There you go Indi…you’re betraying your own war hero.
Just look at your own blog posts before the elections.

I don’t know what has come about you, but good luck with your new found passion of sucking up to the govt.
It might dawn on you one day and you’ll wish you never had to do it.

hes behaving like a thug. how can a defence secretary talking like that in public. is he gone mad?why is he and his family so scared of general fonseka?he is the war hero. if not for him u and u r bro still fighing with praba.yes its true that pes..rajapakse gave politicalsupport but without generl fonseka war cant be won? he is the architect of ruining praba and his gang. so as defence secretary who ave authority to hang some ne? whole world knw and aware how badly unfairly u and u brothers treatig great war hero…. he is for ever and ever and ever…..long live gen fonseka.gota mind r language plzzzzzzz

You people now realize the tragedy that is Gotabhaya Rajapakse. But sometime ago you were praising his tough words. Hypocrisy can be a virtue!

You call Gen. Fonseka a war hero? For what? Killing 75 thousand tamil people? hypocrisy can be a virtue!

He should definitely be more careful speaking to the international media. He lets his emotions get in the way when journalists fire him up, and they know this well and truly. If you watch the video, its like saying “machang, I’m going to kill you!” in the heat of something but not really meaning what you say- when the journo repeats whether SF will be hanged, Gota replies with something on the lines of No, but he’s going to have to answer judicially.

I’m not sure what SF is trying to prove by leaking bits and pieces of military information. A LOT of young soldiers and civilians sacrificed their lives for an end of terrorism in this country. I think a lot of SLankans are now on the fence of looking at SF as a traitor to the military and Sri lanka Verses a victim of politics. Is the latter diminishing though?

@indi,
” I actually think the government is less bad than Gota makes it look (though not good).”

Your, and the newspaper you work for, The Sunday Leader’s, recent behaviour has prompted me to ask, does the website of your newspaper often delete comments people make there (relevant comments that do not contain any abusive language in them)?

This is what they did to mine,
http://lefroy.wordpress.com/2010/06/08/the-sunday-leader-exposed-is-this-freedom-of-speech/

This is not the first time Gota said something like this. Remember “Dan oya ethi neda Mervyn?” Remember “I will arrest that man” when Shevan Daniels talk to BBC?

Gota’s broken English sucks but he is not unusual in Colombo. A typical verbal fight literally translated in to English might sound like everybody is going to kill each other in the next five minutes.

British never understood the great Sri Lankan word games. They have the same problem with Arabs.

Definitely no unless we don’t know something really big between these two people which I seriously doubt. Gota seems like the kind of guy with a bark worse than his bite. “Hanging SF” even if that is possible achieves nothing, and SF is a spent bullet anyway in terms of politics. But if you listen to the interview, Gota is just expressing frustration and not really threatening to kill SF. You got to give it to BBC guy to for making this all so dramatic.

On the other hand, does Gota want Ranil as UNP leader? Heck yes.

Nice chatting with you.

We can argue for days and weeks. But nothing changes the fact that Lasantha was killed. That there really were white vans that abducted people. That mass graves were found in Kilinochchi. That if you say something that the government doesn’t like, the next day you’re either dead or in prison, sentenced for 20 years. That Shevan Daniels is still in exile. That Poddala Jayantha’s legs are broken.

@dodo… Yeah Sure. I say all this in public

Thank you Gotabaya Rajapksa, Tamils will always support your bravery, speak more…

i dont know what is the fuss about, gota said if he lied in testifying to any forign investigation he can be tried for treason…n curiously people are forgetting the real issue here where fonseka has adreed to give evidance in a international investigation….dont know what his jvp buddies think about this

@Indi… I am really suspicous of your new policy of sucking up to the government.

This interview was only a small part of one episode of a week-long series of reports on Sri Lanka by the BBC. I was pleasantly surprised that Stephen Sakhur managed to speak to the range of interviewees and that he was pretty even-handed in his questioning. Not perfect, but also not quite the one-dimensional view typical of a lot of Western journalists over the past few years.

The series continues all week. I don’t know if you chaps can get it in it’s entirety in SL. I am recording it via BBC iPlayer, which isn’t easily transferable, but will be available to view by Indi et al on my arrival next week.

Is Gotabaya doing a MIA type interview

i.e. Playing to the constituent audience.

To spell it out:
when MIA says nasty things about Sri Lanka/Sinhalese her ratings go up among the Yuppies/Goths and the wannabe coloreds.

And I am not going to spell out the vice versa.

In contrast, if people bothered to read, Fonseka showed a lot without saying much in his non committal interview. I thought I could not articulate but reading Gota makes me feel rich.

@jcnars… In case you don’t know there was a period Lasantha licked Chandrika’s boots.