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Gotabaya Rajapaksa

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Gotabaya Rajapaksa
ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ
AllegianceSri Lanka Sri Lanka
Service / branchSri Lankan Army
Years of service1971–1992
RankLieutenant Colonel
UnitGajaba Regiment
Commands1st Gajaba Regiment
General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University
Battles / warsEelam War I
Eelam War II
Eelam War IV
AwardsRana Wickrama Padakkama
Rana Sura Padakkama
Doctor of Letters (Honoris Causa), UoC
Alma materAnanda College
Other workDefence Secretary, Sri Lanka

Lieutenant Colonel (Ret) . Nandasena Gotabaya Rajapaksa (Template:Lang-si) (born 20 June 1949) RWP, RSP is a retired officer of the Sri Lanka Army and the current Defence Secretary of Sri Lanka. After serving through the early parts of the country's civil war with Tamil Tiger rebels, he retired from the Army in 1992. With the election of his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa as President of Sri Lanka, Gotabaya Rajapaksa was nepotistically appointed Defence Secretary in November 2005.

As Defence Secretary, Rajapaksa is largely credited with masterminding the successes achieved by the Sri Lankan Military in defeating the Tamil Tigers and ending Sri Lanka's 25 year long civil war in May 2009. He was also one of the top targets of the Tamil Tigers, and survived an assassination attempt in December 2006 by a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber.[1] He was conferred Doctor of Letters by the University of Colombo on September 6, 2009.[2]

Early life

Gotabaya Rajapaksa was born in Palatuwa in the Matara District,[citation needed] and brought up in Weerakatiya in the southern rural district of Hambantota.[citation needed] According to a writer called Narada Karunthilaka, the name Gotabaya means "Abhaya, the Giant" or "Chinna Kotta" in the Jat language.[3] He hails from a well-known political family in Sri Lanka. His father, D. A. Rajapaksa, was a prominent politician, independence agitator, Member of Parliament,Deputy Speaker and Cabinet Minister of Agriculture and Land in Wijeyananda Dahanayake's government. His uncle, D.M. Rajapaksa, was a State Councilor for Hambantota in the 1930s. His brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa was first elected to parliament as a member of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party at the age of 24 in 1970. He gradually rose through the ranks of the party, becoming opposition leader in 2001, Prime Minister in 2004 and the President of Sri Lanka in 2005. Two of his other brothers, Chamal Rajapaksa and Basil Rajapaksa, are also in the politics being current Members of Parliament.

He obtained his primary and secondary education at Ananda College, Colombo.

Military career

Rajapaksa joined the Sri Lanka Army as a Cadet Officer on April 26, 1971 , when Sri Lanka was still a dominion of the British Commonwealth. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant on May 25, 1972 and given his first command as an officer in the Ceylon Signals Corps. Thereafter he served with in the Sri Lanka Sinha Regiment and the Rajarata Rifles before being transferred to the Gajaba Regiment upon its formation in 1983 with the amalgamation of the Rajarata Rifles and Vijayabahu Infantry Regiment.[4]

He rose up the ranks in the military, serving as the second in command of the 1st Gajaba Regiment and latter commanding the 1GR from 1983 - 1990. He served in the battlefronts of Jaffna, participating in Operation Liberation, the offensive mounted to liberate Vadamarachi from LTTE in 1987. He also commanded the same battalion in Operation "Strike Hard" and Operation "Thrivida Balaya" in 1990. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, and served as the Commandant of the Kotelawala Defence Academy at the time of his retirement in 1992.

During his 20 years of military service, Rajapaksa has received awards for gallantry from three Presidents of Sri Lanka, J.R. Jayewardene, Ranasinghe Premadasa and D.B. Wijetunga.[5] He had followed signal young officers course in school of signals at Rawalpindi Pakistan, Infantry company commanders course in Queta Pakistan, Jungle warfare and counter insurgency course in Assam, India, Command and Staff course at Defence Services Staff College in Welington, India and Advanced Infantry Officers course in fort Benning , Georgia, USA.

Life after retirement

Upon his retirement from the Army after a serving for 20 years, Rajapaksa obtained a Post Graduate Diploma in Computer Technology from the University of Colombo and was employed in the IT field of the local corporate sector. He later migrated to the United States of America, where he worked at Loyola Law School, 919, s. Albany street. Los Angeles, CA, information technology department , as the UNIX Systems Administrator for more than eight years. Prior to join Loyola he was at DTR Business Systems, Inc. Walnut, CA as unix systems integrator.r.[6] In order to assist his brother's Presidential election campaign, Rajapaksa returned to Sri Lanka in 2005.[citation needed] He has a US Green card.

Secretary to the Ministry of Defence

Gotabaya Rajapaksa was appointed to the post of Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence in November 2005 by newly elected President Mahinda Rajapaksa. In this capacity he oversaw the military operation which eventually defeated the LTTE in May, 2009 after 25 years of fighting.

Attempted assassination

On December 1, 2006, at approximately 10:35 an assassin attempted to drive an explosive laden auto-rikshaw into Rajapaksa's motorcade as it traveled through Kollupitiya, Colombo. The Sri Lanka Army Commandos guarding him obstructed the vehicle carrying the explosives before it reached Rajapakse's vehicle and two commandos were instantly killed. Rajapaksa however escaped unhurt.[1] The LTTE were blamed for the attack.[1]

Criticism of UN and western countries

In June 2007, Rajapaksa was severely critical of the UN in Sri Lanka and of western governments. He accused the UN in Sri Lanka of having been infiltrated by terrorists "for 30 years or so", and as a result the UN was fed incorrect information. He also alleged that Britain and the EU were bullying Sri Lanka, and concluded that Sri Lanka "does not need them", and that they don't provide any significant amount of aid to the country. Rajapaksa has also been accused to have connections to Lasantha Wickrematunge assassination with who he was locked in a legal battle where he was suing Wickrematunge's business for 2 billion Rs[7]

Controversies

Genocide and ethnic cleansing

The Rajapaksa family has been impplicated in the killing of tens of thousands of tamil civilians during the conflicts, particularly the last and most bloodiest war against the LTTE. Gothabaya has been accused of giving direct orders to destroy hospitals in the conflict zones. He is also implicated in the extra-judicial killings of human rights activists, dissident citizens and wealthy tamil individuals. A recent wikileaks publication reported that the United States believes the Rajapaksas to be directly resposnsible for the deaths of 10s of thousands of tamil civilians in the final throes of the 2009 war.

Relationship with the media

Rajapaksa has been accused of threatening journalists on several occasions, including telling two journalists attached to the state-owned Lake House Publications that unless they stop criticising the armed forces "what will happen to you is beyond my control". When asked by the two journalists if he was threatening them, he replied "I am definitely not threatening your lives. Our services are appreciated by 99 per cent of the people. They love the Army Commander (General Sarath Fonseka) and the Army. There are Sri Lankan patriots who love us do and will do what is required if necessary."[8] In April 2007 he was accused of allegedly calling the Editor of the Daily Mirror Champika Liyanaarachchi and threatening her, saying that she would escape reprisals only if she resigned.[9] He was also accused for threatening to "exterminate" the Daily Mirror journalist Uditha Jayasinghe for writing articles about the plight of civilian war casualties. Rajapaksa denied these claims.

A December 5, 2008 story from The New York Times quoted his news reporting position as "he insists that journalists should not be allowed to report anything that demoralizes the war effort."[10] Rajapaksa was locked in a legal battle with Lasantha Wickrematunge

Suppression of press freedom

Reporters Without Borders identifies Rajapaksa as a "predator" of the press.[11] The organization further claims that he is "openly hostile to the media and has not stopped targeting Sri Lankan and foreign journalists although the civil war ended in May 2009". RWB further states that "All the media who had criticised the president and his brother during the election campaigns were subject to reprisals".[11] Sri Lanka is currently at place number 162 of 175 in the press freedom ranking, and RWB attributes this partly to Rajapaksa's hostile relationship towards critical journalists.[12]

The former LTTE commander Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan, better known as Colonel Karuna, told British authorities that Rajapaksa was instrumental in arranging for him to be issued with a false diplomatic passport so that he could flee to Britain in September 2007. These allegations were denied by the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohita Bogollogama at the time,[13] and later by Mr Rajapaksa himself.

See also

Reading

  • Army, Sri Lanka. (1st Edition - October 1999). "50 YEARS ON" - 1949-1999, Sri Lanka Army. ISBN 995-8089-02-8
  • The Broken Palmyra - The Tamil Crisis in Sri Lanka: An Inside Account. The Sri Lanka Studies Institute, Claremont 1990. By Hoole, R., Somasundaram, D., Sritharan K., and Rajini Thiranagama. (Also available online.)
  • War and Peace in Sri Lanka: With a Post-Accord Report From Jaffna. ISBN 9552600014/ISBN 978-9552600012, Institute of Fundamental Studies, Sri Lanka; 1 edition (October 1, 1987), By Rohan Gunaratna.

References

  1. ^ a b c "CHRONOLOGY-Attacks blamed on Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers". Reuters. January 8, 2008.
  2. ^ "Honorary degrees to the President and Gota". Daily Mirror. September 5, 2009. Retrieved 2009-11-03. [dead link]
  3. ^ www.toplankanews.com
  4. ^ www.defence.lk
  5. ^ :: Daily Mirror - Opinion ::
  6. ^ "A war strange as fiction". The Economist. June 7, 2007. Retrieved 2009-11-03.
  7. ^ Buerk, Roland (June 12, 2007). "Sri Lanka accuses 'bullying' West". BBC News. Retrieved May 4, 2010.
  8. ^ Sunday Times - Death bells toll for the free media
  9. ^ :: Daily Mirror on the Web - Front Page ::
  10. ^ Sri Lankan Army Is Pushing for End to 25-Year War Against the Tamil Rebels, the New York Times, 5 December 2008
  11. ^ a b http://en.rsf.org/predator-gotabhaya-rajapakse,37303.html
  12. ^ http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2009,1001.html
  13. ^ "Gotabaya 'gave me passport'". BBC News. January 25, 2008. Retrieved 2009-11-03.

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