A comparative analysis
Adolf Hitler, the leader of Germany’s Nazi Party, was one of the most powerful and
notorious dictators of the 20th century. Hitler capitalized on economic woes, popular
discontent and political infighting to take absolute power in Germany beginning in 1933.
Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939 led to the outbreak of World War II, and by 1941
Nazi forces had occupied much of Europe. Hitler’s virulent anti-Semitism and obsessive
pursuit of Aryan supremacy fueled the murder of some 6 million Jews, along with other
victims of the Holocaust. After the tide of war turned against him, Hitler committed
suicide in a Berlin bunker in April 1945.
Nandasena Gotabaya Rajapaksa, [11] RWP, RSP, psc , GR (born 20 June 1949) is a
former military officer currently serving as the 8th President of Sri Lanka since 2019. He
has previously served as Secretary to the Ministry of Defence and Urban
Development from 2005 to 2015 under the administration of his elder brother former
President Mahinda Rajapaksa , leading the Sri Lankan Armed Forces to the military
defeat of the Tamil tigers, which ended the Sri Lankan Civil War.
In 2018, he emerged as a possible candidate for the 2019 presidential election,
however due to the bad reputation of his brother Mahinda and the misdeeds of the
Rajapaksha Family he had to make a case to be elected. For this he used the support
of the Islamic Terror Group of Zaharan Hashim that had links to the ISIS. This group
was also funded by the MOD during the time of Gotabaya in the pretext of taking them
as intelligence informers. This group executed a wave suicide attacks on the Catholic
Churches and Star Class hotels in Colombo on the Easter Sunday of 2019 that left 400
dead and many injured and created a security instability in the country which he
successfully capitalized and contested on a pro-nationalistic, economic development
and national security platform. He is the first person with military background to be
elected as President of Sri Lanka and also the first person to be elected president who
had not held an elected office prior.
In comparison with Hitler Gotabaya too capitalized on economic woes, popular
discontent and political infighting to take absolute power in Sri Lanka with 6.9 Million
voting in his favour.
Early Life
Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn, a small Austrian town near
the Austro-German frontier. After his father, Alois, retired as a state customs official,
young Adolf spent most of his childhood in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria.
Not wanting to follow in his father’s footsteps as a civil servant, he began struggling in
secondary school and eventually dropped out. Alois died in 1903, and Adolf pursued his
dream of being an artist, though he was rejected from Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts.
After his mother, Klara, died in 1908, Hitler moved to Vienna, where he pieced together
a living painting scenery and monuments and selling the images. Lonely, isolated and a
voracious reader, Hitler became interested in politics during his years in Vienna, and
developed many of the ideas that would shape Nazi ideology.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa was born in Palatuwa in the Matara District , as the fifth of nine
siblings, and was brought up in Weeraketiya in the southern
rural district of Hambantota . Born to a prominent political family from the Southern
Province, Rajapaksa was educated at Ananda College, Colombo and joined the Sri
Lankan Army in April 1971. Following basic training at the Army Training Centre,
Diyatalawa, he was commissioned as signals officer and later transferred to
several infantry regiments He saw active service in the early stages of the Sri Lankan
Civil War with the elite Gajaba Regiment , taking part in several major offensives such as
the Vadamarachi Operation , Operation Strike Hard and Operation Thrividha Balaya, as
well as counter-insurgency operations during the 1987–1989 JVP insurrection.
He took early retirement from the army and moved into the field of information
technology, before immigrating to the United States in 1998. He returned to Sri Lanka in
2005, to assist his brother in his presidential campaign and was appointed Defence
Secretary in his brother's administration. During his tenure the Sri Lankan Armed Forces
successfully concluded the Sri Lankan Civil War defeating the Tamil Tigers and killing
its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran in 2009. He was a target of an assassination attempt in
December 2006 by a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber. Following the war, Rajapaksa initiated
many urban development projects. He stepped down following the defeat of his brother
in the 2015 Presidential election.
Military Career
In 1913, Hitler moved to Munich, in the German state of Bavaria. When World War
I broke out the following summer, he successfully petitioned the Bavarian king to be
allowed to volunteer in a reserve infantry regiment.
Deployed in October 1914 to Belgium, Hitler served throughout the Great War and won
two decorations for bravery, including the rare Iron Cross First Class, which he wore to
the end of his life.
Hitler was wounded twice during the conflict: He was hit in the leg during the Battle of
the Somme in 1916, and temporarily blinded by a British gas attack near Ypres in 1918.
A month later, he was recuperating in a hospital at Pasewalk, northeast of Berlin, when
news arrived of the armistice and Germany’s defeat in World War I.
Like many Germans, Hitler came to believe the country’s devastating defeat could be
attributed not to the Allies, but to insufficiently patriotic “traitors” at home—a myth that
would undermine the post-war Weimar Republic and set the stage for Hitler’s rise.
Rajapaksa joined the Sri Lankan Army as a Cadet Officer on 26 April 1971, when Sri
Lanka was still a dominion of the British Commonwealth and was in the midst of
the 1971 JVP insurrection. Following his basic officer training at the Army Training
Centre, Diyatalawa in its 4th intake, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant on
26 May 1972, in the Sri Lanka Signals Corps.
During his 20 years of military service, Rajapaksa has received awards for gallantry
from three Presidents of Sri Lanka, J.R. Jayewardene, Ranasinghe
Premadasa and D.B. Wijetunga. These include the gallantry medals, Rana Wickrama
Padakkama and Rana Sura Padakkama .
Gotabaya disgracefully used the Buddhist Clergy and certain politicians of his party to
make a wave of attacks and allegations to the Muslims whilst the then government of
Sirisena and Ranil remained desperate. Following Hitler’s footsteps Gotabaya created a
fear among the Muslims and took their loyalty by force. This was seen when the voting
for the 20 th Amendment was taken on the 22 nd evening in the parliament.
Political Life ( this is important and given in detail)
After Hitler returned to Munich in late 1918, he joined the small German Workers’ Party,
which aimed to unite the interests of the working class with a strong German
nationalism. His skilled oratory and charismatic energy helped propel him in the party’s
ranks, and in 1920 he left the army and took charge of its propaganda efforts.
In one of Hitler’s strokes of propaganda genius, the newly renamed National Socialist
German Workers Party, or Nazi Party, adopted a version of the ancient symbol of the
hakenkreuz, or hooked cross, as its emblem. Printed in a white circle on a red
background, Hitler’s swastika would take on terrifying symbolic power in the years to
come.
By the end of 1921, Hitler led the growing Nazi Party, capitalizing on widespread
discontent with the Weimar Republic and the punishing terms of the Versailles Treaty.
Many dissatisfied former army officers in Munich would join the Nazis, notably Ernst
Röhm, who recruited the “strong arm” squads—known as the Sturmabteilung
(SA)—which Hitler used to protect party meetings and attack opponents.
On the evening of November 8, 1923, members of the SA and others forced their way
into a large beer hall where another right-wing leader was addressing the crowd.
Wielding a revolver, Hitler proclaimed the beginning of a national revolution and led
marchers to the center of Munich, where they got into a gun battle with police.
Hitler fled quickly, but he and other rebel leaders were later arrested. Even though it
failed spectacularly, the Beer Hall Putsch established Hitler as a national figure, and (in
the eyes of many) a hero of right-wing nationalism.
Tried for treason, Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison, but would serve only nine
months in the relative comfort of Landsberg Castle. During this period, he began to
dictate the book that would become "Mein Kampf" (“My Struggle”), the first volume of
which was published in 1925.
In it, Hitler expanded on the nationalistic, anti-Semitic views he had begun to develop in
Vienna in his early twenties, and laid out plans for the Germany—and the world—he
sought to create when he came to power.
Hitler would finish the second volume of "Mein Kampf" after his release, while relaxing
in the mountain village of Berchtesgaden. It sold modestly at first, but with Hitler’s rise it
became Germany’s best-selling book after the Bible. By 1940, it had sold some 6 million
copies there.
Hitler’s second book, “The Zweites Buch,” was written in 1928 and contained his
thoughts on foreign policy. It was not published in his lifetime due to the poor initial
sales of “Mein Kampf.” The first English translations of “The Zweites Buch” did not
appear until 1962 and was published under the title “Hitler's Secret Book.”
Obsessed with race and the idea of ethnic “purity,” Hitler saw a natural order that placed
the so-called “Aryan race” at the top.
For him, the unity of the Volk (the German people) would find its truest
incarnation not in democratic or parliamentary government, but in one supreme
leader, or Führer.
"Mein Kampf" also addressed the need for Lebensraum (or living space): In order to
fulfill its destiny, Germany should take over lands to the east that were now occupied by
“inferior” Slavic peoples—including Austria, the Sudetenland (Czechoslovakia), Poland
and Russia.
By the time Hitler left prison, economic recovery had restored some popular support for
the Weimar Republic, and support for right-wing causes like Nazism appeared to be
waning.
Over the next few years, Hitler laid low and worked on reorganizing and reshaping the
Nazi Party. He established the Hitler Youth to organize youngsters, and created
the Schutzstaffel (SS) as a more reliable alternative to the SA.
Members of the SS wore black uniforms and swore a personal oath of loyalty to Hitler.
(After 1929, under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler, the SS would develop from a
group of some 200 men into a force that would dominate Germany and terrorize the rest
of occupied Europe during World War II.)
In 1932, Hitler ran against the war hero Paul von Hindenburg for president, and
received 36.8 percent of the vote. With the government in chaos, three successive
chancellors failed to maintain control, and in late January 1933 Hindenburg named the
43-year-old Hitler as chancellor, capping the stunning rise of an unlikely leader.
January 30, 1933 marked the birth of the Third Reich, or as the Nazis called it, the
“Thousand-Year Reich” (after Hitler’s boast that it would endure for a millennium).
Though the Nazis never attained more than 37 percent of the vote at the height of their
popularity in 1932, Hitler was able to grab absolute power in Germany largely due to
divisions and inaction among the majority who opposed Nazism.
After a devastating fire at Germany’s parliament building, the Reichstag, in February
1933—possibly the work of a Dutch communist, though later evidence suggested Nazis
set the Reichstag fire themselves—Hitler had an excuse to step up the political
oppression and violence against his opponents.
On March 23, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, giving full powers to Hitler
and celebrating the union of National Socialism with the old German
establishment (i.e., Hindenburg).
That July, the government passed a law stating that the Nazi Party “constitutes the only
political party in Germany,” and within months all non-Nazi parties, trade unions and
other organizations had ceased to exist.
His autocratic power now secure within Germany, Hitler turned his eyes toward the rest
of Europe.
Hitler's Foreign Policy
In 1933, Germany was diplomatically isolated, with a weak military and hostile
neighbors (France and Poland). In a famous speech in May 1933, Hitler struck a
surprisingly conciliatory tone, claiming Germany supported disarmament and peace.
But behind this appeasement strategy, the domination and expansion of the Volk
remained Hitler’s overriding aim.
By early the following year, he had withdrawn Germany from the League of Nations and
begun to militarize the nation in anticipation of his plans for territorial conquest.
Night of the Long Knives
On June 29, 1934, the infamous Night of the Long Knives, Hitler had Röhm, former
Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and hundreds of other problematic members of his own
party murdered, in particular troublesome members of the SA.
When the 86-year-old Hindenburg died on August 2, military leaders agreed to
combine the presidency and chancellorship into one position, meaning Hitler
would command all the armed forces of the Reich.
Persecution of Jews
On September 15, 1935, passage of the Nuremberg Laws deprived Jews of German
citizenship, and barred them from marrying or having relations with persons of “German
or related blood.”
Though the Nazis attempted to downplay its persecution of Jews in order to placate the
international community during the 1936 Berlin Olympics (in which German-Jewish
athletes were not allowed to compete), additional decrees over the next few years
disenfranchised Jews and took away their political and civil rights.
In addition to its pervasive anti-Semitism, Hitler’s government also sought to establish
the cultural dominance of Nazism by burning books, forcing newspapers out of
business, using radio and movies for propaganda purposes and forcing teachers
throughout Germany’s educational system to join the party.
Much of the Nazi persecution of Jews and other targets occurred at the hands of the
Geheime Staatspolizei (GESTAPO), or Secret State Police, an arm of the SS that
expanded during this period.
In March 1936, against the advice of his generals, Hitler ordered German troops to
reoccupy the demilitarized left bank of the Rhine.
Over the next two years, Germany concluded alliances with Italy and Japan, annexed
Austria and moved against Czechoslovakia—all essentially without resistance from
Great Britain, France or the rest of the international community.
Once he confirmed the alliance with Italy in the so-called “Pact of Steel” in May 1939,
Hitler then signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union. On September 1, 1939,
Nazi troops invaded Poland, finally prompting Britain and France to declare war on
Germany.
Blitzkrieg
After ordering the occupation of Norway and Denmark in April 1940, Hitler adopted a
plan proposed by one of his generals to attack France through the Ardennes Forest.
The blitzkrieg (“lightning war”) attack began on May 10; Holland quickly surrendered,
followed by Belgium.
German troops made it all the way to the English Channel, forcing British and French
forces to evacuate en masse from Dunkirk in late May. On June 22, France was forced
to sign an armistice with Germany.
Hitler had hoped to force Britain to seek peace as well, but when that failed he went
ahead with his attacks on that country, followed by an invasion of the Soviet Union in
June 1941.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor that December, the United States declared war on
Japan, and Germany’s alliance with Japan demanded that Hitler declare war on the
United States as well.
At that point in the conflict, Hitler shifted his central strategy to focus on breaking the
alliance of his main opponents (Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union) by
forcing one of them to make peace with him.
Beginning in 1933, the SS had operated a network of concentration camps, including a
notorious camp at Dachau, near Munich, to hold Jews and other targets of the Nazi
regime.
After war broke out, the Nazis shifted from expelling Jews from German-controlled
territories to exterminating them. Einsatzgruppen, or mobile death squads, executed
entire Jewish communities during the Soviet invasion, while the existing concentration-
camp network expanded to include death camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau in occupied
Poland.
In addition to forced labor and mass execution, certain Jews at Auschwitz were targeted
as the subjects of horrific medical experiments carried out by eugenicist Josef Mengele,
known as the “Angel of Death.” Mengele’s experiments focused on twins and exposed
3,000 child prisoners to disease, disfigurement and torture under the guise of medical
research.
Though the Nazis also imprisoned and killed Catholics, homosexuals, political
dissidents, Roma (gypsies) and the disabled, above all they targeted Jews—some 6
million of whom were killed in German-occupied Europe by war’s end.
Assassination attempts
With defeats at El-Alamein and Stalingrad, as well as the landing of U.S. troops in North
Africa by the end of 1942, the tide of the war turned against Germany.
As the conflict continued, Hitler became increasingly unwell, isolated and dependent on
medications administered by his personal physician.
Several attempts were made on his life, including one that came close to succeeding in
July 1944, when Col. Claus von Stauffenberg planted a bomb that exploded during a
conference at Hitler’s headquarters in East Prussia.
Within a few months of the successful Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944, the
Allies had begun liberating cities across Europe. That December, Hitler attempted to
direct another offensive through the Ardennes, trying to split British and American
forces.
But after January 1945, he holed up in a bunker beneath the Chancellery in Berlin. With
Soviet forces closing in, Hitler made plans for a last-ditch resistance before finally
abandoning that plan.
In order to assist his brother's presidential election campaign, Rajapaksa returned to Sri
Lanka from the United States in 2005. He obtained dual citizenship from Sri Lanka but
kept his US citizenship. Gotabaya Rajapaksa was appointed to the post of Permanent
Secretary of the Ministry of Defence in November 2005 by newly elected President
Mahinda Rajapaksa. In this capacity, he oversaw the military operation which eventually
defeated the LTTE in May 2009.
With his position, Rajapaksa also pursued projects like the Colombo Beautification
Project, which revitalised public centers and parks in Colombo, as well as many other
development projects focused on places such as Battaramulla Diyatha Uyana , Ape
Gama Park, Wetland Park, Nugegoda , Arcade Independence Square, Weras Ganga
Park and Defence Headquarters Complex . In 2011, the Ministry of Defense was
renamed to the Ministry of Defense and Urban Development, having absorbed
responsibilities related to urban development. Results of his work were remarkable as
Colombo became to the top of the list of fast developing cities in the world in 2015 by an
annual travel study by MasterCard.
Assassination attempt
On 1 December 2006, at approximately 10:35 an assassin attempted to drive an
explosive-laden auto-rikshaw into Rajapaksa's motorcade as it traveled
through Kollupitiya , Colombo. The Sri Lanka Army Commandos guarding him
obstructed the vehicle carrying the explosives before it reached Rajapakse's vehicle and
two commandos were instantly killed. Rajapaksa escaped unhurt. The LTTE were
blamed for the attack. However there is a best kept secret that the attack was carried
out by the Colonl Karuna and the team to obtain sympathy to Gotabaya and support for
Mahinda.
Karuna defection
Gotabhaya is credited with using the Karuna faction effectively during the war to defeat
the LTTE. The former LTTE commander Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan, better known
as Colonel Karuna, told British authorities that Rajapaksa was instrumental in arranging
for him to be issued with a false diplomatic passport so that he could flee to Britain in
September 2007. These allegations were denied by the Sri Lankan Foreign
Minister Rohitha Bogollagama at the time, and later by Rajapaksa. Karuna defected
during the time of 2002 -2004 peace talks and Ranil Wickremasinghe was responsible
for this very important defection.
Criticism of the United Nations and western countries
Gotabaya Rajapaksa during an official tour of Brazil n June 2007, Rajapaksa was severely
critical of the United Nations (UN) and of western governments. He accused the UN of having
been infiltrated by terrorists "for 30 years or so", and as a result the UN was fed incorrect
information. He also alleged that Britain and the EU were bullying Sri Lanka, and concluded that
Sri Lanka "does not need them", and that they don't provide any significant amount of aid to the
country. Ironically in 1990 his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa was caught attempting to bring
evidence of human rights violations to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and
the evidence was confiscated by the government during which Rajapaksa justified foreign
intervention in Sri Lankan affairs. The person that demanded western nations to limit and put
conditions on foreign aid was also Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Controversies
Human Rights Violations
On 3 February 2009, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa stated to the
international media (in reference to the only hospital in the war front being shelled), that
everything is a legitimate target if it is not within the safe zone the government has
created and that all persons subject to attack by the armed forces were legitimate LTTE
targets as there are no independent observers, only LTTE sympathisers, radio
announcements were made and movement of civilians started a month and a half ago.
As per Wikileaks, General Sarath Fonseka who led the war against LTTE had accused
Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa of ordering at the end of the war the shooting
of any LTTE leaders who might try to surrender under flags of truce. But Mr. Gotabhaya
alleged to have threaten to execute Mr. Fonseka if he had spilled any war secrets.
In an interview on the Sri Lanka TV channel Ada Derana on 16 March 2015, Rajapaksa
stated that he is a citizen of the United States but cannot travel to the United States
because of alleged war crimes charges against him. However, Rajapaksa visited the
United States in 2016 and two Tamil groups have urged the United States government
to arrest and prosecute him. Sri Lankan government rejected to support the call to
arrest Rajapaksa by Tamil groups.
As reported by The Sunday Leader, Major General Prasad Samarasinghe, the former
military spokesman and director of the Directorate of Media in the army, has been
passing highly sensitive information to the US Embassy in Colombo on abductions.
Many of those abducted were believed to have been individuals who had fallen foul of
the Rajapaksa trio, Mahinda, Basil and Gotabhaya. During her visit to the country,
United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Navanetham Pillay expressed her
disappointment over “white van” related disappearances reported in Colombo, and other
parts of the country, which were not covered by the Commission of Inquiry on
Disappearances set up by the government.
Investigations on the 2008 abduction of journalist Keith Noyahr resulted in a White Van
being discovered in 2017 March from a house at Piliyandala with connections to an
Army Major that was believed to have been used for the abduction. Police believes that
the van may have been used for other crimes as well as being part of the operation to
murder Lasantha Wickrematunge. A few weeks after the Keith noyahr abduction in 2008
Namal Perera a course coordinator at the Sri Lanka College of Journalism was violently
attacked by a gang that came in the same White Van with a fake number plate and
attempted to abduct him after attacking his car but was foiled by residents and heavy
traffic. Namal Perera identified two of his would-be-killers Duminda Weeraratne and
Hemachandra Perera in April 2017.
Bandara Bulathwatte was a key suspect in the murder of Lasantha was given a
diplomatic post in Thailand at the request of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa near the 2010
presidential election. The letter sent bt Gotabhaya was prepared in haste and even a
bio data of Bulathwatte was not attached despite it being a requirement for him to get
his visa and have the appointment regularised by the foreign ministry. But after the
elections, Gotabhaya requested his departure to be postponed claiming an urgent
matter regarding national security. Technical evidence and telephone records have
placed Bulathwatte at the location where Lasantha was killed as well as in the places
where other journalists were attacked.Investigations on assassinations, abductions and
assaults on journalist after the fall of the Rajapaksa government revealed that
Gotabhaya directed a death squad to attack journalists that was outside the Army
command structure during this time 17 journalists and media workers were killed and
others were either assaulted or abducted.
Nadarajah Raviraj, a well-known human-rights lawyer and a parliamentarian, was shot
and killed in Colombo on 10 November 2006. At a magisterial hearing in Colombo on 26
February 2016, Liyanarachchi Abeyrathna, a former police officer attached to the State
Intelligence Agency, stated that Gotabhaya Rajapaksa paid Rs. 50 million to an
organisation led by Colonel Karuna to murder Mr. Raviraj.
Relationship with the media
Rajapaksa has been accused of threatening journalists on several occasions, including
telling two journalists attached to the state-owned Lake House Publications that unless
they stop criticising the armed forces "what will happen to you is beyond my control".
When asked by the two journalists if he was threatening them, he replied "I am definitely
not threatening your lives. Our services are appreciated by 99 per cent of the people.
They love the Army Commander (General Sarath Fonseka ) and the Army. There are Sri
Lankan patriots who love us do and will do what is required if necessary." In April 2007
he was accused of allegedly calling the Editor of the Daily Mirror Champika
Liyanaarachchi and threatening her, saying that she would escape reprisals only if she
resigned. He was also accused for threatening to "exterminate" the Daily
Mirror journalist Uditha Jayasinghe for writing articles about the plight of civilian war
casualties.
A 5 December 2008 story from The New York Times quoted his news reporting position
as "he insists that journalists should not be allowed to report anything that demoralises
the war effort".
In the editorial titled A brother out of control (16 August 2011), The Hindu raised the
observation, "President Rajapaksa would be well advised to distance himself swiftly
from his brother's stream-of-consciousness on sensitive issues that are not his
business. This includes an outrageous comment that because a Tamil woman, an
“LTTE cadre” who was a British national, interviewed in the Channel 4 documentary
was “so attractive” but had been neither raped nor killed by Sri Lankan soldiers, the
allegation of sexual assault by soldiers could not be true. For this statement alone, Mr.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa must be taken to task."
In May 2015, The Sunday Leader tendered an unconditional apology to Gotabhaya
Rajapaksa for a series of articles regarding the purchase of MIG 27 airplanes for the Sri
Lanka Air Force.
Corruption
Deceased MP Sripathi Sooriyarachchi , assassinated journalist Lasantha
Wickrematunge , suspicious death of Dr. Amith Munidradasa who headed Military
Procurement and others had accused Rajapaksa of corruption since 2006. In
2015 Interpol provided further evidence to the Sri Lankan government on corrupt
military procurements. In March 2015 a Sri Lankan court imposed a travel ban on
Rajapaksa over allegations he used a commercial floating armory as a private
arsenal.The travel ban was lifted by the court in December 2016. UNP MP Mangala
Samaraweera claimed that Gotabaya's son illegally occupied a house rented for a
consulate in Los Angeles and caused millions of rupees in losses to the
state.Rajapaksa rejected the allegations regarding occupying a house rented for a
consulate in LA.
Alleged Assassination Plot
In September 2018 Director of the Anti Corruption Movement revealed a conspiracy to
assassinate President Maithripala Sirisena and former Defence Secretary Gotabaya
Rajapaksa because the duo are against the drug trade. CID of Sri Lanka
Police investigated the issue. It has now come to light that this is a hoax created by the
Rajapaksha’s to divert the attention of the CID and other intelligence units and create a
hurricane within that will allow them to peacefully carry out the Easter Attack to achieve
their objective.
Presidential campaign
It was widely speculated and even claimed by several politicians that Gotabhaya
Rajapaksa would be contesting the 2020 elections. However, this was denied by
Rajapaksa but claimed that he will accept if he was offered the candidacy. His
acceptance came days after the Easter Attack. The Easter Attack was planned by the
Rajapaksha Brothers to create an atmosphere that they could bring in Gotabaya as a
potential candidate based on Islamic Terrorism.
United States Lawsuits
In April 2019, Ahimsa Wickrematunge, the daughter of Lasantha Wickrematunge , filed a
lawsuit against Rajapaksa in the state of California. Rajapaksa, while on vacation in
the United States, was served notice of two civil lawsuits. In October 2019, the court in
California rejected the case based on lack of jurisdiction to consider Wickrematunge's
claims, because, in the Court's view, Rajapaksa is entitled to common law foreign
official immunity for the alleged acts of torture, extrajudicial killing, and crimes against
humanity.
In May 2019 former Ambassador to Sri Lanka and Assistant Secretary of State for
South and Central Asia in the Obama Administration, Robert O. Blake Jr., praised
Rajapaksa on the management of the intelligence services during and post war. On 26
April 2019 he confirmed that he will be contesting the presidential election, following the
deadly Easter Sunday bombings.
On 11 August 2019, Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna led by former president Mahinda
Rajapaksa announced that Rajapaksa will be their candidate for the 2019 Presidential
election. Rajapaksa campaigned on a pro-nationalistic, economic development and
national security platform in which he gained 6,924,255 votes, which was 52.25% of the
total cased votes and 1,360,016 votes majority over New Democratic
Front candidate Sajith Premadasa . Rajapaksa won a majority in the
predominant Sinhalese areas of the island which included the districts of Kalutara,
Galle, Matara, Hambantota, Monaragala, Ratnapura, Badulla, Kurunegala, Puttalam,
Gampaha, Kandy, Matale, Polonnaruwa Colombo, Kegalle and Anuradhapura, while
Premadasa gained a majority in areas dominated by Tamil and Muslim minorities, which
had been effected by the civil war.
Citizenship row
During the campaign, several political parties including then ruling United National
Party accused him of having American citizenship and claimed that he stayed and lived
in America for more than ten years and revealed that he was not a Sri Lankan citizen.
Gotabhaya was also pressured to not to contest at the Presidential elections because of
holding dual citizenship. Further he was alleged to have carried a duplicate Sri Lankan
passport with him and court cases were pending against him over the citizenship issue
and the issue regarding his passport.Former President and the elder brother of
Gotabhaya, Mahinda Rajapaksa was also accused of using his executive powers to
grant his brother, the Sri Lankan citizenship after commencing his first term as president
in November 2005. The judge of the Court of Appeal gave verdict on the former's
pending court cases on 4 October 2019, dismissed the petition challenging Gotabhaya's
citizenship. He was also allowed to contest at the elections but did not take part in the
debate among Presidential candidates which was held on 5 October 2019, was also
historically Sri Lanka's first-ever debate to have been conducted among Presidential
candidates for an upcoming election.
Presidency (2019–present)
Rajapaksa's inauguration took place at the Ruwanwelisaya in Anuradhapura ( the most
sacred site of the Buddhist of the country) on 18 November 2019. It is the first elected-
office Rajapaksa has held and he is the first non-career politician and former military
officer to serve as president. Following assumption of the office of president, he
announced intentions to form a new government and taking over the portfolio of defence
he further stated that he became the President only from the majority Sinhala votes. On
19 November 2019, following taking over assumed duties at the Presidential
Secretariat, he appointed P. B. Jayasundera as Secretary to the President (the
Supreme Court has ordered that he cannot hold any public office) and Major
General Kamal Gunaratne as Secretary of Defence, as well as a new Secretary of the
Treasury and the Secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On 20 November, Prime
Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had agreed to resign for Rajapaksa to form a caretaker
government until fresh parliamentary elections can be held after the President can
constitutionally dissolve parliament in March 2020. On the same day, the presidential
secretariat called for all provincial governors to tender their resignations. On 21
November, he appointed his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa as Prime Minister following the
resignation of Ranil Wickremesinghe and the day after appointed a 15 member Cabinet
of Ministers. Thus, Sri Lanka became only the second nation in the world after Poland to
have a combination of brothers taking charge as president and Prime Minister of a
country at the same occasion.
After a few months in power, Rajapaksa had to face his biggest challenge. The COVID-
19 pandemic in Sri Lanka started in March 2020. Rajapakse at first refused to lock down
the country but later decided to impose a curfew when a number of cases began to
rise. Rajapaksa dissolved parliament on 2 March. The election was initially put on by
Rajapakse on 25 April 2020, was then postponed by the election commission to 20
June 2020.
2020 Sri Lankan Parliamentary Election
General Election was held on 5 August 2020. Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP)
was able to secure landslide victory in the election claiming the majority winning 145
seats out of 225 seats. Main opposition party Samagi Jana Balawegaya won just 54
seats. SLPP victory is mainly owing to the predominant success in curbing the COVID-
19 pandemic and due to the negative publicity about the UNP-led government, which
was accused of a major intelligence failure triggered by the aftermath of the 2019 Easter
attacks.
20 th Amendment to the Constitution.
For him, the unity of the Volk (the German people) would find its truest
incarnation not in democratic or parliamentary government, but in one supreme
leader, or Führer.
On March 23, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, giving full powers to Hitler
and celebrating the union of National Socialism with the old German
establishment (i.e., Hindenburg).
By early the following year, he had withdrawn Germany from the League of
Nations
When the 86-year-old Hindenburg died on August 2, military leaders agreed to
combine the presidency and chancellorship into one position, meaning Hitler
would command all the armed forces of the Reich.
The above four points stand out from the whole article of how Hitler worked and took
Germany down the drain to a long war destroying the world and it’s self.
Today with the 20 th Amendment passed in Parliament on the 22 nd of October 2020 we
see that Gotabaya has decorated himself as a Fuhrer and the amendment as the
Enabling Act given him MORE THAN NECESSARY POWER to run a democratic
country.
Gotabaya in his speech to the Nation on the Independence Day stated as Hitler that he
will not hesitate to withdraw from the UN if the need arises on issues like Human Rights
issues.
Finally when you read both personalities there are more similarities than contradictions.
The Sri Lankans will finally (after 72 years of democratic governance) will be able
to taste a bit of a total dictatorship that will slowly perish them in isolation.
