flowers by a welcoming party of government officials and other senior politicians as he disembarked. He was driven in a security convoy to a new official residence in the capital provided to him by the administration of his successor, Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Rajapaksa’s younger brother Basil, a former Sri Lankan finance minister, last month met with Wickremesinghe and requested protection to allow the deposed leader to return.
Rights advocates have vowed to press for Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s prosecution on a litany of charges, including his alleged role in the 2009 assassination of prominent newspaper editor Lasantha Wickrematunge.
“We welcome his decision to return so that we can bring him to justice for the crimes he has committed,” Sri Lanka Young Journalists’ Association spokesman Tharindu Jayawardhana said on Friday.
Several corruption cases lodged against Gotabaya Rajapaksa stalled after he was elected president.
He also faces charges in a US court over Wickrematunge’s killing and the torture of Tamil prisoners at the end of the country’s traumatic civil war in 2009.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa won a landslide election in 2019 after promising “vistas of prosperity and splendor,” but saw his popularity nosedive as the country’s crisis worsened.
His administration was accused of introducing unsustainable tax cuts that drove up government debt and exacerbated the country’s economic problems. The COVID-19 pandemic also dealt a blow to the nation’s tourism industry and dried up remittances from Sri Lankans working abroad — both key foreign exchange earners.
Wickremesinghe was elected by parliament to finish the remainder of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s term. He has since cracked down on street demonstrations and arrested protest leaders.
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