BIZARRE SRI LANKA

JUST one year after the final government assault on the Tamil tiger rebels in Sri Lanka took place, the country's newly elected parliament was formally opened this week. The military victory after 26 years of civil war was credited to General Sarath Fonseka who in January stood unsuccessfully for the presidency against the incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa but was later elected as an MP. In a bizarre commentary on Sri Lanka today, General Fonseka attended the opening of Parliament accompanied by guards from a nearby prison where he is being held pending a court martial which he believes is a punishment for opposing President Mahinda at the polls. The charge against him is of plotting a coup against the President. In a speech to the Parliament he called for his own freedom and the safeguarding of democracy and the rule of law.

President Mahinda appears to be creating a new political dynasty in Sri Lanka. One of his brothers is the powerful Speaker of Parliament, another brother is his political adviser and a third is Secretary of the Ministry of Defence, Public Security and Law and Order. The President's 23-year-old son, Basil, was among the newly elected MPs. It is widely believed in Sri Lanka that President Mahinda intends to change the country's constitution and will not be stopped from doing so by the fact that he lacks six MPs to reach the necessary two-thirds majority in Parliament.