Word: rajapaksa
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Though many outside Sri Lanka have called for a political settlement, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has staked his leadership on a military defeat of the LTTE. Since taking office in 2005, he has redefined the conflict as a "war on terrorism" and cast himself as a son of the soil, a loyal defender of the Sinhalese Buddhist majority. "The average Sinhalese person trusts him," says Saravanamuttu. "He's seen very much as a man of the people." The war has the overwhelming support of Sri Lanka's rural heartland in the south, and Rajapaksa is unlikely to seek a truce when...
...takeover of the city of Mullaittivu, an LTTE stronghold. An estimated 250,000 ethnic Tamils remain trapped in the war zone, with human-rights groups accusing both sides of putting civilians' lives at risk. Violence between the rebels and the Sri Lankan military has escalated since President Mahinda Rajapaksa took power in 2005; nearly 70,000 people have been killed in the fighting since...
...LTTE is short on supplies and fighters, and has gone to ground in an ever ever-shrinking pocket of jungle in the northeast of the country as government forces advance. Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Sunday called for the LTTE's surrender, but there is little chance that a rebel movement whose fighters over the years have chosen suicide over capture will go down quietly. (See pictures from inside Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger territory...
...Having brought the LTTE insurgency to the verge of collapse is a triumph for President Rajapaksa, who has revitalized the Sri Lankan armed forces through a massive injection of funds that has boosted everything from tactical capability to morale. Some 20% of the nation's budget is now devoted to military spending (6% of its GDP), and the boost in resources has, over the past nine months, helped the military make steady gains against what had once seemed intractable positions held by the rebels. Some have taken Colombo's example as a message for counterinsurgency efforts elsewhere...
...government suggest that the success of the military campaign has spawned a bellicose nationalism that brooks little dissent, and as such has heightened unease within the country's civil society. Journalists and dissidents have felt pressure to remain silent, and the President's brother, tough-talking Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, told local press that he would "chase away" any foreign media deemed to be offering a sympathetic ear to the rebels. Outspoken newspaper editor (and freelance TIME contributor) Lasantha Wickrematunge, whose paper accused the Defense Minister and other prominent politicians of corruption, was last month gunned down by unknown assailants...