Word: gotabaya
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...colonel in the field, Fonseka led a 1993 operation dubbed Midnight Express to relieve government troops holed up in a fort in the Tamil Tiger hotbed of Jaffna, rescuing several hundred soldiers and winning commendations for his bravery. Accompanying him on the mission was Gotabaya Rajapaksa, brother of the President, and currently Sri Lanka's iron-fisted - and allegedly corrupt - Secretary for Defense...
...government has previously accused Fonseka of organizing a coup and planning to assassinate President Mahinda Rajapaksa and two of his brothers, Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and member of parliament Basil Rajapaksa. Fonseka, who was once a powerful ally of Rajapaksa, led the military campaign that defeated the Tamil separatist insurgency last May. Soon after, he was named Chief of Defence Staff - a move that sidelined him and left him without any effective command. Fonseka later fell out with the Rajapaksa government and put himself forward as the opposition candidate in last month's elections. (See a bio of Mahinda Rajapaksa...
...first postconflict presidential election on Jan. 26, in which Rajapaksa faces a stiff challenge from his former army commander, Sarath Fonseka. There has been some spirited journalism published during the campaign. On Dec. 13, the Sunday Leader carried an explosive interview with Fonseka in which he alleged that Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka's Defense Secretary, had ordered the shooting of surrendering LTTE members. Rajapaksa has denied the allegation, and Fonseka has since backpedaled on the allegation. Several news organizations have also reported on the burgeoning black market for rations distributed in displaced-persons camps. But with a few exceptions...
...military analysts say the last push on land would not have been effective without the Navy, who cut off the Tigers? vital supply line and escape route by sea. "Sarath Fonseka could not have won the war, if not for the crucial support he received from Secretary Defense Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the other service chiefs, especially the navy and air chiefs and the intelligence agencies," says Rohan Gunaratna, head of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore...
Politics have unraveled the Fonseka-Rajapaksa alliance. In his interview with TIME, Fonseka repeated charges, first published in a Sri Lankan newspaper, the Sunday Leader, that Gotabaya Rajapaksa had given orders that top LTTE commanders not be allowed to surrender. "This is well known to all those who were there in the field," Fonseka said. "[The Defenwe Secretary] was supposed to have said, 'Whether anybody comes with white flags or no, finish off everybody.' I was the Army Commander, they never passed that message to me, never even consulted me. I only came to know this after two days after...