President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has said his government will place no limits on investigations into corruption, drug trafficking or organised crime, telling supporters in Anuradhapura District that the identity or rank of a suspect is irrelevant to the state.

“As the President, I am standing here blindfolded. I don’t see who the thief is; it is not relevant to me,” he said, according to the Daily Mirror. “Is he a big boss, the boss’s son, the boss’s wife or the boss’s mother-in-law? Does that matter to us?”

“Since it does not matter to us, we have blindfolded ourselves and given authority to the investigative institutions. Today, those institutions have been made independent, empowered and provided with the necessary facilities.”

Two rallies, one district

The two outlets place the President in two different towns, and both are correct: he was scheduled to address two rallies in Anuradhapura District on Sunday. The Daily Mirror covered the National People’s Power rally at Nochchiyagama; Hiru News covered the rally at the Kahatagasdigiliya weekly fair grounds, where he said a suitable environment had now been created in society to bring corrupt people and criminals to justice.

Dissanayake said the rallies were not a response to any political threat but an attempt to build a public movement behind economic, social and political change. He said the mandate the NPP received on 21 September 2024 had ended traditional political practices including VIP privileges, excessive security details and dynastic politics.

Answering the opposition

The President directly addressed calls to rein in the prosecutions. “A small, primitive group of people says, ‘It’s okay if they stole, but don’t send them to prison.’ Is there such a thing? Should we allow that?” he said, adding that some still say “our thief is good for us.”

He also turned on critics who had previously complained the government was too slow. “About seven or eight months ago, people asked, ‘Why aren’t you arresting anyone?’ They asked, ‘Where are the file caches you talked about?’ Now what are they asking?”

The remarks follow his Polonnaruwa speech a day earlier ruling out any pardon for the underworld, and come while the SLPP is running a competing rally series in the same district. Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s party held its own Anuradhapura rally on Saturday, days after the CID moved to name Namal Rajapaksa as a suspect in the Airbus bribery file.

Update (September 13, evening): both venues named, and a Rs. 300 billion recovery claim

Three further filings later on Sunday name both venues and add substantially to the account.

The Daily Mirror places the first rally at the Sinharagama Grounds in Nochchiyagama, and both NewsFirst and Hiru News place the second at the Kahatagasdigiliya fairgrounds — resolving the venue question this article had left open.

A recovery claim with a figure attached. Hiru News reports the President saying the era of siphoning more than US$1 billion out of the country — money intended for imports of medicines, milk powder, gas, fuel and fertiliser — has been brought to an end, and that steps are under way to recover the entire amount. He put the fraud at close to Rs. 300 billion and said legal action is being taken against those responsible, with the law to be enforced against those who illegally funnelled out foreign exchange earned by expatriate workers and plantation-sector employees.

Neither the US$1 billion nor the Rs. 300 billion figure has appeared in any previous report reviewed for this article, and Hiru does not say which cases, agencies or period they cover. They should be read as the President’s characterisation rather than an audited total.

“No further threats.” NewsFirst, filing at 6:33 pm, reports Dissanayake saying there is no longer any threat to the government, and that the rallies aim to build a broad-based people’s movement — with cooperatives, organisations and constituency-level councils being drawn together to strengthen it. He named the institutions he says have been empowered to act independently: the CID, CIABOC, the Attorney General’s Department and the judiciary. He said those calling for the government to be overthrown include corrupt politicians, drug traffickers, underworld figures and financial fraudsters affected by the crackdown.

Dynastic politics. The Daily Mirror’s Nochchiyagama dispatch reports him declaring the era of political dynasties over. “In our country, people generally used to think that if the father is the President, the son must also become the President. If the father is the Prime Minister, the son must also become the Prime Minister. That politics belongs to an old era — that is not modern politics,” he said, adding that the 21 September 2024 vote was a decision by the public to change that culture. “And that has now been changed.”

The remarks land while the SLPP runs a competing rally series in the same district under Mahinda Rajapaksa, days after the CID moved to name his son Namal as a suspect in the Airbus file — context the President did not address directly.

Update (September 15): the Daily Mirror files the Kahatagasdigiliya speech in full

Two days later the Daily Mirror published its own account of the Kahatagasdigiliya rally, under the headline “Government facing no threat”. It is the same speech already covered here — the “no threat” line, the family-politics passage, the Anuradhapura gathering defending accused politicians and the “overthrow” charge all appear again — but it carries the President’s wording more fully than the Sunday filings did.

On the purpose of the rallies: “The government must take action to develop the country, while the people too have a major responsibility in this effort. We need to build a strong public movement for this purpose, and that is what we are doing now. There is no threat to the government.”

On dynastic politics, with a figure the earlier reports did not include: “For 76 years, several elite families governed this country. We must put an end to family politics. It is an outdated practice, and the NPP has stopped it.”

And on the opposition, in blunter terms than before: he said groups were engaged in a “do-or-die game” to topple the government, and that those who had escaped consequences under successive administrations were now trying to regain protection. “They have been caught now and have no protection. They want to topple the government. It is not the people who want to bring down this government, but politicians who stole public property, drug traffickers and members of the underworld. The people are with the NPP.”

One caveat on dating. The Daily Mirror, filing on Tuesday morning, introduces the remarks with “said yesterday” — which would place them on Monday 14 September. Every other account, including Hiru’s and NewsFirst’s, places the Kahatagasdigiliya rally on Sunday 13 September, and the content matches those accounts point for point. The “yesterday” appears to be an error in a late filing rather than evidence of a second rally, but no outlet clarifies it.

Not reported

No outlet gives attendance figures for either rally, names the “former minister” the President referred to, or lists the development and welfare measures he is reported to have outlined for rural communities. None states which opposition figures made the calls for limits he was answering, and none reports any response from the SLPP or the SJB.

On the recovery claim, no outlet says how much of the US$1 billion has actually been traced or recovered, which agency is conducting the recovery, whether any court order exists, or how the Rs. 300 billion figure was arrived at.