Colombo paper wants Indian minister fired

Colombo paper wants Indian minister fired

COLOMBO (AFP): Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes was accused on Monday of supporting Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels by a state-run daily which called for his dismissal from the caretaker government.

The evening Observer newspaper said Sri Lanka's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) guerrillas may be unhappy over Saturday's fall of the Indian government in which their sympathizer was the defense minister.

The Observer also lambasted the outgoing government of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee who lost a confidence vote by one ballot in the Indian parliament on Saturday.

The nuclear test explosions and firing of the intermediate range ballistic missile known as Agni were described by the Observer newspaper as "high visibility stunts" to win popularity.

There has been no formal reaction from Colombo to the fall of the Vajpayee government, but the state-run newspaper slammed India's Fernandes and said the Sri Lankan government had apprehensions about his appointment as defense minister because of his pro-LTTE stance and accommodation to the rebels.

The newspaper pointed out that Fernandes had hosted a pro-LTTE meeting at his New Delhi home because the meeting could not take place publicly as the rebel group was declared a banned organization there.

The political crisis in India came to a head following Fernandes's sacking in December of the Indian navy chief Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat. The sacking created an uproar and set off a bitter war of words in the Indian media between Bhagwat and Fernandes.

The Indian government's refusal to reinstate Bhagwat or censure Fernandes was one of the main reasons for the defection of a key coalition partner that left Vajpayee's administration in a minority and led to its collapse Saturday.

"If reports are to be believed, there is no doubt that the Indian defense minister could be faulted for compromising India's security concerns....

"We may well see George Fernandes being divested of the defense portfolio even at this belated stage," The Observer said in an editorial headlined: "Agni backfires, Prabha sweats."

Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger movement is led by elusive Velupillai Prabhakaran who is also wanted in India for the 1991 assassination of former Indian premier Rajiv Gandhi.