Controversial former President Mahinda Rajapaksa is getting a reappraisal as Sri Lanka’s government struggles to explain how it failed to prevent the deadliest terrorist attack in the island nation’s recent history.
Speaking in Parliament this week, Rajapaksa said “the government must resign” over the security lapse.
In Negombo, a coastal Colombo suburb that is one of the few majority-Catholic towns in the country, Sirisena won two-thirds of the vote. Sirisena has said that he was not aware of the intelligence. On Wednesday he asked the top police official and the defense secretary to resign.Former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa addresses the 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 24, 2013, at U.N. headquarters.
Human rights groups have long fought to have Rajapaksa, Fonseka and others held accountable for alleged war crimes, enforced disappearances and other atrocities inflicted on Tamil militants and civilians. In 2013, Rajapaksa usedat the United Nations General Assembly to lash out at Western countries and advocacy groups that he said were meddling in his small nation “in the guise of [protecting] human rights.
“This attack plays into their hands, particularly for Gotabaya, who would be running on a law-and-order, nationalistic platform that says don’t spend too much time thinking about human rights,” said Alan Keenan, Sri Lanka analyst for the International Crisis Group.Many Christians in Negombo describe Rajapaksa’s ruthless tactics in crushing the Tamil insurgents — who pioneered the use of suicide vests — as the type of take-no-prisoners approach Sri Lanka needs now..
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