Ex-Presidents and their security

Tuesday 1st October, 2024

The NPP government has stripped the members of the last Parliament of police protection, and asked the latter to return the firearms issued by the State. The ex-NPP MPs do not have to worry about their security; one of them has been elected President and the other two are Cabinet Ministers. The government has also decided to consider scaling down security provided to former Presidents, according to media reports.

It does not make any sense to assign police personnel to protect former MPs who are not facing any threats, but the government had better tread cautiously in effecting changes to special security arrangements in place to protect the former Presidents, especially those who provided political leadership for the country’s war against the LTTE. First of all, the new administration must learn from history, order a proper threat assessment and take cognisance of risks and dangers in the process of reducing VIP security.

Sri Lanka has been no stranger to political assassinations and terrorism. There have also been other instances of savage violence, which led to political upheavals. The assassination of Lalith Athulathmudali in 1993 is a case in point. He was deprived of security after being expelled from the Premadasa government, which chose to settle political scores with him, despite serious threats to his life, and his death at the hands of a gunman during a political rally triggered a tsunami of civil unrest. The government leaders of the day including President Ranasinghe Premadasa incurred the wrath of the public and ruined the UNP’s electoral prospects.

Sri Lanka is one of the countries caught in geopolitical vortices with external forces advancing sinister geostrategic agendas at their expense, and it must therefore not leave the security of its leaders to chance; the foreign powers seeking to retain global dominance are notorious for doing everything in their power to destabilise the nations that refuse to do their bidding.

It may be recalled that ousted Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has gone on record as saying that she would still have been in power if she had allowed the US to gain control over St. Martin Island. It has also been alleged that there was a foreign hand in the ouster of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2022. In March 2024, the then Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardane informed Parliament that some foreign envoys had pressured him to take over the presidency in violation of the Constitution after Gotabaya had fled the country in 2022.

The SDIG in charge of the CID and the Director of the CID during the Yahapalana government––Ravi Seneviratne and Shanie Abeysekera, respectively–– are among those who said in their testimonies before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry which probed the Easter Sunday attacks that there had been a foreign involvement in the carnage. Seneviratne is currently the Secretary to the Ministry of Public Security and Abeysekera is also backing the NPP government to the hilt. One may recall that the debilitation of the Sri Lankan economy commenced with the Easter Sunday attacks, which crippled tourism, in 2019. The bombers deliberately targeted hotels and tourists. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, who was the Minister of Justice in the Yahapalana government has, in a television interview, attributed the Easter Sunday attacks to the hostile reaction of some foreign powers to handover of the Hambantota Port to China. The leaders of the new dispensation should realise the gravity of the situation and act cautiously in respect of security issues.

The fact that there have been no terror attacks and political assassinations for the past several years is no reason why the defence authorities should consider the country safe enough for the former Presidents to move about without special security.

The government cannot be faulted for exploring ways and means of curtailing expenditure the state incurs to maintain the former Presidents. Whether the ex-Presidents should be given houses and provided with other facilities at the expense of the public is debatable. None of them are without their own residences. They did not live in rented houses before their ascension to the presidency. Legal action may be taken against them for their alleged transgressions while in power. But their protection must not be compromised.