Sri Lanka financial disaster: Gotabaya Rajapaksa: A ‘struggle hero’ detested by his admirers over Sri Lanka’s worst financial disaster
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The 73-year-old politician and youthful brother of former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, is a former navy officer who attended the counter-insurgency and jungle warfare college in Assam in 1980. He was the primary particular person with a navy background to be elected as Sri Lanka’s President in 2019 with an enormous mandate.
His resignation comes days after 1000’s of protesters stormed his official residence, blaming him for the island nation’s unprecedented financial turmoil since its independence from Britain in 1948.
The financial disaster is triggered partly by an absence of overseas foreign money, which has meant that the nation can not afford to pay for imports of staple meals and gasoline, resulting in acute shortages and really excessive costs.
Below mounting stress, President Rajapaksa first dropped his older brother Chamal and the eldest nephew Namal from the Cupboard in mid-April. Later, Prime Minister Mahinda additionally resigned after his supporters attacked anti-government protesters, triggering violence in opposition to the Rajapaksa household loyalists in lots of elements of the nation.
President Rajapaksa tried to deal with the disaster for just a few weeks together with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe earlier than he was compelled to flee his official residence within the face of large protests over the financial disaster that has introduced Sri Lanka to its knees.
From an undisclosed location, President Rajapaksa knowledgeable Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena about his choice to step down late Saturday evening.
He, nevertheless, fled to the Maldives with out resigning from his workplace. From Maldives, he went to Singapore which “allowed” him to enter into the city-state on a “non-public go to”.
President Rajapaksa despatched his resignation letter to the Speaker after reaching Singapore.
Rajapaksa, who served because the defence secretary throughout his elder brother Mahinda’s tenure as president from 2005 to 2014, was voted to presidency by Sri Lankans who grew to become fearful about Islamic extremism within the Buddhist-majority nation following the Easter bombings on April 21, 2019 that killed greater than 250 folks.
Although dubbed because the “struggle hero”, the function of Rajapaksa in ending the battle with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) with the demise of its supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran in 2009 is kind of divisive as he stands accused of violating human rights, a cost he vehemently denies.
Rajapaksa took oath as president on the sacred Buddhist temple Ruwanwelisaya in Anuradhapura – an historical temple constructed by Sinhalese King Dutugemenu who’s greatest identified for defeating an invading Tamil king.
His swearing-in ceremony indicated the president’s leaning in direction of Sinhalese Buddhist dominance within the island the place Hindus and Muslims collectively represent roughly 20 per cent of the entire inhabitants.
Rajapaksa is accused of overseeing torturing and indiscriminate killings of each civilians and combatants, and later of political assassinations.
He and his brother Mahinda are additionally accused of condoning sexual violence and extrajudicial killings allegedly by Lankan safety forces in the course of the struggle.
Rajapaksa, who was a high goal of the Tamil Tigers, survived an assassination try in December 2006 by an LTTE suicide bomber.
He’s additionally thought-about to be tilted in direction of cash-rich China.
Throughout his brother Mahinda’s regime, China began investing closely in infrastructure tasks within the island nation as Lanka confronted worldwide isolation on the tail finish of the civil struggle.
Critics say it was resulting from Mahinda that the nation has fallen into the “Chinese language debt entice”.
The Hambantota port, which was funded by a Chinese language mortgage throughout Mahinda’s regime, was leased to Beijing in a 99-year debt-for-equity swap in 2017 after the nation did not repay the debt.
Sri Lanka has traditionally been an vital business hub alongside maritime routes resulting from its strategic place within the Indian Ocean, the place China is more and more making its inroads.
Born on June 20, 1949, in Palatuwa in Matara district, Rajapaksa, who hails from a high-profile political household, is the fifth of 9 siblings.
His father D A Rajapaksa was a outstanding politician in 1960’s within the Wijeyananda Dahanayake authorities and likewise a founding member of the Sri Lanka Freedom Social gathering.
Rajapaksa obtained his major and secondary training at Ananda Faculty in Colombo and obtained a postgraduate diploma in Info Expertise from the College of Colombo in 1992.
He joined the Ceylon Military as a Cadet Officer in 1971.
In 1983, he additionally gained a masters in Defence Research from the College of Madras.
In 1991, he was appointed Deputy Commandant of the Sir John Kotelawala Defence Academy and held the place till his early retirement from the military in 1992.
Throughout his 20 years of navy service, Rajapaksa obtained awards for gallantry from three Lankan presidents – J R Jayewardene, Ranasinghe Premadasa and D B Wijetunga.
Following his retirement, Rajapaksa pursued a postgraduate diploma in Info Expertise from the College of Colombo. Later he joined Informatics, a Colombo-based IT agency as its advertising and marketing supervisor. Subsequently, he migrated to the US in 1998 and labored on the Loyola Legislation College in Los Angeles as an IT skilled.
In 2005, he returned to Sri Lanka to help his brother Mahinda’s presidential election marketing campaign. Throughout that point, he obtained twin citizenship from Sri Lanka.
He was appointed to the publish of defence secretary in November 2005 by then newly elected president Mahinda. On this capability, he oversaw the navy operation which ultimately defeated the LTTE in Could 2009 and earned him the tag of a “struggle hero”.
Rajapaksa is married and has a son.
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