COLOMBO: Former Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa ended a long silence over his ouster on Thursday by releasing a book claiming “geopolitical rivalry” between China and other countries was responsible for his downfall.

Rajapaksa was forced into temporary exile after protesters stormed his official residence in 2022, following months of street protests over the island nation’s worst-ever economic crisis.

In a self-published account of his downfall, “The Conspiracy”, Rajapaksa defends his government’s economic policies, which forced an unprecedented foreign debt default and saw months of severe food and fuel shortages.

Instead, he said “Chinese funded infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka after 2006 brought in an element of geopolitical rivalry” that precipitated his overthrow.

“It would be extremely naive for anyone to claim that there was no foreign hand in the moves made to oust me from power,” Rajapaksa wrote.

Rajapaksa did not name specific countries, but the United States had in the past repeatedly warned Sri Lanka it risked falling into a Chinese debt trap by signing a raft of infrastructure deals.

At the time of his ouster, the 74-year-old was initially flown out of Sri Lanka aboard a military aircraft and emailed his resignation from Singapore, but he has since returned home.

In the book, Rajapaksa claimed that protesters who took to the streets as the economy ground to a halt in the final months of his tenure had “foreign funding”, without offering evidence.

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2024