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Divided politicians and divided rebels: Sri Lanka hopes Friday vote will help bring unity

Associated Press, Wed March 31, 2004 00:57 EST . TIM SULLIVAN - Associated Press Writer - COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - (AP) On one side is a bitter, name-calling rivalry between the president and the prime minister. On the other is a secretive rebel movement divided by infighting and publicly vowing to murder a dissident leader but still insisting it's moving toward the mainstream. Peace and war have long been the focus of politics in Sri Lanka - , an island nation savaged for 19 years by fighting with Tamil Tiger rebels until a shaky peace process began with a Feb. 2002 cease-fire. Today, their military victories have given them their own de facto state across the island's north and east.
Now, in a showdown between the president and the prime minister, voters will decide which should set the tone for talks with them.

Polls indicate neither of their parties will win a majority in the 225-seat Parliament, which would force them to make deals with the smaller parties: the party led by Buddhist monks, the Marxists or the Tiger's proxy party the Tamil National Alliance.

If so, Sri Lanka - will once again find itself governed by a coalition. And, almost surely, the rivalry will continue.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga is not even running in the election she's in office until 2005 but both the president and prime minister are seeking parliamentary support to back their stance on peace talks.

Both insist they want peace, and both insist some form of talks will begin again. But they agree on little else, trade occasional public insults and their animosity has been known to all-but shut down the government.

Supporters of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who has lead the negotiations so far, say he is the one politician who is able to talk with the Tigers. He dismisses the president as a crank who ``cannot be taken seriously.''

The president, for her part, deeply distrusts the rebels, and says the prime minister has given them far too many concessions. The victim of a 1999 Tiger assassination attempt that left her blind in one eye, she has grown increasingly isolated since then, surrounding herself with ever-increasing layers of security and seldom appearing in public.

On Tuesday, the final day of campaigning, she appeared before thousands of followers to blast the prime minister and blame the Tigers for a recent surge in political violence.

``Where is the peace the prime minister promised?'' she demanded. ``The prime minister doesn't mind even if the country is divided, as long as he can stay in power.''

Kumaratunga called Friday's election three years ahead of schedule, in the wake of a very public November power struggle that saw her taking command of three powerful ministries under the prime minister's control, saying he'd given up too much to the rebels.

The Tigers, for their part, have suddenly found themselves in a new position: divided.

A secretive group that prizes loyalty above nearly all else, it appeared stunned when a powerful eastern leader defected in March. The leader, known as Karuna, took with him some 6,000 troops from the 15,000-strong rebel army.

The Tiger response was direct and ruthless.

``To safeguard our nation and our people, it has been decided to get rid of Karuna from our soil,'' the Tigers said in a statement, phrasing one observer called ``a death warrant.''

Clearly, though, the split complicates hope for peace, and the Tiger leadership has warned the government that no negotiations should be held with the breakaway faction, saying that would do ``irreparable damage'' to the fragile peace process.

There are indications that damage is already being done. On Tuesday, a parliamentary candidate allied to the breakaway leader was gunned down by two men who stormed his home. Blame quickly fell on the Tigers who just as quickly denied any role in his death.

In her final campaign speech, the president raised the specter of renewed fighting: ``They have started killing Tamil people. Soon they will start killing us,'' she said.

It remains unclear whether the election will clear up any of the rivalry between the president and the prime minister, both of them products of Sri Lanka - 's tiny upper class elite and onetime childhood playmates.