Wijeyedasa Rajapakshe…Ministers who criticized me should take the responsibility for the Easter attacks on churches and hotels
There had been enough early warnings about the devastating terrorist attacks on Easter Sunday on April 21, according to Minister of Education and Higher Education of the present government.
Wijeyedasa Rajapakshe (no relation of former president Mahinda Rajapakse) said during a recent interview that on November 18, 2016 he warned in the parliament that a radical Islamic outfit called National Thowheeth Jamaath, which included members of four affluent Sri Lankan Muslim families, had begun operating from the east.
“I was heavily criticized in the parliament. Minister Rajitha Senaratne said in a press conference that the intelligence units had not received any such information. Present Minister of Finance Mangala Samaraweera branded me as a racist adding that I am whipping up ethnic and religious tensions. MP Mujibur Rahman cursed me,” he said during a press interview.
“All these politicians should own the responsibility for the carnage that happened on April 21,” the Minister of Education and Higher Education said.
Mujibur Rahman is an MP in the governing United National Party (UNP). He served as a member of the Western Provincial Council for years before becoming a parliamentarian in 2015.
Wijeyedasa was the first person to ask President Maithripala Sirisena to sack the Inspector General of Police and Defence Secretary for failure to forward the advance warnings about the Easter attack to relevant authorities. The president is the minister of defence.
Defence Secretary Hamasiri Fernando had resigned on the orders of the president but IGP Pujith Jayasundera has not still quit. The approval of the parliament is needed to sack him as the Speaker of Parliament had appointed the police chief.
“When I heard that President Sirisena was going to appoint Jayasundera as the IGP, I personally went to meet him and told him not to do so as he was not qualified to hold such a responsible post. He would have been ideal to hold a post like the chairman of the film corporation, considering his inclination for showbusiness. Defence Secretary Fernando’s only qualification was he served as a commodore in the Navy Volunteer Force. Later he started to sell paints to the army launching a side business,” Rajapkshe said.
The defence ministry functions under the president and he should have appointed a qualified professional to hold that responsible position. When the foreign media asked from the defence secretary about the suicide bomb attacks he had said that he knew about the warnings but ‘never thought that the attacks would be on such a massive scale.’
Wijedasa said if the country had intelligence units of pre-2009 level a calamity of this nature would not have happened.
“The present government jailed 44 Intelligence officers and posted some to insignificant posts, destroying the efficiency of our intelligence units. Prime minister and the president say they did not know about the warnings. Minister Harin Fernando says his father who is under treatment in an Intensive Care Unit asked him not to go to church for Easter mass because there was a warning about an attack. Minister of National Dialogue Mano Ganesan who rushed to the St. Anthony’s Church after the shrine was destroyed said he heard about the attack one week before. What I am asking is why couldn’t these key government ministers at least inform the cardinal to save innocent lives if they knew about that heinous crime. If a man begging in the street near the church heard about this, he would have definitely given the information to the parish priest.”
The intelligence service personnel also became victims in 2001, during Chandrika Kumaratunga government over Millennium City incident, Wijedasa said. Widespread media coverage and miscommunication between the Directorate of Military Intelligence and the Sri Lanka Police resulted in the exposure of military covert operations known only to high-ranking military officers and the then President Chandrika Kumaratunga. “The LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) massacred 38 of those officers,” Wijedasa said.
He was a fearless critic of his government’s dubious policies and was sacked from the government in August 2017 from his cabinet portfolio of justice and Buddhist affairs for criticizing the government. He criticized the leasing of Hambanthtota harbour for 99 years. Addressing a press conference after he lost his cabinet post he said it was ‘embarrassed to remain in a government that were selling national assets to foreign countries’.
In May 2018 he accepted the cabinet post of higher education on the invitation of the president and prime minister.
While engaged in his legal practice, he held several public offices such as Chairman of the Rent Board of Review, Chairman of Sri Lanka Press Council, Vice President of the World Association of Press Council, Director of National Film Corporation, Director Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation, Managing Director Associated Newspaper Ceylon (Lake House), Panel Chairman, to inquire into the allegations of misconduct against Attorneys-at-Law, Chairman of Disciplinary Committee, to inquire into the charges of doping, against athletes according to Wikipedia. – www.newstrails.com
