State funeral for slain minister

COLOMBO - They came in their thousands to watch as the body of Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister was consigned to the flames in Colombo yesterday.

Lakshman Kadirgamar was carried through the streets on a catafalque decorated with gold. It was taken to Independence Square, where it was cremated on a funeral pyre according to Buddhist tradition.

It was a meeting of two strands in Sri Lanka's history. The pomp of the long funeral procession, more than a mile long, was a hangover from the colonial past under British rule. Kadirgamar's bier was escorted by Sri Lankan soldiers in white ceremonial uniforms and pith helmets, while others marched with drawn swords held behind their backs. A band played the funeral march.

But when they reached Independence Square, the Foreign Minister was cremated in a ceremony far more ancient than Western rites of burial. As his body was laid on the pyre, his relatives, dressed in white, the colour of mourning in south Asia, processed solemnly around it.

Then Kadirgamar's male relatives took burning torches to the pyre, and the flames devoured all.

The fear of the Sri Lankans who watched in silence was that their hopes of peace may be burning with those fires. Kadirgamar's death has exposed the fragility of the ceasefire and the ease with which the island could slip into war.

In his funeral address, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa accused the Tamil Tigers of ordering the killing.

The Tigers blamed renegade factions within the Sri Lankan establishment who want to wreck peace.

Kadirgamar was given a full state funeral because it was he, more than anyone, who ended international support for the Tigers. Rajapaksa called him a "national hero" in his address.

- INDEPENDENT