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Sri Lankan President Makes Bid for Power
New York Times, USA
http://www.nytimes.com
November 9, 2003
By DAVID ROHDE
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Nov. 8 — A decade ago, her meteoric 18-month
rise from private citizen to prime minister and then president was in
some ways predictable, if in other ways astonishing.
President Chandrika Kumaratunga's mother and father had both served as
prime minister, making her the heir to a dynasty that ranks with those
of the Gandhis of India and Bhuttos of Pakistan. Her father and her husband
were assassinated, giving her an emotional bond with the tens of thousands
of families who have lost loved ones to the political violence that has
ravaged this tear-shaped island of 19 million people.
Further, she talked of making peace with ethnic Tamil separatists, locked
in an intractable conflict with the government.
"She would address a rally of 50,000 people as if she were addressing
a seminar — very matter-of-fact, you don't scream," said Prof.
Jayadeva Uyangoda, head of the political science department at the University
of Colombo. "People saw something fresh in that style. She was not
a run-of-the-mill politician."
But this week, former supporters and advisers are asking what went wrong
with the woman who has been Sri Lanka's president since 1994. According
to her critics, a magnetic leader who once represented this nation's new
hope is now reinforcing its culture of political retribution and risking
the resumption of a 20-year civil war that has killed 64,000 people. In
what is seen as the largest gamble of her political life, she is using
measures considered extraordinary, even by the ferocious standards of
South Asian politics, in a power struggle with her bitter rival and former
childhood family friend, Ranil Wickremesinghe, Sri Lanka's technocrat
prime minister.
On Tuesday, Ms. Kumaratunga, 58, suspended Parliament, took control of
the powerful ministries of defense, the interior and communications and
dispatched a small number of troops to guard crucial government institutions.
On Wednesday, she declared a state of emergency that gave her sweeping
powers.
On Friday, she backed down somewhat, canceling the state of emergency
and calling on all political parties to form a government of "national
reconciliation" with her.
The steps have been called blunt and ill timed. The president acted when
the prime minister was in Washington meeting President Bush and other
American officials. He returned to Colombo on Friday to huge crowds of
well-wishers.
Ms. Kumaratunga has said national security concerns prompted her to act.
She accuses the prime minister of recklessly appeasing the rebels during
peace negotiations. Both leaders were popularly elected, but the president
wields far more power.
Daya Major, a spokesman for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, said
the group was concerned that Ms. Kumuratunga could try to spark a clash
that would end the island's 20-month cease-fire.
"She is jeopardizing the peace process," he said.
Supporters of the president say she is preventing a weak prime minister
from granting the rebels a de facto state and dividing Sri Lanka. The
Tigers have been declared a terrorist organization by the United States
and are considered one of the world's most secretive and brutal guerrilla
groups.
But opponents say she is desperate, angry and watching her power erode.
The peace mantle on which she rode to office has shifted to the prime
minister. After contracting under her government, the economy was projected
to grow by 5.5 percent this year, under her rival, Mr. Wickremesinghe.
When her term ends in 2005, the Constitution bars her from running again
for president.
Professor Uyangoda, who served as an informal adviser to the president
during 1995 peace negotiations, said some of her frustration was justified.
For years, supporters of Mr. Wickremesinghe's party have belittled and
trivialized the president in newspaper columns that gossip about her love
life and what she eats and drinks. "It's basically a power struggle,"
he said.
Eric Fernando, the president's spokesman, said that was true in part.
"At times, she does feel marginalized and trivialized," he said.
"But jeopardizing national security has been her main concern."
Stubborn, combative and powerfully charismatic when she wants to be,
Ms. Kumaratunga was 14 and in a class in convent school in 1959 when her
father was murdered, in the country's first major political killing. Thousands
would follow. In 1988, she was 42 and the mother of a young boy and girl
when she stood on her doorstep and watched a political rival shoot and
kill her husband, a film star and rising politician.
After she took office as president in 1994, her hopes of a peace settlement
with the rebels faded when they sank two government warships during talks.
She then unleashed what she called "war for peace."
Four years and thousands of lives later, she narrowly escaped an assassination
attempt by a female Tamil suicide bomber. Days later, she was elected
with 51 percent of the vote. The war continued.
In a crushing defeat in 2001, the United National Party of Mr. Wickremesinghe
beat Ms. Kumaratunga's party, People's Alliance, in parliamentary elections.
Her rival, the nephew of a former president, won with a platform promising
peace talks with the Tamil separatists.
Negotiations that began after a cease-fire was signed in February 2002
stalled in April. Last week, the Tigers offered a proposal that would
give them sweeping powers of self-rule but not official independence.
Mr. Fernando said the proposal showed that the prime minister was being
too soft on the rebels. "We haven't seen many concessions from the
other side," he said.
A showdown over who controls Parliament is expected when the body reconvenes
in two weeks. The prime minister's coalition held a two-vote majority,
but he says the president's actions have increased his strength.
Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the nonprofit Center
for Policy Alternatives, said he believed that the president had hoped
to lure away a few members of her rival's governing coalition to form
a government. But the prime minister's coalition appeared to hold firm.
A member of the president's party who had close ties with her in the
past and spoke on condition of anonymity summed up her actions this way:
"It's both brilliant and madness," he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/international/asia/09LANK.html
Copyright 2003 The
New York Times Company
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