Video shows Sri Lankan ex-president's remarks on religious event, not criticism on govt's storm response
- Published on December 25, 2025 at 09:48
- 3 min read
- By Harshana SILVA, AFP Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka's government has been criticised for its lacklustre response to Cyclone Ditwah, which hit the South Asian nation late 2025 killing more than 600 people. Social media users have shared a clip of former president Ranil Wickremesinghe with a false claim it showed him criticising President Anura Kumara Dissanayake over the government's handling of the disaster. It was actually taken from a YouTube interview in April -- months before the storm hit -- and shows him slamming the authorities for mismanaging a religious event, where four people died while waiting in lengthy queues to see a Buddhist relic.
"This calamity happened to Sri Lanka because President Anura Kumara Dissanayake forcibly put the Sacred Tooth on display, incurring God's wrath," reads a Sinhala-language Facebook post shared on December 2, 2025, referring to a sacred Buddhist relic kept at the Temple of the Tooth seen in the country as an object of religious devotion and a symbol of state sovereignty (archived link).
Overlaid text at the top of the video largely repeats the post, while superimposed text at the bottom reads "God is angry because of the atheist sinners."
The post includes a 24-second clip showing former president Ranil Wickremesinghe speaking at what appears to be an interview.
"This is God's wrath, God's wrath. Organising was given to the people who attacked Maligawa," he says, referring to accusations that the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) -- the main party of Dissanayake's National People's Power coalition -- attacked the temple that housed the tooth relic during its second armed insurrection in 1989 (archived here and here).
"If this is to be done, Buddhism should be in the blood. That is why it worked for president Mahinda," he goes on to say, referring to Mahinda Rajapaksa, a former leader popular among the majority Sinhalese community for crushing Tamil rebels and ending a decades-old separatist war (archived link).
Sri Lanka's opposition has alleged Dissanayake's government had not taken timely precautionary measures against Cyclone Ditwah despite warnings from the meteorological department (archived link).
The storm killed more than 640 people when it swept across the country, causing floods and landslides that inflicted about $4 billion in damage, according to the World Bank, or four per cent of its GDP (archived link).
Similar claims were shared elsewhere on Facebook.
Comments suggest some users believed the clip shows Wickremesinghe criticising the government over the storm.
"Nature's response to the JVP government's godless governing by deceiving innocent people, insulting Sinhalese, Buddhists and Buddhism, and the military," a user wrote.
"They are riled up now. Spouting some nonsense. The biggest hit from the cyclone was to Sri Lanka's opposition. They got completely blown away," another user commented.
But the video was taken from a podcast published in April 2025, where Wickremesinghe was actually criticising the government for mismanaging the display of the Sacred Tooth Relic.
Old video
A keyword search on Google found an uncropped, longer version of his remarks posted on a Facebook page named Bai Thaksalawa on April 27, 2025 (archived link).
"Kandy has been destroyed. This is God's wrath," reads the caption of the Facebook video, referring to the city where the sacred tooth was put on display in April, where four people died and hundreds fell sick while waiting in lengthy queues that stretched around 10 kilometres (six miles) (archived link).
The clip shows the host asking Wickremesinghe: "Sir, what's going on? There is no order at all," before cutting to the remarks seen in the false post. Text on the video repeats Wickremesinghe's comments.
Further searches found that the Bai Thaksalawa is a podcast series hosted by a YouTube channel called Iraj Show, which shared the original interview on April 27 (archived here, here and here).
Wickremesinghe spoke about the deaths and the chaotic situation that arose from the religious event.
Dinouk Colombage, a spokesperson for Wickremesinghe, told AFP on December 24 that the ex-president has made no public statements on Cyclone Ditwah.
AFP has previously debunked misinformation related to Wickremesinghe.
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