Dictatorship of the Rajapaksa brothers

The dictatorship of the Rajapaksa brothers is the period of Sri Lanka in which Sri Lanka has been heading towards authoritarianism and dictatorship resulting in deterioration of the fundamental rights of people. Sri Lanka constitutionally has been called as “Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka” indicating that Sri Lanka is a democratic nation whereas people have the right to freedom of expression. However, freedom of expression and democracy began deteriorating in Sri Lanka ever since the Rajapaksas came into the power. Several journalists, vocal critics, general public have been abducted and murdered by Rajapksa brothers Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as part of their intentions to oppress those who are against their policies and to silence their critics. Sri Lanka has been regarded as a nation with one of the most enforced political disappearances in the world and the number of disapperances in Sri Lanka skyrocketed ever since Mahinda Rajapaksa became the President of Sri Lanka in 2005. Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and Christians irrespective of any race and religion have been victimized by the powerful authoritarian Rajapaksas.

Nepotism is also a growing concern in Sri Lanka especially during the Presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa (2005-2015) and Gotabaya Rajapaksa (2019-present), many family members of Rajapakas including Namal Rajapaksa, Basil Rajapaksa, Nirupama Rajapaksa, Shasheendra Rajapaksa, Chamal Rajapaksa have all been elected unanimously in various cabinet ministerial portfolios. During the presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Rajapaksa family held the ministries of finance, defence, ports and aviation, and highways and road development. The president's brother, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, was given the post of Defence Secretary. He also controlled the armed forces, the police and the Coast Guard, and was responsible for immigration and emigration. Rajapaksa appointed his brother Basil Rajapaksa as minister of Economic Development. Together, the Rajapaksa brothers controlled over 70% of Sri Lanka's public budget. Mahinda Rajapaksa's eldest brother, Chamal Rajapaksa, was appointed as the Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka, and has held many other posts before, while his eldest son, Namal Rajapaksa, is also a member of the parliament and holds undisclosed portfolios.

Rajapaksa family gained islandwide popularity among public by crushing the LTTE during the final phase of the Sri Lankan Civil War on 18 May 2009. Rajapaksa family gained reputation and cemented their authority by taking credit for ending the war but they never took accountability and responsibility for the killings of several innocent Sinhalese and Tamil people during the war. Both LTTE and Government of Sri Lanka led by Mahinda Rajapaksa have been accused of genocide charges for killing several innocent civilians irrespective of the race and ethnicity. Ever since the end of a 26 year long war, Rajapaksas have used war as a main element to brainwash majority Sinhala Buddhists for their self-interest especially with the intention to suppress the minorities of Sri Lanka. During the tenure of Mahinda Rajapaksa as President of Sri Lanka, his vocal critics were often kidnapped in white vans and have been brutally tortured and murdered and were later apparently fed as food to crocodiles.

Rajapaksa clan over the past have often diverted public attention from them by igniting hate speech, endorsing racism and ethnic violences in Sri Lanka. Whenever Rajapaksas get into trouble especially for corruption, robbery and war offenses they manipulated public by claiming that they invested heavily on white elephant projects such as expressways, Port City, Lotus Tower, etc in order to showcase that Sri Lanka is a tourist destination. It has been revealed that Rajapaksas in first place never wanted unity among people of Sri Lanka as the Rajapaksas understood that if people are united irrespective of the religions, they would not be able to fulfill their agendas and the Rajapaksas have often masterminded violence among different religious groups to achieve their hidden agendas. Corruption and bad governance is also in the rise in Sri Lanka especially during the Rajapaksa regime. Rajapaksas have been accused of being puppets to People’s Republic of China and Rajapaksas have been responsible for making Sri Lanka as a debt ridden economy and plans are underway to make Sri Lanka under the colony of China by the Rajapaksas. Rajapaksas have been also found guilty of taking huge amount of loans at unaffordable higher interest rates from China to construct Port City and other expressway projects. The police service has also become corrupted under the Rajapaksa regime as police officers have been arresting and torturing civilians, social activists for criticizing Rajapaksas but police officers have turned a blind eye regarding the malpractices and corrupted practices facilitated by Rajapaksas and other politicians. Police have often released various politicians who are prime allies of Mahinda and Gotabaya Rajapaksa despite those politicians being involved in various fraudulent charges, corruption charges, murder trials, drug and heroin trafficking.

The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna party led by Rajapaksas who won the 2020 Sri Lankan parliamentary election were so desparate to successfully pass the Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka with a 2/3 majority in order to secure back the executive presidency which was previously abolished in the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka. The 20A turned out to be a death blow for the democracy of Sri Lanka as Rajapaksa family further stamped their dictatorship through passing the bill.

Dictatorship during 2022 Sri Lanka protests

Main article: 2022 Sri Lankan protests

At a time when Sri Lankan people took to roads to vent their frustrations to the Rajapaksa government, the government led by authoritarian Gotabaya issued directives and guidelines to suppress and silence the frustrated citizens of Sri Lanka by using violence as weapon. Rajapaksas again as usual used police troops to their side to silence the protestors by using tear gas on protestors who protested before Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s residence in Mirihana, Nugegoda. It was revealed that the protestors never acted in violent manner except for chanting words such as “Gota is a dictator”, “Go Home Gota” etc. It was revealed that in order to disperse the protestors away, certain mob groups who were sidekicks to Rajapaksas had diverted the silent protests carried out by protestors by pelting stones at protestors and public property. It is a no brainer to understand that Rajapaksas were definitely the reason behind triggering violence amid the silent protests. The opposition SJB accused the government of sending loyalists to infiltrate the protests to burn the vehicles and carry out acts of violence to sabotage them and noted that the videos of the protests do not show protesters being armed as claimed by the government. Later the government labeled the innocent protestors as “Extremists” with the intention to create another ethnic violence by putting blame on a minority community for the economic mess and violence. Furthermore, journalists who reported the Mirihana protests during the time of the protests were assaulted by police and as a result the live stream of the protests was also stopped. The live stream was stopped midway as part of the damage control mechanism used by Rajapaksas to avoid severe international backlash and condemnation if suppose the live footage of brutality of police officers attacking protestors had been shared in social media globally. At least 45 protestors were arrested by the police and they were apparently tortured by the police according to reports. It is believed that many more disappearances are set to be reported in coming days as part of Rajapaksa's plans to silence and assassinate their critics. Later the Rajapaksa government and Ministry of Defense ordered to impose curfews for 36 hours and state of emergency from 2 April 2022 from evening 6pm to 4 April 2022 6am in order to prevent the planned islandwide silent protests which were scheduled to take place on 3 April 2022. The Rajapaksa government further dented any hopes of social media hashtags and campaigns by announcing a nationwide social media blackout from 3 April 2022. The Rajapaksa regime ordered police officials and armed officers to arrest anyone whoever breaches the curfew period and also to arrest and detain anyone without warrants as well as to seize the properties of any individuals who break the curfew.

The social media activist Thisara Anuruddha Bandara who was widely known for initiating hashtag campaign titled #GoHomeGota was arrested by the police and was kept under police custody at Modara Police Criminal Investigation Unit before producing him before the court. He was deemed to have been arrested under section 120 of the Penal Code. The administrator of WhatsApp group GoHomeGota was also arrested as part of Rajapaksa government’s crackdown to silence their critics to further showcase their dictatorship.

See also

• Family dictatorship

References

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