Elusive Sri Lanka victory a family triumph

Behind that victory speech was a historic and bloody family triumph, guided by two of the president's brothers: Gotabaya, the influential secretary of defense, and Basil, a so-called special adviser who devised the political strategy around the war effort.

Together, the brothers Rajapaksa defied international pressure to stanch civilian casualties, squelched dissent, blocked independent reporting of the war, and achieved what many had thought all but impossible: They vanquished the Tamil Tigers, who had waged a pitiless war of terror and once ruled swaths of Sri Lankan territory as a de facto state.

With Gotabaya Rajapaska in charge of the defense portfolio, the government sharply increased defense spending; bought new weapons, primarily from China and Pakistan; and nearly doubled the size of the armed forces, to roughly 160,000 today. President Rajapaksa's political cunning was put to use. He made sure to ask India for weapons first. Only when it refused because of domestic sympathy for the Tamil cause did he turn to India's rivals.

The military strategy paid off, too. Starting in the summer of 2006, the government forces staged intense air, sea, and ground assaults against rebels in the east and the north, sustaining the attacks even though the two sides were still officially engaged in cease-fire negotiations. The government also adopted some guerrilla tactics from the Tamil Tigers.

The brothers, who come from upper-caste landed gentry, are not part of the capital's English-educated elite. It did not hurt them to snub pressure from the West.

"There was no vacillation as there has been with previous governments," said Nilan Fernando, the country director for an American nonprofit, the Asia Foundation, who is based in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital. "Previous governments were always playing for a draw. This time, they were playing for a win."

The victory, like Russia's smothering of Chechnya's separatist rebellion, comes at a high cost. The United Nations says 7,000 civilians have been killed since January alone, and more than 265,000 ethnic Tamils who fled the war zone are now interned in overcrowded camps.

Some of Sri Lanka's erstwhile allies are now calling for an international commission of inquiry into possible war crimes. Sri Lanka desperately needs foreign aid for postwar reconstruction.

Yesterday, in his speech to the nation, President Rajapaksa spoke in generalities about forging a peace settlement, but he gave few details beyond saying that it had to be acceptable to everyone in Sri Lanka.

That is, of course, the Rajapaksas' next challenge: reconciliation.

Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Policy Alternatives here, said the president had "struck the right notes by making the distinction between the Tamil people and the Tamil Tigers."

"What was missing was more details about the post-conflict phase," Saravanamuttu said.