A Step Back

10 November 2003


Sri Lanka's President Stages Coup against PM, Then Back Tracks

President Chandrika Kumaratunga of Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon, took advantage of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's absence last week to announce a state of emergency, sack a few ministers and put troops in the streets. On the prime minister's return, the emergency was lifted, but the damage has been done. The president needs to retire permanently from politics.

Madam Kumaratunga believes the government conceded too much to Tamil rebels in recent peace talks. So, in the absence of Mr. Wickremesinghe, she ordered the suspension of civil liberties, suspension of constitutional government (including a 2-week involuntary vacation for parliament) and paved the way for the continuation of a 20-year-old civil war that has killed 65,000.

The President of Sri Lanka has made clear that the 20-month cease fire in the civil war is not in jeopardy, but in actuality, that is not entirely her decision. The Tamil rebels may well decide that the government negotiated in bad faith, or that further discussions are pointless given the President's views. The effect of this short-lived coup is to undermine the negotiations, which was likely the entire point anyway. After all, her actions were taken just days after the Tamil rebels had produced their proposed peace and power-sharing plan.

The duly elected head of government and the duly elected head of state and of the armed forces come from different parties and have different views on making peace. The Tamil minority has been fighting for two decades to secure some degree of political power and self-rule, if they can take it. Neighboring India has even sent troops in at one stage to force a settlement on the recalcitrant parties. If Sri Lanka is to stop bleeding, it might be a good idea for the president and the prime minister to come to a common negotiating position.

After that, Madam Kumaratunga needs to go. This tin-pot, comic opera putsch showed her true colors. Anyone who would approve a law that permits arrest without trial for up to a year is unfit to be president of anything. Her defenders may claim that she is misunderstood in this -- nonsense. What they don't understand is that she is destroying the freedom of Sri Lankans, Sinhalese as well as Tamil, for her own political ends.

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