Word: mahinda
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...becomes a teacher - when a sword turns into a plough-share - shouldn't we be grateful? These questions weigh heavily on Sri Lanka as it contemplates the November 17 presidential election, where the choice is between opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, who began the original peace process, and prime minister Mahinda Rajapakse, backed by Sinhalese nationalists who, while not openly advocating war, oppose the current ceasefire. Whatever the answers, the residents of Tigerland say there is one unquestionable upside to the detente, as long as it lasts. With battle-hardened guerrillas for traffic cops, no one's yet been known been...
...Kumaratunga "cannot do everything stated in her manifesto," says Jeremy Clarke, who heads the International Monetary Fund's Sri Lankan operations. Last week, she found she had insufficient authority to install her choice for Prime Minister, former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, and was forced to accept his rival Mahinda Rajapakse. As for resuming peace negotiations with the Tigers, Jehan Perera of the National Peace Council says the most the President can now do is "talk about talks...
...immediate responsibility for this crisis falls squarely on President Kumaratunga. "She took these decisions alone... to take power into her own hands," says Mahinda Rajapakse, vice president of Kumaratunga's People's Alliance party. A Colombo-based diplomat says international observers were "flabbergasted" by the timing of Kumaratunga's moves. Just three days earlier, the LTTE had injected new life into a peace process that had been moribund since talks were broken off in April by submitting a comprehensive set of demands to Colombo. While uncompromising, the LTTE proposals were only a starting point for negotiations, the diplomat stresses. Moreover...
...Those elections could be held at any time: constitutionally, the President has almost arbitrary power to dismiss the Prime Minister and dissolve Parliament. While Wickremesinghe is credited with bringing about peace, scandals featuring politicians linked to his party could gnaw at his already slender parliamentary majority in new elections. Mahinda Rajapakse, a prominent opposition politician and close ally of the President, insists that his own party will not stop peace negotiations if it comes to power: "We will keep talking with the LTTE, but on different terms." Many observers, though, fear that those changed terms will spell...
Most spectacular of the new arrivals was that of Harish C. Mahinda, nephew of the Indian supply mission chief in Washington, D. C., who came from Calcutta by plane, crossing several battlefields in the process...