Former Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa claims ‘foreign conspiracy’ ousted him in 2022

Gotabaya launches explosive memoir, painting himself as victim and stoking comeback rumours ahead of national elections.

Sri Lanka’s former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa at a UN climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, on November 1, 2021. | Photo Credit: Reuters

Setting the stage for a comeback into the Sri Lankan political arena ahead of the next presidential election, disgraced former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa claimed on March 6 that he was ousted in 2022 as a result of a foreign intervention.

Gotabaya claimed that his life was in danger before he fled the country and that some local groups had acted in connivance with foreigners. Gotabaya, who has a tendency to see conspiracy theories where none exist, is a known India-hater. Gotabaya had actually fled and later sent in his resignation, enabling Sri Lanka to elect the then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as President.

All this and more is part of a very plainly titled new book, The Conspiracy to oust me from Presidency, authored by Gotabaya himself. It will be available in English and Sinhala from March 7. There is no formal launch of the book. Gotabaya made this announcement on March 6.

Gotabaya is the younger brother of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The Rajapaksa brothers controlled the politics of Sri Lanka from around 2006 (when the war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam began) to January 2015, when Mahinda was defeated in the Presidential elections. Gotabaya was elected President in 2019 but fled the country in 2022. Though there was palpable anger against the Rajapaksas at that time, the ensuing economic downturn seems to have sapped the will of the people to carry on a political struggle to keep them out of politics.

On June 13, 2022, even as massive protests swept through the island nation, Gotabaya fled Sri Lanka. He first landed in the Maldives from where he was asked to leave. He headed to Singapore and then to Thailand. He sent over his resignation from Singapore and stayed outside Sri Lanka till his successor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, tired down the protestors. After about 50 days in exile, Gotabaya returned to Sri Lanka.

In a release, the former President said: “I wish to announce the publication of my book titled “The conspiracy to oust me from the Presidency”. Foreign intervention has weighed heavily on Sri Lanka since we won the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2009. From the time I was elected President in November 2019, certain foreign and local parties were intent on removing me from power. The entirety of my two-and-a-half-year tenure in power was spent combating the COVID-19 pandemic that swept through Sri Lanka and the whole world soon after I took office. Conspiratorial forces commenced the political campaign to oust me from the presidency at the end of March 2022 after the pandemic had been brought under control and the vaccination campaign had been concluded and just when the economy was beginning to recover.”

Gotabaya added: “Today, foreign intervention and the manipulation of internal politics has become a fact of life in Sri Lanka in a manner never experienced in the first sixty years of independence of this country. The political campaign to oust me brought in a new element into the politics of Sri Lanka which has since independence experienced only peaceful transfers of power following elections. As such the events of 2022 are fraught with serious implications for the future of this country. What this book explains is the first-hand experience of an internationally sponsored regime change operation. As such I believe this book will be of interest not only to Sri Lankans but also foreigners.”

Gotabaya’s political career was also launched with the publication of a 2012 book, Gota’s War–The Crushing of Tamil Tiger Terrorism in Sri Lanka,’ by journalist C.A. Chandraprema. The book, meant to detail Gotabaya’s role in the war, ended up crediting him for all elements of the victory though substantial credit was due to former Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka. Gotabaya wanted to assume an active role in the political sphere soon after he was persuaded by his brother Mahinda to be part of the post-war nation restructuring exercise. Gotabaya finally threw his hat into the presidential contest in the 2019 elections because a two-term limit set earlier prevented Mahinda from running again.

Ahead of the 2015 elections in Sri Lanka, Gotabaya ensured that Mahinda expelled India’s external intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing’s station chief, K. Ilango, claiming that Ilango was interfering with the election process in Sri Lanka. Mahinda lost the presidential election to an unheralded Maithripala Sirisena.

During the war years (2006-09) and later, Gotabaya was known for his mercurial temper, and his impatience with journalists and anyone who questioned his actions. But after what seems like a series of anger management sessions and reading up on Sri Lanka’s issues apart from defence and security, his first press conference in Colombo’s Shangri La ahead of the 2019 elections—where this correspondent was present—went much better than was expected. He sidestepped some questions, refrained from heaping scorn on those who were raising questions, and answered, in all, for over an hour.

“The foreign media is actually our adversary,” said one of the media hands working with him. True to form, the toughest of questions—on the missing, accountability for war crimes, and the like— were raised repeatedly by the foreign media. He either refused to answer these or greeted the queries with counter-questions on the role of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.