COLOMBO: Ousted Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa has returned home to a state-provided official residence and taxpayer-funded security after fleeing the country in July, two senior officials said on Saturday.
Rajapaksa fled in the early hours of July 13 after massive protests engulfed Colombo and demonstrators enraged with the economic devastation they blamed on his government stormed his official residence and office.
He resigned after arriving in Singapore and later travelled to Thailand, where he had been holed up in a luxury hotel in Bangkok.
A Sri Lanka government spokesman and the president’s office did not immediately reply to emails seeking comment on Rajapaksa’s return.
The former president met with a group of ruling party members and lawmakers at the airport early Saturday before being whisked to the residence allocated by the government.
A senior official said Rajapaksa has not indicated his plans.
“What he told us last night was that he needs some time as he wasn’t even allowed to step out of his room (in Bangkok) due to security reasons,” one official said, adding Rajapaksa had not even been allowed to go to the gym.
“Once he has spent some time at home he will let us know what he wants to do,” said the official, who asked not to be named.
Rajapaksa was festooned with flowers by a welcoming party of ministers and politicians as he disembarked early Saturday at the main international airport in Colombo — a sign of his enduring influence in a nation that critics say he led to ruin.
“There was a rush of government politicians to garland him as he came out of the aircraft,” an official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The 73-year-old leader arrived from Bangkok via Singapore on a commercial flight, ending his 52-day self-imposed exile.
“He has been living in a Thai hotel as a virtual prisoner and was keen to return,” a defence official, who asked not to be named, told AFP.
“We have just created a new security division to protect him after his return. The unit comprises elements from the army and police commandos.”
Opposition politicians have accused new President Ranil Wickremesinghe of shielding the once-powerful Rajapaksa family.
Sri Lanka’s constitution guarantees bodyguards, a vehicle and housing for former presidents, including Gotabaya and his elder brother and fellow ex-president Mahinda.
But Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation ended his presidential immunity, and rights activists said they would press for his arrest on multiple charges, including his alleged role in the 2009 assassination of prominent newspaper editor Lasantha Wickrematunge.
“We welcome his decision to return so that we can bring him to justice for the crimes he has committed,” said Tharindu Jayawardhana, a spokesman for the Sri Lanka Young Journalists’ Association.
Rajapaksa also faces charges in a court in the US state of California over Wickrematunge’s murder and the torture of Tamil prisoners at the end of the island’s traumatic civil war in 2009.
Tight security
On Friday police deployed plainclothes officers and armed guards outside a government residence allocated to Gotabaya Rajapaksa in Colombo ahead of his arrival.
Security at his private home was also stepped up, officials said, adding that he was expected to first visit the family residence.
Sri Lanka has endured months of shortages of crucial goods including food, fuel and medicines, along with lengthy electricity blackouts and skyrocketing inflation after running out of foreign currency to finance essential imports.
The coronavirus pandemic dealt a hammer blow to the island’s tourism industry and dried up remittances from Sri Lankans working abroad — both key foreign exchange earners.
Rajapaksa, who was elected in 2019 promising “vistas of prosperity and splendour”, saw his popularity nosedive as hardships multiplied for the country’s 22 million people.
His government was accused of introducing unsustainable tax cuts that drove up government debt and exacerbated the crisis.
Wickremesinghe was elected by parliament to see out the remainder of Rajapaksa’s term. He has since cracked down on street protests and arrested leading activists.
The government defaulted on its $51-billion foreign debt in April and the central bank forecasts a record 8% GDP contraction this year.
After months of negotiations, the International Monetary Fund agreed on Thursday to a conditional $2.9-billion bailout package to repair Sri Lanka’s battered finances.