Roving Periscope: India says no role in Gotabaya escape, as Sri Lanka faces more uncertainty

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: After the President fled to Male, sparking massive public outrage across Sri Lanka, Colombo declared a state of emergency and clamped a curfew on Wednesday, as India rejected rumors it helped Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his brother Basil flee to the Maldives.

Anti-India elements in Sri Lanka, with alleged Chinese support, also spread the rumor that India was sending troops to the island nation. The Indian High Commission in Sri Lanka dismissed these reports.

In New Delhi, Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, stated that India stands with the people of Sri Lanka as they seek to realize their aspirations for prosperity and progress.

A panicked Gotabaya fled before officially resigning, as he would have lost immunity from arrest as soon as he ceased to be the President. He, his wife, and two bodyguards were the four passengers on board a military aircraft that took off from Lanka’s main international airport, the media reported.

According to some reports, Gotabaya had signed his resignation on Monday and had the letter submitted to the Speaker on Wednesday. However, the Speaker denied it, saying he is yet to receive the President’s resignation.

Enraged at reports that Gotabaya, who had promised to resign on Wednesday, had instead fled to Male, thousands of people mobbed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s office, took over his residence, and pushed against the gates of Lankan parliament.

In a televised statement, a concerned Wickremesinghe directed the military and police to restore order and arrest rioters. They have imposed an indefinite curfew across the Western Province, including Colombo, to contain the escalating protests.

Meanwhile, Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena said that President Gotabaya will send his resignation later on Wednesday, as promised, and that PM Wickremesinghe has been appointed as the acting President.

As the situation spun out of control, Sri Lanka’s state-run TV network, Rupavahini Corporation, briefly suspended its telecast after protesters entered the TV station.

Police used tear gas and water cannons to prevent crowds from overrunning the Prime Minister’s office. Wickremesinghe has already said he will step down once an all-party government is ready to take over. Sri Lanka’s political parties have stepped up efforts to form an all-party government and elect a new President on July 20.

As President Gotabaya continued to be the supreme commander of the defense forces, the defense officials obliged him with an aircraft last night. On their arrival in the Maldives, his small entourage was driven to an undisclosed location under a police escort.

As the politico-economic situation started deteriorating in March, India has been apprehensive of the geopolitical fallout of the happenings in Sri Lanka. The Rajapakse clan had brutally crushed Tamil separatism and terrorism in northern Sri Lanka and were quite unpopular in India’s state of Tamil Nadu. One of their leaders in this long-drawn anti-Tamil operation was Lt. Col. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who later became the President.

On July 9, when he fled the President’s House after tens of thousands of demonstrators stormed it, there was some speculation that he might take refuge in neighboring India.

To nip this possibility in the bud, External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar, a Tamil himself, clarified on Sunday the Sri Lankan crisis is a “serious matter” and India is focusing on how to help people in their economic crisis. He also clarified that India is focused only on the neighboring country’s economic crisis, meaning that it had no interest in the political developments of Sri Lanka. He also underlined that India had given Sri Lanka a USD 3.8 billion line of credit to buy food, fuel, and medicines.

Even if Gotabaya (or his other family members) had sought refuge in India, New Delhi pre-empted them with this subtle message: that they are unpopular not only in Sri Lanka but also in India, and, therefore, unwelcome.

With the demonstrators still occupying the President’s House and the Prime Minister’s residence, insisting they would leave only after a new government took charge, Gotabaya had no option but to look for other places to flee.  Only bigger, civilian aircraft would have taken him to the UAE—his brother Basil tried this trick two days ago; his naval or air force planes could have taken him only up to the Maldives. That’s what he did on Wednesday.