Previous posts in this blog (see link) had noted the challenges facing Sri Lanka in the aftermath of its total military victory against the LTTE.  Sri Lanka’s President and the Amy Chief tried to hog the credit for the victory and both giant egos faced off in the recent Presidential election, which President Rajapaksa won handily.  In what seems like a harbinger of the policy facing the defeated Tamils, President Rajapaksa seems unwilling to rest on the laurels of victory at the ballot box.  He has now proceeded to arrest General Fonseka, confirming the fears of the opposition.  See link.   Generals who grow too big for their boots while in uniform are a concern for any democracy.  But arresting the loser of an election a week later is an authoritarian move that does not bode well for Sri Lankan democracy.

Many Tamils are still stuck in refugee camps.  The minority areas had ironically voted for General Fonseka feeling he was more likely to seek a solution to Sri Lanka’s ethnic divide.  With the firm backing of Sinhalese nationalists President Rajapaksa may not see the need for compromise or to implement the Sri Lankan constitution’s mandate to devolve power to the provinces.  See link.  It is hard to see how a state with two distinct ethnicities at loggerheads who are also conveniently segregated can survive without such a compromise.  The failure to compromise (and the attempt to deny citizenship to the Tamil minority) helped spark the civil war in the first place.

The LTTE’s assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 cost it Indian sympathy.  But the LTTE is now gone and sympathy for Sri Lanka’s Tamils runs deep in the next door Indian state of Tamil Nadu.  Any recurrence of civil war would put domestic pressure on India to intervene to protect the Tamils ( a situation neither New Delhi or Colombo want to arise).  Sri Lanka could use a dose of enlightened leadership that uses the period of war exhaustion to forge a lasting settlement.  I am not sure that President Rajapaksa’s thin-skinned government is up to the challenge.

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The New York Times profiles former Sandinista dictator Daniel Ortega’s end around term limits in Nicaragua.  A persistent conflict in democracies is the extent to which institutions bow down to popular will.  Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and his acolytes (Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Ortega and former Honduran president Zelaya) have complained with some justification that Latin America’s institutions have historically ignored the economic underclass and indigenous minorities.  However, their solution essentially replaces military caudillos with elected populist ones.  The end results are just as bad and like Chavez the populist demagogues start justifying their stay in power because they are some how irreplaceable.  The elected populist demagogue is not unknown in Latin American history as the disastrous career of Argentina’s Juan Peron can attest.

Some good news from the middle east.  Iraq’s parliament finally approved an electoral law that will allow it to administer a national election in January without the boycotts that plagued the last election.  There is an element of kicking the can down the road, particularly with respect to Kirkuk, but it is heartening to see a compromise decided peacefully and not with guns.  Here’s hoping that the other ethnic mish-mash America is involved in continues on this path.

Time posts about the looming confrontation in Iran on the anniversary of the siege of the US embassy.  Even though the Iranian dictatorship will not face imminent collapse until the men with guns switch sides, it is impressive to see the Iranian youth stand up in defiance.  Particularly one like Mahmoud Vahidnia who rebuked the supreme leader to his face.  Here’s hoping the bloodshed is kept to a minimum.

The National in the UAE has an article about the perils of American allies thwarting moderate Islamic parties that are trying to stay within the system.  It is very similar to the debate that has played out in Turkey over the last fifteen years, where the military backed secular establishment repeatedly thwarted religious parties from coming to power.  Ultimately a commitment to democracy means that you must also be willing to accept an undesirable result.

Jordan and Egypt are headed down a treacherous road.  While their regimes have cause to fear Islamic radicals, excluding such a large portion of the political spectrum will likely lead to a bloody dénouement.