Sri Lankan leader blasts opponents, calls for unity

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- Sri Lanka's president, seeking to justify the political crisis she set off earlier this week, said Friday the prime minister had put the country "in grave danger" in negotiations with Tamil Tiger rebels.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga relentlessly attacked her rival's policies in her speech -- though she concluded her appearance by calling for a government of national unity.

The speech, which was repeatedly postponed Friday and finally broadcast live nearly 10 hours later than originally scheduled, made clear the political upheaval was far from over, and that the already-fragile peace process remained in jeopardy.

It came hours after Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe returned home from an official visit to the United States to a raucous welcome, with more than 7,000 supporters crowding into Colombo's airport.

During the prime minister's trip to Washington to meet with President Bush, Kumaratunga fired three of his most powerful supporters from the Cabinet, suspended Parliament and declared a state of emergency.

Then, early Friday, she canceled the state of emergency decree -- but officials said she was preparing a new, milder measure to boost the power of the armed forces, which fall under her control.

She defended those moves during her speech, saying the Tigers had taken advantage of peace talks to aggressively reinforce their military position by smuggling in weapons and building bases. Kumaratunga, who lost an eye in a 1999 Tiger assassination attempt, has long said the prime minister has given too much ground to the rebels in negotiations.

"The sovereignty of the state of Sri Lanka, its territorial integrity and the security of the nation have been placed in grave danger," by the Wickremesinghe government, she said.

But she concluded her speech by calling on all Sri Lanka's parties to join together, saying politicians should "put country before self and join me in an attempt to form a grand alliance."

The likelihood of that appeared very slim in a country where the president and prime minister regularly exchange public insults.

Wickremesinghe, for his part, insisted he had not been defeated by his longtime rival the president.

"I would like to say that as far as my government is concerned, the government's majority is intact," he said.

Most of Wickremesinghe's Cabinet -- including the three ousted ministers -- met Friday and voted unanimously that Parliament should be immediately reconvened. The prime minister and his aides are meeting with various party officials and parliamentarians in the next few days, seeking to muster support.

Though the two leaders appear headed for some sort of showdown, it remains unclear how it could play out.

The president wields enormous power under Sri Lanka's constitution, but the prime minister claims the support of more than half of Parliament -- and has power over funding for the country's ministries.

He also has earned wide public support for his peace efforts. Thousands of his supporters called out praise for him as he drove into Colombo on Friday afternoon.

"Father of peace, we are with you," read one poster welcoming him back from Washington.

The negotiations to end Sri Lanka's bloody 20-year war are at the heart of the long hostility between the two.

Friday evening, she at times appeared ready to reject outright the 21-month-old cease-fire that has kept fighting at bay -- saying at one point it was invalid because she had not signed it.

But she insisted she wants peace for Sri Lanka, and said the cease-fire would be upheld.

"My commitment to peace is total. It is not a sheepskin I put on for grabbing power," she said.

The emergency decree declared by Kumaratunga greatly expanded the power of the military to make arrests, interrogate suspects and search houses at will. It also banned public gatherings, gave the president lawmaking powers and allowed media censorship.

But none of those actions were carried out, and the order barely affected life for the vast majority of Sri Lankans.

The prime minister has vowed to continue his efforts to forge a peace deal in the civil war, which started in 1983 and killed some 65,000 people before a cease-fire in February 2002. Subsequent peace talks stalled in April, though until this week they'd been expected to begin again soon.

The president's moves have infuriated the Tigers.

"Like smashing the pot when the milk in it is churning into butter, the Sri Lankan president has sabotaged the peace process at a crucial time," said V. Karuna, a top Tiger military commander.

But he said the rebels, who have taken control of large regions across northeastern Sri Lanka during the war, would make no immediate decisions on their next move. "We have to observe the political turmoil in Colombo quite soberly," he said.