Minister Harin Fernando recently revealed that it was UNP leader Ranil Wickramasinghe who led him to block the Presidential Secretariat Office (Parliament until 1981) located at Galle mouth.
In a meeting attended by the UNP candidates competing in the local government elections held in Badulla, the minister emphasized that it was his group that first went in front of the President’s office and started the ‘Gotha Go Home’ campaign as per the instructions of the UNP leader.
At the time of making this controversial statement, UNP Deputy Leader and former Minister of State Security Ruwan Wijayawardena also participated in the same meeting held in Badulla.
The minister stated that the UNP leader fired the first shot against the President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa on March 15, 2022.
The minister also stated that UNP leader Wickramasinghe led the protesters against the presidential secretariat in the background of Sajith Premadasa’s reluctance to lead the operation to oust Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Minister Harin Fernando has no need to say something that did not happen. However, the media did not pay much attention to Minister Harin Fernando’s statement. But for the first time, an ‘official’ statement has been made regarding UNP National List MP Wickramasinghe’s contribution to the struggle (to oust Gotabhaya Rajapakse).
It is no secret that UNP MP Wickramasinghe received the invitation after Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka and Sajith Premadasa refused to accept the Prime Ministership.
In the end, Wickramasinghe, who led the ‘Gota Go Home’ operation, was appointed as the Prime Minister by the hand of the President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa himself. That is May 12, 2022.
After that, through the intervention of Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, Harin Fernando and Manusha Nanayakkara Gotabhaya Rajapaksa got ministerial positions from the President himself, is it not really a joke of fate? No other Samagi Jan Balawega MP has joined the government to get ministerial posts till date.
In front of the UNP candidates contesting for Badulla, Harin Fernando stated that he had a strong desire to create an opinion that he could capture the office of the President’s Secretariat.
According to the minister, he received a phone call when he was attending a meeting at the office of opposition leader Sajith Premadasa at 30 Marcus Fernando Mawatha. “I looked who it was. It was Ranil Wickramasinghe, the boss, who said to run away for a while. I went out. He said to flee to the presidential secretariat without fear. Since then, there was a great relationship between him and me.”
The minister, who placed the president at the top, then emphasized that there is no financial provision to hold the local government election at this time, and that the government should be given time until December to manage the growing crisis.
Do you remember Harin Fernando’s controversial statement earlier? His father, the late Nihal Fernando, was aware that the suicide attack would be carried out on Easter Sunday 2019. Immediately after the Easter Sunday attack and a few months later, before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry, Harin Fernando emphasized that the day before the series of attacks on April 21, Nandalal, the police officer, told his sick father.
Nandalal was also an officer involved in terrorist investigations including the destruction of Buddha statues in Mawanella.
The revelation made during the six-minute phone call by Nandalal to the minister’s father is controversial.
Harin Fernando’s statement that the UNP leader launched the operation against the President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa should definitely be brought to the attention of the people who gathered in Galle against the JVP, the Vanguard Party that broke away from the JVP and the then Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna government (Pohottu Party).
President Wickremesinghe has pointed fingers at the Vanguard Party and its leader Kumar Gunaratnam for the destructive acts that took place during the struggle. The party has denied the allegations.
According to Minister Harin Fernando, the operation against the President’s Office is being implemented even before the public protest erupted in front of the President Gotabhaya Rajapakse’s private residence in Pagiriwatte, Mirihane. It was the night of March 31, 2022. A year ago.
Wickramasinghe, who will be sworn in as the Prime Minister on May 12, 2022, as the Finance Minister on May 25 and then as the President by the vote of the Pohottu Party (to complete the remainder of the 5-year term Gotabhaya Rajapaksa obtained in November 2019), Wickramasinghe, the leader of the UNP, other parties in today’s struggle and the Pohottu Party. There is a serious conflict with the groups. That is due to the President’s decision not to hold the local government election, which has already been delayed by a year.
In the last general election (August 2020), Harin Fernando, who was elected to Parliament from the national list of the Samagi Jana Balavega, stands for the statements made by President Wickremesinghe in and outside Parliament that a small vote should not be held.
According to an announcement issued by the office of the Chief Organizer of the ruling party Prasanna Ranatunga on March 01, Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena and the group elected to Parliament from the Pohottu Party are in full agreement with the President’s position regarding the local government vote.
Former minister Namal Rajapaksa also participated in the party leader meeting. There is a rift between the President and the Pohottu Party regarding the appointment of the Cabinet and vacancies in the Cabinet. But there is an agreement about not holding local government elections. There can be no problem regarding that situation between those two parties. President Wickremesinghe cannot forget the fate of the UNP and the ruling party’s good governance partner, the Sri Lankan Party, in the previous local government elections held on February 10, 2018.
The Pohottu Party, the Samagi Jana Balavega and the National Jana Balavega led by the JVP have some apprehensions about the way forward. It is because of the disdain between the two main political currents rather than the trust that has arisen in that party (the Compass).
Wickramasinghe’s ‘leadership’ or his contribution to the struggle should be examined by taking into account the activities of the vanguard party and the JVP as well as President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s response to the protests against him.
If the President had succeeded in preventing the operation that was carried out on the palace on May 09, his government would not have collapsed.
National Freedom Front leader MP Wimal Weerawansa and then Minister Sarath Weerasekera Gotabaya Rajapaksa have stated that the President’s response was weak. Julie J. Both of those MPs have accused the president of taking the wrong step by going to respond to the struggle in the way American Ambassador Chung wanted.
A day before Ranil Wickremesinghe, who sent Harin Fernando to protest in front of the President’s office, deployed the security forces and evicted the group that was staying in the President’s office. Is the American ambassador’s protest against the President’s action a blindfold?
The future of the Wickramasinghe-Rajapaksa government will be determined in the ability and success of taking necessary measures to maintain the normal life of the people. People do not willingly take to the streets for democracy. The situation of the parties is different. Without the people, the manpower needed to shake the government cannot be found at all. That is the truth.
The comments made by retired Judge Rohini Marasinghe, who is the chairperson of the Human Rights Commission, a few months ago during the proceedings of the Geneva Human Rights Commission regarding the ousting of the President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and the coming to power of Wickramasinghe are important. Unfortunately, all the parties representing the parliament are stuck in their own outdated political strategies. Because of that, those parties and groups do not see the length and breadth of the crisis which is getting worse. There is no need to know the ground conditions.
The retired judge’s statement that people gathered in Colombo during the collapse of fuel and gas supply due to the most irresponsible tax policy implemented by the Gotabhaya Rajapaksa government and the extremely serious debt/balance of payment crisis after the last presidential election should be brought to the attention of the parties and opposition parties.
She pointed out that the government of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa had incurred the wrath of the people due to irresponsible economic policies. That the people expelled that government. The reasons why President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa had to flee are still relevant today.
Likewise, the then Army Commander and Acting Chief of Defense Staff, General Shavendra Silva, has been accused of not suppressing the attacks by organized activists and political activists after the Pohottu thugs who came from Araliya Gaha Mandir attacked the Galle mouth fighters on May 09.
Even the Rajapaksas have been accused of giving unparalleled leadership to the Gajaba Regiment hero to defeat Dravidian terrorism. The media and social media have been commenting on the outbreak of the struggle for and against him. It is based on a report released after an investigation by Admiral of the Fleet Wasantha Karnagoda, Air Marshal Roshan Gunathilake and General Daya Ratnayake at the behest of the then former President.
Even today, some people do not understand that the people gathered in Colombo because of the failure of the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government to fulfill the basic needs of the people. It is impossible to understand that the attack launched by Temple Tree House was a para ring for the bud.
Western forces have been operating in Sri Lanka becoming in a desperate situation. Until the International Monetary Fund receives 2.9 billion US dollars to restore the collapsed economy, the government, which is on its knees before Washington, will not do anything to preserve its declining political power. The President and Pohottuwa continue to emphasize that the local government vote is at the top of the government’s strategy. The two main parties representing the government have reached the position of having no votes even if they have money.
Shamindra Ferdinandu
Diwayina.lk
