Colombo: The recovery of a weapons cache in central Colombo has added fuel to allegations that former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa had planned a coup to maintain his grip on power when he realised that he was about to lose the recent election. Meanwhile, Rajapaksa appealed to the country’s new ruler not to exact “political revenge” from the allegations.
Rajapaksa’s plea came after a stash of arms were discovered in central Colombo, allegedly belonging to Rakna Lanka Security Service, a private company said to be under the control of the former president’s younger brother Gotobhaya Rajapaksa. The haul included 157 Chinese-made machine guns, shotguns, a heavy machine guns, ammunition, body armour and helmets. Two days earlier, another, bigger cache of weapons was found on a container ship docked in the southern port city of Galle. It included more than 3,000 automatic weapons.
“There are serious national security implications and we are investigating several angles,” a police spokesman said. The new government, led by Maithripala Sirisena, has accused Rajapaksa of widespread corruption and of plotting a coup to retain power when he realised he was about to lose the election.
Police have already begun investigating allegations against Gotobhaya, a former defence minister. The police raided the Rajapaksa family’s country home in the southern town of Tangalle, searching for a Lamborghini sports car which a court had ordered to be seized. Namal Rajapaksa, the former president’s son, said the car was not found. Speaking after meeting Buddhist priests in the central city of Kandy, Rajapaksa, 69, said: “Our family has been in politics since 1931 but never [have] our homes come to be searched. I ask them to stop this political revenge.”
Namal said: “They have been harassing us by searching not only our own houses but those of our friends. We can’t visit the homes of our associates,” he said. Police have already seized a Nissan GT-R sports car once driven by another son, Rohitha, and a two-seater aircraft given to Rajapaksa’s second son, Yoshitha.
In another development, Sri Lanka’s main Tamil political party called on the new government to resolve the ethnic conflict that led to the country’s three-decade civil war. In the first session of parliament since the election, Rajavarothayam Sampanthan, whose Tamil National Alliance party supported Srisena in the election, said: “The Tamil question needs to be addressed so as to evolve a permanent, reasonable, workable and durable solution within the framework of a united, undivided Sri Lanka.”
He said the ethnic conflict, besides starting a war in which at least 100,000 people died, was the cause of many of the country’s problems.
Fonseka gets pardon
Sri Lanka's new president pardoned and reinstated the rank of an ex-army commander Sarath Fonseka who was imprisoned four years ago after challenging the former president in an election. The statement issued by Sirisena's office said Fonseka is now entitled to all of his former privileges and political rights without any legal obstacles.
Fonseka - Sri Lanka's only four-star general - is credited with leading the army to victory in 2009 in the country's civil war with ethnic minority Tamil rebels. The rebels fought for 25 years to create an independent state for Tamils in a conflict that killed at least 100,000 people.
