General Involved In January 8th Coup Attempt To Be Sent To New York As UN Military Attache
By Taniya Raymond –September 15, 2016
In Colombo newsrooms there is a don’t ask don’t tell policy on the coup attempt on January 8th. Colombo Telegraph and several newspapers reported on it back then in 2015, but now nobody wants to talk about it. We almost live in denial that it happened. Well, it did. It happened. There’s clear evidence as reported by several newspapers and (most high ranking state officials with access to this information) that troops were moved into camps in Panagoda and and a compound in Mattakkuliya to attempt a military coup. Forget the media, our Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera himself, in a press conference, stated that there was a military coup attempt that night.
Maj. General Sumedha Perera
It was hard to believe then, that the democracy we have lived in was soon to be pulled from under our feet and we were going to be in history books with Thailand, Myanmar and dozens of African nations for being victim to a military coup. But today, what is hard to believe is that we don’t talk about it. And nobody responsible for it was/ nor is being prosecuted. How can something so big simply slip our mind? I won’t lie, for a journalist, someone who’s supposed to be responsible for keeping up with this kind of crucial information, it had slipped my mind too. It didn’t occur to me until I received a news with a familiar name on it. The news was about the new nominee for the post of military attache’ to the UN mission in New York, a post once held by Channel 4 documentary star Shavendra Silva. The name of the new nominee read Maj. General Sumedha Perera. This name sounded so familiar. I immediately had a flashback of the names of those involved in last year’s military coup attempt. But I was in denial; it wasn’t possible that the government would do such a thing. They wouldn’t betray us so openly. I went back to our folder on the Jan 8th events and looked through it very carefully. This was the same Sumedha Perera who led the Gajaba troop to Colombo for the coup.
When Gotabaya Rajapaksa was an officer in the Sri Lankan Army his regiment was the Gajaba regiment. When he became the Secretary of Defence, he took Gajaba under his wing, and built a strong personal army of loyalists from the regiment. For those who don’t recall the details for the coup attempt, here’s the gist in a few words: the coup attempt on the night of the January 8th 2015 election was organized by Gotabaya loyalists. On the night of the presidential election Gajaba battalions of several thousand troops were dispersed to colombo from Gajaba Regiment Saliyapura camp in Anuradhapura. The commander of the Gajaba regiment Major General A K S Perera curated the dispersal of these troops.
