Mahinda Rajapaksa, President of Sri Lanka is following the well traveled route to becoming a dictator. Son of a politician, he was elected president in 2005 and reelected this year with a huge majority after annihilating the LTTE, a militant Tamil unit fighting for independence. The LTTE was a nasty organisation which terrorised Tamils more than its enemies. Rajapaksa became president promising to wipe out the LTTE permanently which he did with the help of General Fonseca who was the army chief. They did it with ruthless ferocity killing thousands innocent civilians, killing unarmed surrendering fighters and indiscriminately bombing anywhere they suspected fighters to be without regard for civilian casualties. Naturally the two allies fell out and Rajapaksa was reelected against Fonseca. He has now set out to discredit Fonseca and exact revenge by stripping him of his rank and medals and now by getting him sent to jail for 30 months. In the meantime he has changed the constitution to allow him to stand for President as many times as he likes. He knows that as long as he remains president he can stop any investigation into his role as a war criminal and persecute any witness. In this he is assisted by his three brothers who hold important portfolios. From now on he must do whatever it takes to stay in power including killing opponents and rigging elections. However, he must remember that he cannot kill everyone and victims have long memories. He can rest assured that his time will come unless he can cheat his accusers by dying first as Pol Pot did. The route of dictators is well documented as is their fate. He should do some reading.