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Presidential smiles hide Sri Lanka woes
Melbourne Age - January 29, 2010
Matt Wade, Colombo – Mahinda Rajapaksa was all smiles when he strode into a meeting room to face a small band of foreign journalists a few hours after being declared an easy winner in an Sri Lanka's first national election since the end of the country's long ethnic civil war.
There was a celebratory mood inside his fortified, colonial-era residence, Temple Trees, as Colombo's social and diplomatic elite gathered to congratulate him.
But the President's mood soured, at least temporarily, as about a dozen foreign reporters quizzed him on the challenges he faces, including unresolved war crimes allegations, the rehabilitation of Tamil war refugees and coming up with a political reforms to help heal Sri Lanka's deep ethnic divisions.
Mr Rajapaksa seemed taken aback by the close questioning. "Am I in the dock?" he asked us at one point.
He was given a temporary reprieve from questions when he left the meeting briefly to take a phone call from Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka's giant neighbour, India, congratulating the President on his victory.
But the flow of tough questions was a reminder of the many problems he has to grapple with. One of them is the recent jump in the number of Sri Lankan Tamils who have fled the country bound for Australia in the hope of political asylum.
When I asked if the exodus of asylum seekers would continue, he said recent efforts to strengthen border security had brought a change.
"Now we have very close surveillances by the navy, we have taken some action against them. These things were all organised by drug dealers, the LTTE [Tamil Tigers] and other parties and it will change after all this."
However, more legal immigration to Australia would be encouraged, he said. "There will be a program where anybody who wants to go can get visas and go," he said.
Political reform will be essential if Sri Lanka is to overcome the ethnic divisions that stoke the discontent felt by many Tamils.
During the election, Mr Rajapaksa promised to devolve power to Sri Lanka's minorities under the so-called "13th amendment" to its constitution. However, he is yet to provide detail on how this will work or when provincial elections might be held in the predominantly Tamil north of Sri Lanka.
"I cannot give you the exact date [for any provincial election]," he said. "We will resettle the people first then we must hold general elections so it all depends. In politics you take the best time for elections, whatever election that might be."
Mr Rajapaksa's comments came at the end of a day of high political drama in Colombo. As election votes were being counted, Government troops surrounded the hotel where Mr Rajapaksa's main rival, former army chief Sarath Fonseka, was staying.
Mr Fonseka was still hunkered down in the hotel when election officials declared the result – Mr Rajapaksa had received nearly 58 per cent of the votes cast, 1.8 million more than his rival.
Mr Fonseka immediately rejected the result and lodged a letter with the country's Election Commissioner calling for the poll to be declared null and void. Mr Fonseka said he feared for his life and would be forced to leave the country to ensure his safety. Mr Rajapaksa said Mr Fonseka, who has residency rights in the US, was free to leave if he chose.
"He has a Green Card, so any time he can go, it's up to him to decide," he said.
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