In Sri Lanka, the opposition parities are publicly talking about the possibility of adopting the Army Chief Gen. Sarath Fonseka as the consensus candidate to take on President Rajapaksa in Presidential elections next year. Gen. Fonseka, taking credit for winning the war against the LTTE, is sending out signals to contest the for Presidency in the coming elections against Rajapaksa, the Opposition leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe, has openly come out in support of the Chief of Defence Staff. The election is due in April. Wickremesinghe, former Prime Minister and leader of the United National Party told representatives of trade unions in Colombo that there is nothing wrong in the media reports of a military officer going to fight the Presidential election.
Wickremesinghe’s remarks came on the same day Gen. Fonseka told a gathering at a Sri Lankan Buddhist Temple in Washington that although there were those attempting to take credit for the victory against the LTTE, it was only the troops on the ground who really knew who deserved the praise.
Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who is the brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, has slammed Opposition attempts to promote Fonseka’s candidacy. He said in an interview to the ISLAND that there is no question of the Government permitting any person in uniform entering politics.
Resettlement of displaced persons
The Sri Lankan Government hopes to resettle the majority of war displaced Tamils by January next year, a senior Minister has assured amidst rising pressure from the US, India and other nations to send the Tamils home. Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights said in Colombo [Oct. 31], all the Internally Displaced Persons [IDPs] will be screened and released in a structured and well managed manner. A similar assurance was given by the Sri Lankan Minister for Socio Economic Development, Arumugam Thondaman, when he called on the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi in Chennai on Oct. 30. He said, despite the difficulties, the Sri Lankan Government was committed to fully rehabilitating and resettling the IDPs. He said, around 58,00 people have been settled after the visit of the delegation of MPs from Tamil Nadu and in the second phase it will be about 46,000 people. So far, a total of 81300 people have been resettled and 1,86,446 people are in the camps waiting for their turn.
Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan Government has rejected fresh accusations that Tamil Tiger leader V. Prabhakaran was executed after surrendering to security forces. The Defence Ministry rejected a report in a US-based website, the Sri Lankan Guardian, that described itself as an independent news organization. It said that Prabhakaran had surrendered, but was tortured and killed by the Army.
President Rajapaksa has decided to appoint an independent committee to look into the report compiled by the US Department of State alleging that Sri Lanka has violated human rights. The report alleged that at least 170 instances of human rights violations had been committed by both the Army and the Tamil Tigers. The UN has, however, questioned the credibility of any probe carried out by the Government-controlled panel.
