02/20/2010
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The Hindu
“We are 100 per cent convinced that western countries with vested interests were backing [Fonseka]. Even the U.S., and countries like Norway, spent lots of money on his campaign.
“I have proof of the Norwegian government paying journalists to write against the government. They have vested interests and used to support the Tamil Tigers in various ways. They also supported Fonseka to try oust the President,” Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa had told the paper.
The missions of the U.S. and Norway here had strongly refuted the charges made by the Defence Secretary that they were involved in funding the election campaign of the former Army chief.
02/16/2010
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New York Times
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.
02/07/2010
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The Sunday Leader
EDITORIAL: In a democracy, a thumping majority is expected to result in cool heads among the victors and cold feet among losers. The recent presidential election in Sri Lanka has had the opposite effect with the winners going for the jugulars of the losers and the losers preparing for rearguard action. General Sarath Fonseka is alleged by some leading personalities of the Rajapakse government of planning a military coup against the government and several of his close associates being arrested while the opposition parties within six days after the election, took to the streets and staged a massive demonstration in Colombo’s Hyde Park in protest against what they allege was a rigged election.
02/07/2010
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The New York Times
After 26 years of war that ended with a decisive government assault last May, Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority seems no closer to winning a measure of autonomy in a Sinhalese-dominated nation, and Tamil nationalism, the cri de coeur of the Tamil Tiger insurgency, seems all but dead.
02/06/2010
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Reuters
COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa left on Saturday for Moscow, where he will sign a $300 million (192 million pound) loan to buy military equipment from Russia, despite an end to his country's quarter-century civil war.
02/04/2010
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Reuters
KANDY, Sri Lanka (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's newly re-elected president vowed on Thursday to regain the progress lost in a quarter-century war with the Tamil Tigers separatists by boosting the country's economy and unifying its people.
02/04/2010
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The Economist
OPTIMISTS hoped that, after Mahinda Rajapaksa’s stunning victory in Sri Lanka’s presidential election on January 26th, he might be magnanimous to his opponents and reassure citizens worried about the erosion of their civil liberties. He defeated his main opponent, Sarath Fonseka, the former commander of his army by the huge margin of 17 percentage points. With the war against the Tamil Tigers behind him, and seven more years of presidency ahead, Mr Rajapaksa could afford to be generous. But instead, his government has launched a sweeping crackdown, suggesting it remains paranoid about dissent, and fretful about a possible military coup.
02/03/2010
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BBC
Thirty-seven people are being held in Sri Lanka in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate President Mahinda Rajapaksa, state-owned media say.
02/03/2010
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Associated Press
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- Thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets of Sri Lanka's capital Wednesday to protest the results of the recent presidential election, which they say was marred by fraud.
02/03/2010
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The Wall Street Journal
Op-ed by the president of Sri Lanka: Our people are free of threats, fear and terrorism. The government will work hard for all of them.