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Message: <blockquote data-quote="nismok" data-source="post: 6738365" data-attributes="member: 109094">NEW DELHI — In a part of the world better known for the interruption of  democracy than its stubborn endurance, Sri Lanka has  always been something of an oddity. A small country that suffered  through one of the world’s nastiest recent wars, it nevertheless  remained for the most part a vibrant multiparty democracy.Last spring the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa  decisively defeated the Tamil  Tiger insurgency that had terrorized Sri Lanka for the better part  of three decades. Last month, voters rewarded him with a landslide victory that gave him a new term. So  it is all the more surprising that his government decided to arrest the longtime ally who became his main  rival for the presidency, Gen. Sarath Fonseka. That arrest, and the harassment of  journalists and opposition politicians and their supporters, are raising  fears that Sri Lanka’s democracy is faltering just as the long-awaited  peace begins. War has a way of chipping away at the foundations  of even the strongest democracies. But what has surprised many people in  Sri Lanka and beyond is the way that crackdown has endured well beyond  the government’s battlefield triumph, and has, in some ways, even  intensified and become routine as Mr. Rajapaksa and his family have  tightened their grip on government. “Sri Lanka has been on a  clear path towards the consolidation of power in the hands of very few  people, many of them related to each other,” said Alan Keenan, an analyst at the International  Crisis Group who specializes in Sri Lanka.The events of the past  week have been so unsettling that some influential supporters of the  president have questioned the arrest. In a highly unusual rebuke, a  group of leading Buddhist monks, one of Mr. Rajapaksa’s most stalwart  constituencies, criticized the arrest of General Fonseka in a letter to  the president, saying the general had “made enormous sacrifices to unite  and safeguard the territorial integrity of the country.” Dayan  Jayatilleka, a former diplomat, political analyst and ally of Mr.  Rajapaksa, wrote in a deeply critical essay on Groundviews, a popular  citizen journalism Web site, that the arrest of General Fonseka was a  “clumsy melodrama” that was “obscuring the clear, conclusive electoral  victory handed to Mahinda Rajapaksa by the masses.”Even Rajiva  Wijesinha, secretary general of Sri Lanka’s peace secretariat and a  staunch defender of the Rajapaksa government, admitted in an interview  this week that “the timing could have been better,” adding that “it  might have been better after he lost so badly to let him go.” Top  officials insist that General Fonseka posed a grave threat. Gotabaya  Rajapaksa, the president’s brother and the defense secretary, told The Straits Times, a  newspaper based in Singapore, that General Fonseka had planned to topple  the government, and that acting to stop him was the only way to  preserve democracy. “He was planning on a military rule,” the newspaper  quoted him as saying. Mr. Rajapaksa and General Fonseka were once  united in their determination to crush the Tamil Tiger insurgency at  virtually any cost. Mr. Rajapaksa gave the military a free hand to  prosecute the war, and the army’s size and budget ballooned. The  president’s defenders say that at the end of the war Mr. Rajapaksa tried  to reassert civilian control, alienating the general. Rumors that  General Fonseka was plotting a coup have swirled for months, though many  dismissed them because Sri Lanka has no history of military  intervention in its politics. Some analysts have contended that  he was arrested because he was hinting that he might give evidence of  war crimes committed in the final battle against the Tamil Tigers, and  the arrest was a way to keep him quiet. No charges against General  Fonseka have been announced, and it remains to be seen if he will be  tried in military or civilian courts. The election has featured  the clearest signs yet that the government does not feel bound by the  rule of law, analysts said. Despite clear directives from the country’s  beleaguered elections commissioner, state-controlled news media  continued to favor the president overwhelmingly. Parliamentary  elections are scheduled for April, and many people worry that General  Fonseka’s arrest will have a chilling effect on the vote. Mr.  Rajapaksa’s party has made it clear that it seeks a two-thirds majority  that will allow the president and his allies to reshape the  Constitution. The opposition coalition that backed General  Fonseka, meanwhile, is crumbling. The biggest opposition party, the  center-right pro-business United National Party declared Monday  that it would run on its own in parliamentary elections. But its ability  to draw voters is in question; it failed to deliver its urban  stronghold, Colombo, the capital, for General Fonseka. The other  large opposition party, a Marxist organization that dabbles in virulent  Sinhalese nationalism, is also on the wane.The fact that these  disparate parties chose to champion General Fonseka is a sign of just  how weak and ineffective they have become. Not one had a candidate  within its ranks who could rival Mr. Rajapaksa. General Fonseka  proved a wooden candidate and had the temperament of a hard-charging  military officer, according to people who have worked closely with him. As  a candidate he pressed the government to release Tamil civilians held  in closed camps, but government officials said that as army commander he  had resisted calls to resettle civilians quickly. That record, along  with his role in the bloody final stages of the war, makes him an  unlikely martyr. But Mr. Rajapaksa seems determined to make him one,  contended one political analyst who did not want to be quoted  criticizing the government. The president could have simply  settled for a victory, the analyst said, but by making the general a  target, Mr. Rajapaksa has only given him more credibility. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/world/asia/17lanka.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/nytlogo152x23.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a></blockquote>

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