Rajapakse devolution

Sri Lanka has a model to offer the world. Not the 'anti-terrorism' model President Mahinda Rajapakse's administration is assiduously peddling. Rather, this is a model of political marketing, an 'all you need to know' crash course in building innocuous facades to hide insalubrious realities. The old saying suggests that all the people cannot be fooled all the time. But, as the Rajapakses have proven, fooling all the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time can more than suffice.

In his keynote-speech at the 'Defeating Terrorism: Sri Lankan Experience' seminar, put on in early June by the country's armed forces with Chinese sponsorship, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse stated that his brother, the president, had prevented a repetition of 1987 (ie, a Tamil Nadu-compelled Indian intervention) by keeping Delhi fully in the loop during the ending of the ethnic conflict, two years ago. 'President Rajapakse went out of his way to keep New Delhi briefed about all the new developments taking place in Sri Lanka,' Gotabhaya said. 'He understood that while other countries could mount pressure on us through diplomatic channels or economic means, only India could influence the military campaign.'