Sri Lanka’s war crimes accused president Gotabaya Rajapaksa was warned by a group of prominent Sinhala Buddhist monks to be “vigilant about the various form of invisible forces that can emerge in the future,” as he went to receive their blessings earlier this month.
Rajapaksa called on a senior monk from the Malwatta Chapter Niyangoda Vijithasiri, who reportedly “commended the way President was leading the country,” according to the president’s official media unit.
The monk reportedly spoke to Rajapaksa about “the importance of being vigilant about the various form of invisible forces that can emerge in the future”.
Another senior monk from the Ramannya Nikaya declared that “if the mission undertaken by the President continued without interruption, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa would be admired as a leader who played a historic role by the people of this country”. Rajapaksa has campaigned on a staunchly Sinhala nationalist platform, pledging to shield soldiers from prosecution for war time atrocities and recent months alone seeing a sharp rise in harassment and intimidation of human rights defenders and jouranlists.
Monk Siriwimala meanwhile told Rajapaksa of "the adverse impacts of the 19th Amendment on the country said that it should be revised immediately".
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