• Claims foreign interventions & domestic politics’ manipulation are unprecedented facts of recent post-Independence SL life  

Former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa claimed that at present, foreign interventions and the manipulation of internal politics has become a fact of life in Sri Lanka in a manner never experienced in the first 60 years of Independence in the country.

He observed thus in the backdrop of announcing the publication of a memoir titled ‘The conspiracy to oust me from the Presidency’ (available in Sinhala and English), today (7), which, according to him, is a first-hand account of an “internationally sponsored regime change operation” and which would therefore also “be of interest not only to Sri Lankans but also to foreigners”.

“Foreign interventions have 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 the 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. 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,” a press release issued in this regard read.

In the wake of the economic crisis reaching its apex, Rajapaksa resigned following public protests under the ‘aragalaya’ moniker calling for the resignation of the Government led by him.