Sri Lanka’s embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was stopped from fleeing the country by immigration officials at the airport in Colombo. He wanted to get on a flight to Dubai. Will he consider taking the sea route or using a military craft to fly to India or the Maldives now?
He was the country’s most powerful man until a few months ago. But now fortunes have turned and Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is on the run, looking for an escape. The 73-year-old leader fled his official residence in Colombo hours before hundreds and thousands of protesters overran it on Saturday.
The president’s security made arrangements for Gotabaya to move to a safer place. He probably used an underground bunker built during the reign of his elder brother Mahinda and was moved to a naval base. After announcing that he would step down as president, Gotabaya has been trying to find a way to leave the country.
Before his official resignation is announced on 13 July, he wants to fly abroad. The position awards him immunity from arrest and he wants to avoid the possibility of detention after.
Also read: Explained: What happens in Sri Lanka after the president resigns?
Where was Gotabaya hiding?
Until Monday, speculation was rife about his whereabouts. Journalist and political analyst Kusal Perera told Al Jazeera that the president could have been taken to a navy ship through Colombo harbour.
He said the gunboats were on standby at the navy camp. “Therefore, I can assume that Gotabaya Rajapaksa might have been taken to the adjacent Sri Lanka navy camp through the underground bunker (in his residence) and then taken to some other location by the navy together with presidential security,” he told Al Jazeera.
According to a top defence official, the president and his aides had taken refuge at a navy facility in the island’s northeastern port city of Trincomalee. He was helicoptered back to the Katunayake airbase adjoining the country’s main international airport. “He and his entourage were flown back to Colombo in two Bell 412 choppers,” an official said.
Why couldn’t he escape to Dubai?On Tuesday, Gotabaya was attempting to flee to Dubai. He had a standoff with immigration officials at the Bandaranaike International airport in Colombo. They blocked his exit to fly abroad, reports news agency AFP.
The politician was reportedly waiting at the VIP lounge at the airport to stamp his passport. He was reluctant to go through the public facilities fearing that he would encounter regular Sri Lankans who would lash out at him.
The president and his wife spent the night at a military base next to the international airport after missing four flights to the United Arab Emirates.
Immigrant officials have said that they will not allow Gotabaya to leave the country until he does not resign.
Where will he go now?
So what does the president, who is still the commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces and has the military at his disposal, do next? He has the option of travelling in an air force aircraft but it remains to be seen what his next move is.
Gotabaya might only leave the country tomorrow after stepping down. He might try going to the Maldives or India using a military aircraft, say some reports.
Others suggest that after the humiliating stand-off with airport officials, the president might take the sea route. He was considering using a navy patrol craft to flee the island, official sources of AFP said.
A top defence source said the Gotabaya’s closest military aides were discussing the possibility of taking him and his entourage overseas aboard a naval patrol craft.
“The best option now is to take the sea exit,” the defence official said. “He could go to the Maldives or India and get a flight to Dubai.”
Another alternative, he added, would be to charter a plane to fly him from the country’s second international airport at Mattala opened in 2013, and was named after the president’s elder brother Mahinda, reports AFP.
Is Gota getting help from the air force?
Reports in some sections of the media said that Rajapaksa was currently staying at a private house belonging to Air Marshal Sudarshana Pathirana, the chief of the Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF). However, the force has dismissed the reports, describing them as “propaganda” to tarnish the force’s image, reports news agency PTI.
A spokesman of SLAF said a video released by Ajith Dharmapala, a former police officer, claimed that President Rajapaksa was staying at the house belonging to Pathirana. Spokesman Dushan Wijesinghe said that “there was no truth behind the reports and it was propaganda to tarnish the image of the SLAF and its chief”, the Daily Mirror newspaper reported
What about the other Rajapaksa brothers?
The youngest of the Rajapaksas, Basil, who resigned in April as finance minister, missed his Emirates flight to Dubai early Tuesday after a similar standoff with the airport staff.
Basil, who holds US citizenship in addition to Sri Lankan nationality, tried to use a paid concierge service for business travellers, but the airport and immigration staff said they were withdrawing from the fast track service with immediate effect.
“There were some other passengers who protested against Basil boarding their flight,” an airport official told AFP. “It was a tense situation, so he hurriedly left the airport.”
Basil had to obtain a new US passport after leaving his behind at the presidential palace when the Rajapaksas beat a hasty retreat to avoid mobs on Saturday, a diplomatic source said.
While Gotabaya Rajapaksa is looking for an escape, his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa has been banned from leaving the country by a Sri Lankan court. AFP
In May, after Mahinda stepped down as prime minister, he left Colombo with his family under heavy security and took refuge at the naval base in Trincomalee.
Mahinda Rajapaksa, his wife Shiranthi, and their youngest son Rohitha and his family, left the Prime Minister’s official residence, Temple Trees, on 10 May on board an Air Force helicopter and had taken refuge at the heavily guarded naval base, an informed military source had said then.
Reports have also revealed that Rajapaksa’s second son, Yositha, who was also the former prime minister’s secretary, and his family had left the country in May.
There was speculation then that Mahinda and his family had fled to India. However, the Indian High Commission in Sri Lanka had rubbished the “fake and blatantly false rumours”.
“The High Commission has recently noticed rumours circulating in sections of media and social media that certain political persons and their families have fled to India. These are fake and blatantly false reports, devoid of any truth or substance. The High Commission strongly denies them,” a statement said in May.
A Sri Lankan court had on 12 May banned Mahinda Rajapaksa, his other son Namal, and 15 allies from leaving the country over acts of violence against anti-government demonstrators. However, his whereabouts remain a mystery.
Little is known about the location of Chamal Rajapaksa, the eldest of the siblings, who held the irrigation portfolio before being forced to step down because of the growing protests against the powerful family.
With inputs from agencies
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