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Arrested Sri Lankan leader urges calm as violent

Posted on: Fri February 12, 2010

COLOMBO: The United States and Norway rejected on Thursday fresh allegations that they financed the jailed Sri Lankan opposition candidate Sarath Fonseka in his bid to unseat President Mahinda Rajapakse.

The US and Norwegian embassies denied the charge by Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse, who told the Straits Times of Singapore that the two nations backed Fonseka, the main opposition candidate at last month s presidential election.    

 We are 100 per cent convinced that Western countries with vested interests were backing him (Fonseka), Rajapakse said in remarks published on Thursday. Even the US, and countries like Norway, spent lots of money on his campaign.     

Rajapakse, who is also the president s younger brother, said Norway had been funding journalists to write against the Sri Lankan government.     We would like to point out that the accusations made against Norway in the interview are not correct, a Norwegian embassy statement said.    

The United States said it denied Rajapakse s allegations, but wanted Colombo to ensure that opposition activists and journalists were not persecuted by the government.     A ruling party lawmaker claimed last month he was given a suitcase full of cash to defect and support the main opposition presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka. He said the money came from the US and Norwegian embassies.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka s former army chief and defeated presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka has appealed for calm, his wife said on Thursday, as violent protests escalated over his arrest on conspiracy charges.    

 He wanted me to convey to the people and especially the troops to remain calm and not to be provoked by his illegal arrest, said Anoma Fonseka, who met with her detained husband late Wednesday. They are trying to break his spirit, but they won t succeed, she told reporters.    

Anoma Fonseka was granted access to her husband at the naval detention centre where he is currently awaiting court martial for conspiring against the government. He was arrested on Monday.    

Despite his appeal, anti-government protestors clashed with police in a Colombo suburb and in central Sri Lanka on Thursday, a day after violent protests outside the Supreme Court where Fonseka s wife had filed a petition demanding his release. Riot police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse the crowds.    

The opposition, meanwhile, said it had enlisted the help of the influential Buddhist clergy in pushing for Fonseka s release.     What we have done is to ask the Buddhist monks to use their influence over the government, opposition leader Karu Jayasuriya told AFP.    

Fonseka s arrest came just weeks after his failed bid to unseat his former commander-in-chief, President Mahinda Rajapakse, at the ballot box.    

Rajapakse won the January 26 presidential poll with a comfortable 58 per cent of the popular vote.     The government has yet to specify the charges Fonseka will face, but Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse said in comments published Thursday that the retired four-star general had clearly been plotting a military coup.    

 He was planning on military rule. It was very clear, Rajapakse, who is the president s brother, said in an interview with the Straits Times of Singapore.     In his very last stages as army commander he began bringing his people into Colombo and his regiment, positioning his senior people all over, he said. All these things were looking like a military coup. Fonseka was removed as the head of the army in July last year and appointed chief of defence staff with no command responsibility.

He quit the post in November and announced his intention to run for president.     Fonseka s wife told reporters at her Colombo home that her husband had been denied visits by his personal doctor, who has treated him regularly for injuries he received in a suicide bombing in April 2006. Neighbouring India joined the United States, the European Union, Norway and the United Nations in urging Sri Lanka to follow due process in its prosecution of Fonseka.

 As a friend and neighbour, we trust that due processes of law will be observed in democratic Sri Lanka in this matter, the Indian foreign ministry said in a statement.

Courtesy : The News