The former General Officer, Commanding the 53 Division that had been credited with killing LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, on the morning of May 19, 2009, too, can help throw light on the issues that brought the curtain down on President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, in a worldwide shocking situation. The NDC has allocated Weeratunga approximately 30 mts for his speech, to be delivered after Gen. Perhaps, it was the first re-appointment of a Secretary to a Ministry, made by the new President, amidst unprecedented turmoil.Ĭolonel Nalin Herath, Officiating Director, Media, in a statement, dated August 03, stated: “The event is exclusively designed to promote defence research culture and create an environment to explore research ideas, related to the discipline of national security and strategic studies.”Īs the Principal Advisor to the ex-President, Weeratunga, who had joined the Sri Lanka Administrative Service (SLAS), in 1977, can speak authoritatively of the entire gamut of developments since the last presidential election in Nov 2019, thereby helping the public understand what really went wrong, if he cares.

UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, who received the parliamentary endorsement as the eighth President (to complete the remainder of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s five-year term), re-appointed the battle-tested Gajaba Regiment veteran Gunaratne as the Secretary, Ministry of Defence. Secretary to the Ministry of Defence, General (ret.) Kamal Gunaratne, will be the Chief Guest. Weeratunga will deliver the keynote address at the inaugural National Defence College (NDC) symposium 2022 at the auditorium of the Faculty of Graduate Studies, Sir John Kotelawela Defence University, on August 17. The Defence Ministry couldn’t have chosen a better person than Lalith Chandrakumar Weeratunga (72), former Principal Advisor to ousted President Gotabaya Rajapaksa (73), to discuss contemporary security issues and related matters with the military, the police and the academia. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, whose entry into active politics had been facilitated by civil society organizations, ‘Viyathmaga’ and ‘Eliya’, gave up his US citizenship, to enter the fray. The 19th Amendment also prevented dual and foreign citizens from contesting presidential and parliamentary polls, under any circumstances. The yahapalana government brought in the 19th Amendment, in 2015,limiting the presidential terms to two, to deprive Mahinda Rajapaksa the opportunity to contest the presidency again. In fact, the UNP, with the support of the then President Maithripala Sirisena, paved the way for Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s candidature, at the 2019 presidential election, by blocking Mahinda Rajapaksa’s path to contest another term.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s two years in office – a period of unprecedented political turmoil, uncertainty and further deterioration of Parliament – should be thoroughly examined.

Blood island