Word: rajapaksa
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After winning the war, Sarath Fonseka seems to have lost the battle. The former chief of Sri Lanka's army chose to run against his ex-boss, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, in last month's elections and was defeated by nearly 2 million votes - a few complaints of polling irregularities notwithstanding. On Feb. 8, Fonseka was seized by military police for allegedly conspiring to launch a coup, a charge his supporters say is trumped up. The arrest has deepened concerns over the increasing heavy-handedness of Rajapaksa's rule, which has seen allegations of human-rights abuses as well...
...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...
...November, Fonseka resigned his post after falling out with Rajapaksa, whom he claimed was trying to sideline him within the country's military hierarchy and was taking too much credit as a civilian for waging a war fought by Fonseka's troops...
...Fonseka threw his hat into the ring for the Jan. 27 presidential elections, then considered just a formality for Rajapaksa, and provided the incumbent a real political challenge. Though he cobbled together a loose coalition of opposition, Muslim and ethnic Tamil political parties, Fonseka ultimately failed to win enough votes. The country's Tamil and Muslim minorities were largely disenchanted with both candidates, who hail from the country's ethnic Sinhalese majority...
...Quotes About: "[Fonseka] has to answer to the people. We have a lot of allegations against him. [Sri Lankans] don't want anarchy. They don't want dictatorship. So they rejected Fonseka." - Basil Rajapaksa, younger brother and adviser to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, in the aftermath of Fonseka's defeat at the polls on Jan. 28. Rajapaksa hinted at Fonseka's rumored plans to overthrow the government (Indo-Asian News Service...