Word: fonseka
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...issue in next January's presidential election. Having ended what once seemed like an endless war, Rajapaksa would appear to be unbeatable. But Sri Lanka's numerous opposition parties have come up with a consensus candidate whose stature as a war hero is unquestioned: retired General Sarath Fonseka, the army commander who defeated the Tigers. Fonseka has softened his once die-hard Sinhala nationalism and criticised the government for holding civilians in camps, calling for rapid and complete resettlement. "We did not win the war to lose the hearts and minds of the people," Fonseka said recently...
...military commanders or civilian officials who led the war to any kind of international investigation or war-crimes tribunal. The apparent request from American officials led to a similar dismissal. In the U.S., the DHS's office of Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE), which reportedly made the Fonseka request, refused to confirm or deny the allegation. ICE spokesman Brandon Alvarez-Montgomery said: "If there was an investigation, there's nothing we can provide. Especially in cases that are very sensitive under human-rights violations, until that person or group were fully investigated [we] would never comment." (See an interview with...
Foreign Minister Bogollagama said he had made his government's concerns clear to the U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka Patricia Butenis. "The U.S. authorities should not exert procedures on [Fonseka]," Bogollagama said. "The interview should not take place." The Sri Lankan government believes that despite Fonseka's status as a green-card holder, the U.S. does not have any jurisdiction over him at this point because he entered the country on a Sri Lankan passport. "General Fonseka is a citizen of Sri Lanka and he holds a diplomatic passport from Sri Lanka," said Bogollagama. The minister said that Fonseka could...
...report of the DHS interview request comes at a curious time in Sri Lankan politics. Fonseka has been the subject of speculation that he may run against President Rajapaksa in the next election. Some political observers claim that the Rajapaksa brothers are trying to sideline the general, an allegation that the Defense Secretary has denied. "This is nothing but a despicable plot being hatched at the expense of the entire country," Defense Secretary Rajapaksa told a weekend newspaper amid reports of a growing gulf between Fonseka and the government...
...Fonseka seemed to have veered away from a hard-line stance he shared with the Rajapaksas. At a Buddhist temple in Washington, he spoke of the "need to resettle persons who are in camps and provide security to them." That appears to be a softening of his previous position that the peace-and-order climate in the areas reconquered by the military should not be undermined by speedy resettlement. Sri Lanka has an estimated 186,000 internally displaced people, refugees from the war with the Tigers. He warned that there might still be thousands of Tigers among them and that...