Sri Lanka's former army commander and accused war criminal Sarath Fonseka has announced his bid for the presidential elections which are to be held later this year.
Taking to Twitter to make the announcement, he claimed that for the last 76 years, Sri Lanka has "been led by an inept political group that has led us to bankruptcy. ". He went on to state that for Sri Lanka to grow it needs to "crush corruption" and "leverage our natural resources".
Announcement:
— Sarath Fonseka (@SF2024_SL) July 24, 2024
I wish to announce my Presidential Candidacy to the people of Sri Lanka.
For 76 years, we have been led by an inept political group that has led us to bankruptcy.
For Sri Lanka to grow, we need to CrushCorruption
We need to leverage our natural resources to…
This is not the first time that Fonseka has made a presidential bid. In 2010 he stood against Mahinda Rajapaksa during the Presidential elections but was defeated. He was then imprisoned by his political rival under charges of corruption relating to military procurements and treason. He was given a 30-month jail sentence.
Fonseka is an infamous figure for Eelam Tamils as one of the architects of the Mullivaikkal genocide. He served as Sri Lanka’s army commander during the final years of the wars, from 2005 to 2009, which oversaw a litany of war crimes, including the indiscriminate shelling of hospitals, mass executions, and sexual violence. During the final months, tens of thousands of Tamils were killed by the Sri Lankan military. Examining different sources, including from the United Nations, census figures and World Bank data, ITJP found that the highest estimate of those killed during that final phase could be as large as 169,796.
In 2011 he admitted that during the armed conflict, LTTE cadres who had surrendered were summarily executed under the orders of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, then acting defense secretary. Fonseka would later recant the statement and claim he was misquoted. Fonseka has since lashed out at moves towards accountability, accusing then-UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet of harboring LTTE sympathies. In a recent speech, he instead said he rescued 150,000 in Mullivaikkal.
