{"id":83732,"date":"2024-03-07T00:45:34","date_gmt":"2024-03-07T04:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=83732"},"modified":"2024-03-07T18:00:38","modified_gmt":"2024-03-07T22:00:38","slug":"ex-president-gotabaya-rajapaksa-writes-book-in-which-he-attributes-his-dramatic-ouster-in-2022-by-a-citizens-uprising-to-a-conspiracy-hatched-by-certain-foreign-and-local-parties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=83732","title":{"rendered":"Ex-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa Writes Book in which he Attributes his dramatic ouster in 2022 by a citizen\u2019s uprising to a conspiracy hatched by \u2018certain foreign and local parties\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nBy<\/p>\n

Meera Srinivasan<\/strong><\/p>\n

Two years after his dramatic ouster from office by a popular people\u2019s movement, Sri Lanka\u2019s former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has sought to defend his tainted regime, by launching a book that attributes his political downfall to a \u201cconspiracy\u201d involving foreign and local parties.<\/p>\n

Announcing his book \u2018The Conspiracy to oust me from the Presidency\u2019 on March 6, Mr. Gotabaya said in a statement: \u201cFrom the time I was elected President in November 2019, certain foreign and local parties were intent on removing me from power.\u201d<\/p>\n

During Mr. Gotabaya\u2019s Presidency from November 2019 to July 2022, Sri Lanka experienced its worst economic crisis since Independence in 1948, as the country ran out of dollars for essential imports, following a host of fiscal decisions taken by his government. Citizens spent days in long queues, struggling to access basic food items, cooking gas, and medicines, while grappling with prolonged power cuts in their homes. <\/p>\n

Holding his government responsible for their suffering, people from diverse backgrounds took to the streets in a historic protest along capital Colombo\u2019s seafront and in several other districts across the island nation.<\/p>\n

They relentlessly agitated with the demand \u201cGota go home\u201d, eventually forcing the besieged leader to flee the country and subsequently resign in July 2022, less than three years since he was elected President, and barely two years after his pulled together a formidable majority in Parliament.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In a significant judgment last year, Sri Lanka\u2019s Supreme Court reiterated the position held by the citizens\u2019 movement, ruling that the Rajapaksa brothers \u2014 Mr. Gotabaya, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Basil Rajapaksa \u2014 along with top officials in their government, \u201cdemonstrably contributed\u201d to the 2022 economic crisis and \u201cviolated public trust\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, taking no responsibility for the country\u2019s financial collapse, Mr. Gotabaya squarely blamed \u201cconspiratorial forces\u201d for his removal from office. \u201cWhat this book explains is the firsthand experience of an internationally sponsored regime change operation,\u201d he said in the statement.<\/p>\n

In an excerpt from Mr. Gotabaya\u2019s self-published book, featured in local portal Newswire, the widely discredited leader attempts to reconstruct the last moments of his Presidency as he saw them, before he fled the island and took refuge in the Maldives first, and Singapore later. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe plan was to fly to Singapore in a private plane, but the Indian authorities had not allowed this private plane to fly to Male. So, I gave instructions that tickets be obtained on a commercial flight to Singapore,\u201d Mr. Gotabaya writes.<\/p>\n

Later, in a reference to the time he took the decision to resign while in Singapore, Mr. Gotabaya writes that he had, by then, decided Mr. Wickremesinghe would be his successor, \u201cbecause I saw him as the only person capable of restoring law and order in the country.\u201d <\/p>\n

On July 20, 2022, Ranil Wickremesinghe was elected President through an urgent parliamentary vote, in which the Rajapaksas\u2019 party, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP or People\u2019s Front) backed him. Mr. Gotabaya returned to Sri Lanka in September 2022, after seven weeks in Singapore. He lives in a state bungalow in Colombo with special security accorded to him by the Wickremesinghe administration.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Sri Lankan newspaper Daily Mirror reported that Mr. Basil, the SLPP\u2019s strategist, is scheduled to meet with President Wickremesinghe and former President Mr. Mahinda Thursday evening to discuss a possible alliance for the presidential polls and general elections scheduled later this year.<\/p>\n

Courtesy:The Hindu<\/em><\/p>\n

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By Meera Srinivasan Two years after his dramatic ouster from office by a popular people\u2019s movement, Sri Lanka\u2019s former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has sought to defend his tainted regime, by launching a book that attributes his political downfall to a \u201cconspiracy\u201d involving foreign and local parties. Announcing his book \u2018The Conspiracy to oust me from …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Ex-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa Writes Book in which he Attributes his dramatic ouster in 2022 by a citizen\u2019s uprising to a conspiracy hatched by \u2018certain foreign and local parties\u2019’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83732"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83732"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83733,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83732\/revisions\/83733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}