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MR categorically refutes CBK’s charges of violating her FR as lacking in substance
View(s):The cold war between former President Chandrika Kumaratunga and President Mahinda Rajapaksa came to a head this week after Ms Kumaratunga accused the Government of violating her privacy, causing harassment and expressed concerns for her personal safety, which the Government promptly denied.
Secretary to the President, Lalith Weeratunga, writing on behalf of President Rajapaksa, said, “ Many allegations made by you in this letter against the Government, the Police and Intelligence Services of this country, are lacking in even a shred of proof to justify such charges of a serious nature.”The copy of the response to President Kumaratunga, which was released to the media, said that, “Her allegations of violation of her Fundamental Rights and impinging on her freedom of movement and association, lacked substance. In fact, what is set out is seen as a litany of generalities, marked for being vague and unauthenticated.”
President Rajapaksa also assured his predecessor that there is no surveillance of her telephone and e-mail communications and of her residences in Colombo and Horagolla, as alleged. The President also observed that the timing of the former President’s letter, with an abundance of generalisation, is intended to synchronise with the wholly unfair allegations against Sri Lanka being leveled by international forces in Geneva and elsewhere in the West today.
President Kumaratunga, in her letter to the President dated March 5, said that, since President Rajapaksa assumed the office of President, the secret services of the Government, have relentlessly kept under constant surveillance of all her telephone and email communications, as well as her residences in Colombo and at Horagolla.
“This amounts to a calculated strategy of your Government to harass me and cause severe mental and emotional stress to me, while intimidating my friends and associates. This situation is compounded by the knowledge that you have informed a large number of senior members of our Party and our Government to desist from talking and associating with me, during the past eight years of your Presidency,” she said.
The former President said that the surveillance mounted on her by President Rajapaksa’s Government is illegal and unconstitutional, and in violation of her Fundamental Rights. She requested that the President take immediate action to instruct all relevant authorities to stop all illegal surveillance conducted with regards to her.