Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga declared a state of emergency yesterday, giving herself more powers in a bare-knuckled political fight with the prime minister that is threatening the peace with Tamil rebels.
The state of emergency, a draconian law that allows detention for up to one year without charges, comes a day after the president sacked three of the country's most powerful ministers and suspended parliament.
But a presidential adviser said Kumaratunga would not end the 20-month truce with the Tamil Tigers, who seek a separate homeland for minority Tamils, despite her disagreement with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe over the peace process.
"I am authorized by the president to tell you that the ceasefire agreement stands and will stand. There is no question about that," Lakshman Kadirgamar told reporters.
The president, who is elected separately from Wickremesinghe, sacked the defense, interior and media ministers on Tuesday and suspended parliament, raising questions about the future of the government and the direction of the peace bid.
That shock move was followed yesterday by the imposition of the state of emergency, which widens the powers of the president and military and includes bans on public assembly.
"It has been gazetted," military spokesman Colonel Sumedha Perera said when asked about the state of emergency.
All these actions are being taken in Wickremesinghe's absence -- he is in the US to meet President George W. Bush. He has called the moves by Kumaratunga desperate and said they could lead to chaos and anarchy.
The developments also come just days after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) released a proposal on power-sharing that the government said were a basis for fresh talks.
Kumaratunga's party sharply criticized the proposals, but Kadirgamar said it was the president's belief that the security situation was deteriorating that led to her actions.
He said a suspected LTTE ship carrying weapons had been spotted offshore last month and "brought to a head concerns about how the security situation is being handled."
An LTTE spokesman in northern Sri Lanka said he had no comment on the president's moves but denied rumors that the main north-south highway that runs through rebel-controlled territory had been closed.
The political crisis pushed the Sri Lankan stock market down 13 percent yesterday in its biggest-ever fall as mounting uncertainty over the peace process cast doubts on whether the current economic boom would last. The market has been among the world's strongest this year.
Kumaratunga's actions sparked concern worldwide.
"We are concerned that these events could have a negative effect on the peace process and talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and we stand firmly behind the government of Sri Lanka in its search for peace after 20 years of bloody conflict," US State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters.
The view was echoed around Asia.
India, which sent troops to Sri Lanka to fight the LTTE in the 1980s, expressed surprise at the sudden turn of events.
"We hope that the situation does not provoke a constitutional crisis," an Indian External Affairs Ministry statement said.
Japan said it hoped the peace process would continue.
"In essence it will express our hope that this political maneuver by the president ... would not lead to any disruption of the peace process in Sri Lanka," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hatsuhisa Takashima said of a communique Japan was preparing to send to Sri Lanka.
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