Sri Lanka’s ousted former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa returned to the country on Friday, an airport official said, seven weeks after fleeing amid the island’s worst economic crisis.
Rajapaksa was decked out with flowers by a welcoming party of ministers and politicians as he disembarked at the main international airport, the official added – in a sign of his lasting influence in the Indian Ocean nation, critics say, has led him to ruin .
“There was a rush of government politicians to wreath him as he got off the plane,” the official told AFP.
Rajapaksa fled Sri Lanka under military escort in mid-July after unarmed crowds stormed his official residence after months of angry demonstrations blaming him for the country’s unprecedented economic crisis.
He tendered his resignation from Singapore before flying on to Thailand, from where he had asked his successor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, to facilitate his return.
The 73-year-old leader arrived on a commercial flight from Bangkok via Singapore, ending his 52-day self-imposed exile.
“He was practically living as a prisoner in a Thai hotel and was dying to return,” a defense official, who asked not to be named, told AFP.
“We just created a new security department to protect him upon his return,” the official added.
“The unit consists of army and police commands.”
Opposition politicians accuse 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 older brother and fellow ex-president Mahinda.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation ended his immunity as president, and human rights activists said they would press for his arrest on multiple charges, including his alleged role in the 2009 killing of prominent newspaper editor Lasantha Wickrematunge.
“We welcome his decision to return so we can bring him to justice for the crimes he committed,” said Tharindu Jayawardhana, a spokesman for the Sri Lanka Young Journalists’ Association.
Rajapaksa also faces charges in a California state court for the murder of Wickrematunge and the torturing of Tamil prisoners at the end of the island’s traumatic civil war in 2009.
– High security conditions –
Singapore refused to extend Rajapaksa’s short-term visa and he traveled to Thailand in August, but authorities in Bangkok told him not to leave his hotel for his own safety.
Rajapaksa’s youngest brother Basil, the former finance minister, met with Wickremesinghe last month and asked for protection so the deposed leader could return.
On Friday, police deployed plainclothes officers and armed guards outside a government residence in Colombo that was assigned to Rajapaksa before his arrival.
Security at his private home has also been tightened, officials said, adding that he was expected to visit the family residence first.
Sri Lanka has endured months of shortages of essential commodities such as food, fuel and medicines, lengthy power outages and skyrocketing inflation after the foreign exchange to finance key imports ran out.
The coronavirus pandemic dealt a hammer blow to the island’s tourism industry and dried up remittances from Sri Lankans working abroad – both major foreign exchange earners.
Rajapaksa, elected in 2019 and promising “prospects of prosperity and splendor,” took a nosedive in popularity as troubles multiplied for the country’s 22 million people.
His government has been accused of instituting unsustainable tax cuts that pushed up public debt and deepened the crisis.
Wickremesinghe was elected by Parliament to lead the remainder of Rajapaksa’s term. Since then he has cracked down on street protests and arrested leading activists.
The government defaulted on its $51 billion in external debt in April, and the central bank is forecasting a record eight percent contraction in GDP this year.
After months of negotiations, the International Monetary Fund on Thursday agreed to a conditional $2.9 billion bailout to repair Sri Lanka’s struggling finances.