Sri Lanka President's Rhetoric and Back Peddling

(AT) In Sri Lanka, press has always been a convenient scapegoat. No sooner a controversial statement is made by President Chandrika Kumaratunga; the government back peddles and goes hastily into damage control, flooding the media with clarifications.

All hell broke loose, when President Kumaratunga at a ceremony of police officers said the entire judiciary and the police were corrupt. The media went to town on it. An angered judiciary went to the extent of writing to the President to come up with proof regarding corrupt incidents.