The former Sri Lankan army chief hailed last year as a national hero for defeating the Tamil Tigers was in jail last night facing possible execution.
General Sarath Fonseka, 58, was forcibly arrested on charges of plotting a coup against President Rajapaksa, whom he challenged in an election last month.
Military police dragged the retired general away after storming into his campaign office in the historic centre of Colombo as he met opposition leaders to discuss how to challenge the results of the January 26 election.
The fear now is that General Fonseka’s supporters in the army, who are still thought to be many, could rebel against the Government, undermining a fragile peace that took almost three decades to achieve. “He has been arrested with his personal assistant,” one of the general’s spokesmen, now in hiding, told The Times. “We are shocked, because we thought the dust was starting to settle.Rauff Hakeem, one of his allies in the opposition, said that General Fonseka and his secretary were dragged out by their hands and legs. “He was humiliated and disgraced in the way he was handled,” he said. “We were just flabbergasted.”
It was a savage irony for the man whom many of the island’s ethnic Tamil minority hold jointly responsible with Mr Rajapaksa for committing war crimes, including the shelling of civilians, in the last stages of the conflict.
Keheliya Rambukwella, a government minister and spokesman, confirmed that General Fonseka would be tried in a military court on charges of conspiring against the President and planning a coup. “He has been plotting against the President while in the military ... with the idea of overthrowing the Government,” he said.
General Fonseka’s arrest is the latest twist in an extraordinary political melodrama that has consolidated Mr Rajapaksa’s grip on power, but raised concerns about the state of South Asia’s oldest democracy.
Mr Rajapaksa and General Fonseka were both lauded for their roles in ending the 26-year civil war, but they fell out after Mr Rajapaksa switched the general to the ceremonial post of Chief of Defence Staff in July in an apparent attempt to curb the military’s almost unlimited powers.
The general, who also felt that he was not given due credit for the Tigers’ defeat, resigned from the army in November and declared his candidacy in the election a month later. Campaigning was brutal as the rivals appeared to have split the Sinhalese vote and both tried to reach out to the Tamils as potential kingmakers.
Mr Rajapaksa won easily, but the general refused to accept the results, accusing the Government of monopolising the state media and tampering with ballot counting. Since then the Government has cracked down on the media, closing two newspapers, arresting one editor and detaining dozens of journalists. It has also carried out a purge of the army.
The US voiced concern about the arrest. Philip Crowley, a State Department spokesman, said: “There is a tremendous need for the Government of Sri Lanka to work to overcome the fissures that exist within its society.”
Source:The times
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