Sri Lankan Leader Blamed for War
The Winner
By Dilip Ganguly
Associated Press Writer
Sunday, Dec. 19, 1999; 4:52 p.m. EST
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka –– Chandrika Kumaratunga became president of Sri Lanka
intending to end a brutal civil war. But as she seeks another term, ethnic
fighting rages on and the blame for huge military losses has fallen on her.
Mrs. Kumaratunga, who lost both her father, Prime Minister Solomon Dias
Bandaranaike, and husband, Vijaya Kumaratunga, to political violence, was
wounded Saturday in a failed assassination attempt.
She won the presidency in a 1994 landslide, having promised in her campaign to
end the war in Sri Lanka, where militants among the country's 3.3 million
minority Tamils are battling for an independent homeland within the island
country, located off the southeast coast of India.
But peace talks with the rebels fell through at the beginning of her term, and
fighting resumed more fierce than ever.
Though she had promised to safeguard people's fundamental rights, Mrs.
Kumaratunga imposed censorship on military news reporting in June 1998 and
enlarged the censorship regulations in November of that year. She also
postponed provincial council elections in August 1998, and imposed emergency
rule throughout the nation.
Military officials have criticized her for risking national security by pulling
soldiers from the fight with the rebels to police campaign events and
elections, her officials said.
With a political science degree from the University of Paris, she came back to
Sri Lanka in 1972 in time to see her mother, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, become the
world's first woman to be elected a national leader.
Mrs. Kumaratunga's husband, a former movie star, was killed soon after the
couple formed a socialist opposition party in 1988. Facing death threats, she
fled to Britain with her children, son Vimukti, 17, and daughter Yasodara,19.
She returned to Sri Lanka in 1990 and formed her own party with a breakaway
group of her mother's party, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. She abandoned her
party and joined that of her mother in 1991.
© Copyright 1999 The Associated Press
Rathnadeepa,
Janmabhumi,
Vijayabhumi,
Mathrubhumi, .......
Me Ape Udhara wuu
Mathrubhumiyai..............
Me Parath Dhunna Bate ,
Giaya Paratha Dhunna Bate,
Hema Parama Denawa Bate