Less than six months after the war ended in an outright victory, the three personalities at the helm of the war effort seem to be at loggerheads. Even if one were to ignore innumerable media reports, there are other telling indicators – such as verbal pinches and slaps by ministers (including a veritable barrage by ------Minister Mervyn Silva) and the curious presences and absences in the government media (General Fonseka’s speech to the army was blacked out).

There was also the 9th October ITN interview with Defence Secretary Rajapakse, in which he made but one passing mention to the General and fulsomely credited the President (and indirectly himself) with the victorious war effort.

When the para-JVP paper, Lanka, carried a front page lead story about the ‘fallout’, its editor was detained and questioned by the CID for several hours. The decision by the General to refuse the post of Secretary to the Ministry of Sports and Public Entertainment (a curious appointment indeed!) has added fuel to the inferno of rumours.

Though the origins and the extent of the problem are shrouded in mystery and its outcomes are uncertain, it is hard to doubt the existence of a problem between Gen. Fonseka and the Rajapakse brothers. Barely six months after the war, the three men who won it, seem to be on the verge of yet another uncivil war – this time against each other.

The Sinhala supremacist vision underlying the Fourth Eelam War was common to President Rajapakse, Defence Secretary Rajapakse and General Fonseka. As Army Commander, Gen. Fonseka did not hesitate to wade into political waters by expressing this vision publicly, and in the most unequivocal terms: “The truth is that this country is ruled by Sinhalese for centuries and centuries. China is ruled by Chinese, England by the Englishmen and Germany by Germans. This is because these countries are ruled by the majorities.…........... What is wrong by saying that this country, which is historically ruled by Sinhalese will be ruled by the Sinhalese… I am not a historian, but according to what I have learnt, this country is ruled by the Sinhalese and the minorities are also part and parcel of this country” (The Sunday Observer – 5.8.2008).

There is little doubt that Gen. Fonseka was both a believer and a participant in the Rajapakse project of turning Sri Lanka into a hierarchically pluralist country dominated by Sinhala Buddhists.

Soon after the war ended, Gen. Fonseka announced that the Armed Forces would be expanded further. He seemed to have subscribed to the Rajapakse vision of post-war Sri Lanka as a highly militarised society where democratic rights would be curtailed in the name of national security.

At a meeting with a group of foreign correspondents last year, Gen. Fonseka hinted at a future consisting of unending violence and overarching extremism, a future defined and shaped by a nebulous ‘counterinsurgency campaign’ against an equally nebulous ‘Tamil nationalism’: "Even if we finish the war, capture the whole of the north, still the LTTE might have some members joining them…. There are people who believe in Tamil nationalism. The LTTE might survive another even two decades with about 1,000 cadres. But we will not be fighting in the same manner. It might continue as an insurgency forever" (BBC – 30.6.2008).

Ideologically and politically, therefore, the Rajapakses and Gen. Fonseka are of the same ilk. All three are Sinhala supremacist; all three have little regard for democracy or for democratic rights; all three subscribe to a future in which the minorities will be kept firmly in their (subordinate) places (if necessary through violence) and democratic dissent and opposition will be disallowed in the name of patriotism.

The current ‘fallout’ seems to have been occasioned by ‘personal’ factors. The Rajapakses want to turn Sri Lanka into a dynastic democracy, a one family state behind a democratic façade. It would have been this Dynastic project which made the Rajapakses regard Gen. Fonseka with suspicion and treat him with discourtesy, post-war.

Incidentally one cannot but see a similarity between the way in which the Rajapakses are treating Gen. Fonseka and the way they dealt with Mangala Samaraweera. Just as the former was a key in the victorious war, the latter was a, if not the, key in the victorious Presidential election. Mr. Samaraweera was not only instrumental in organising Mr. Rajapakse’s campaign; without his intervention, Mr. Rajapakse may not have been able to bag the SLFP/PA nomination in the first place. Yet a few months after the election, Mr. Samaraweera was sidelined; and in just over a year, he was hounded out of the government and the party.

The marginalising of Gen. Fonseka began, soon after his usefulness as the Army Commander ended. After all, in a dynastic regime, there are no non-family partners, just pawns, who will be treated well only as long as their usefulness lasts. And a capable man who is outliving the role assigned to him can be seen by the ruling family as a nuisance at best and a threat at worse.

So the politico-ideological affinity notwithstanding, the Rajapakses and General Fonseka are at loggerheads. Whatever the final outcome of this internecine quarrel is, in the interim it has weakened the regime and slowed down the Rajapakses’ march towards a dynastic democracy. In that sense the breaking up of the war-time triumvirate is a blessing in disguise, because it has divided and weakened the politico-military elemental force which is undermining the democratic system. Had that triad remained intact, had its members continued to work in unison towards a shared goal, violation of democratic and human rights and attacks on the media would have increased several-fold and Sri Lanka would have been a far more unfree and unjust land, especially for minorities and dissidents.

Segments of the Opposition have, understandably, jumped into the fray, defending the General and inviting him to become the common Presidential candidate. At the forefront of this effort is the JVP, which is promoting Gen. Fonseka vigorously as a counter to Mahinda Rajapakse, just as, four years ago, it promoted Mahinda Rajapakse vigorously, as a counter to Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga (The JVP seems destined to practice negative politics, driven by feelings of chagrin and motives of revenge.).

Will Gen. Fonseka agree to become the Common Opposition Candidate?

Will Ranil Wickremesinghe undercut him from within, in such an eventuality?

These are questions which can be answered only with time. As concerning observance of human rights and fidelity to democratic values, there is no real difference between the Rajapakse brothers and Gen. Fonseka.

They rode roughshod over their opponents and defended each other’s misdeeds when it was in their interest to march in unison. Now their interests have diverged, and this estrangement may indeed lead to a parting of ways. But both parties would be motivated by nothing more than pure and unadulterated self interest. Both parties will try to lay claim to loftier values, from patriotism to democracy, but the inescapable fact is that both sides would be motivated by greed for power and lust for revenge.

And if the Rajapakse brothers and General Fonseka end up on opposing sides at the next Presidential election, those tactics which were used by both parties in the last four years will be rehashed, this time against each other.

When Keith Noyhar, associate editor and defence analyst of ‘The Nation’ was abducted and tortured, five media organisations staged a demonstration of protest this criminal act. Defence Secretary Rajapakse summoned some of the leaders of the protest and comments to them are illuminating in their brutal frankness: “You are criticizing the military and its Commanders.

You are attacking (Lieutenant General) Sarath Fonseka who has committed his life for the past 18 years to waging a war. He had a narrow escape (following a suicide bomb attack). When we have committed our entire lives, you are attacking us. This is no laughing matter. Tell me one thing you have done for this country compared to Lt Gen. Fonseka. He is loved by the soldiers.

They can cause harm…... I am definitely not threatening your lives. I am not. It will happen from where it happens. Our services are appreciated by 99 per cent of the people. They love the Army Commander (Lt. Gen. Fonseka) and the Army. Those who love us do what is required. We cannot help that (The Sunday Times – 6.6.2008).

In the last four years, patriotism was considered synonymous with limitless loyalty and unquestioning obedience to the Rajapakse regime (of which Gen. Sarath Fonseka was an important part). This absolutist mindset permitted no space for questions and doubts, differences and dissent. Opponents of the regime were considered traitors and some paid the ultimate price for their ‘crime’.

This politico-ideological regimentation worked seamlessly when the Rajapakses and General Fonseka were working together. What will happen if General Fonseka indeed decides to enter politics via the opposition, as its common presidential candidate?

Who will be the traitors then and who the patriots?

Will General Fonseka damn his former masters as traitors?

Will the Rajapakse brothers damn their former Army Commander as a traitor?

Which way will the ‘patriotic’ lobby go?

Will it become divided?

Will General Fonseka be treated in the same way he and the Rajapakses treated their opponents in the last four years?

What will each side accuse the other of?

Which deeds committed in the darkness of secrecy will be revealed as a result of this internecine contestation?

It is hard to believe that Gen. Sarath Fonseka has become a democrat simply because he is having personal differences with the Rajapakse brothers. They are merely birds of a feather with some problems. Still, if Gen. Fonseka joins the opposition, it will weaken the Rajapakse camp and impede the progress of its ‘two-thirds project’. If the UPFA does not get a two thirds majority, Lankan democracy will be able to get back on track in time, albeit with a few tactical deviations, even if Mr. Rajapakse wins the Presidency (as he will).

Dreams die hard and the Rajapakses will cling to their Dynastic project to the very end. But if the UPFA is unable to get its two-thirds in the upcoming election, the Rajapakse myth will be shattered and the Rajapakse dominance within the party will begin to wane, causing Sri Lanka’s march towards a dynastic democracy to come to a grinding halt.

Furthermore, the currently dominant Sinhala supremacist camp will become weakened and confused, thereby reducing the potency of one of the most important forces opposing a political solution to the ethnic problem. An unwitting – and welcome – outcome of the next uncivil war may be the retransformation of Sri Lanka into a (flawed) pluralist democracy.