Another Rajapaksa presidency and SL

Gotabaya Rajapaksa 

By Taylor Dibbert

In a recent opinion piece, Raj Gonsalkorale struggles to conceal both his disregard for pluralistic values and deep admiration for Gotabaya Rajapaksa (‘Presidential Election 2019: The ‘Promised Land’ awaits us?’). 

There’s a lot of garbage to wade through. Let’s look quickly at just a couple parts of the article.

Gonsalkorale writes that “[t]he Rajapaksa campaign has not resorted to gimmicks such a buggy cart rides, but have had a sleekness to it with him and Mahinda Rajapaksa projecting an image of confidence and unity.” He would like us to believe that the Rajapaksa campaign hasn’t been fuelled by racism, division and dissimulation.

Incredibly, Gonsalkorale claims that “[t]he biggest negative for Rajapaksa is the perception that he is associated with authoritarian practices and human rights abuses.”

How appropriate it is for him to have turned Rajapaksa’s authoritarianism and well-known human rights abuses into a question of perception! 

The Rajapaksas and their surrogates don’t get to erase what really happened when Mahinda was President and Gotabaya was Secretary to the Ministry of Defence. 

The centralisation of power. The white van abductions. The massive Tamil civilian casualties. The war crimes. The corruption. The nepotism. The suppression of dissent. The sustained militarisation of the North and East. The military’s expropriation of civilian land. The intimidation. The fear. The impunity. The BBS cheerleading. The 18th Amendment. The dynastic ambitions. And more.

I can’t wait for Gonsalkorale to rehabilitate other esteemed statesmen, including Robert Mugabe, Fidel Castro (who happens to be quoted in the article), and Saddam Hussein.