Sri Lanka general hits out before possible poll bid

Sri Lanka's top general, General Sarath Fonseka, speaks to reporters after announcing his resignation in Colombo November 12, 2009.

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka on Friday accepted the resignation of its top general, who delivered a scathing departure letter accusing the president he may challenge at polls next year of unjustly sidelining him over unfounded coup fears.

General Sarath Fonseka, widely credited for the army's dominant role in winning a 25-year war with the Tamil Tiger rebels, stepped down on Thursday after weeks of rumors he and President Mahinda Rajapaksa had fallen out.

The main opposition United National Party and the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna have united in fanning rampant speculation they will back Fonseka as a common candidate and antidote to Rajapaksa's dominating post-war popularity.

Fonseka on Thursday said he would decide whether to run after he left uniform, and on Friday the government gave him his wish.

"General Fonseka had been granted permission to retire with immediate effect by the president," Anusha Palpita, head of the government's information department, told Reuters.

Palpita did not say if Fonseka would get the military security he requested to protect him from remnants of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Last year, a suicide bombing blamed on the Tigers killed retired Major-General Janaka Perera, a popular opposition politician who had requested government protection in vain.

In a letter to the president, Fonseka wrote he had felt sidelined with his appointment to the newly created post of Chief of Defense Staff (CDS), which many analysts saw as a hollow promotion to diminish the general's power.

"Your Excellency's and the Government's unwillingness to grant me with command responsibilities leads (me) to believe in a strong mistrust in me, which is most depressing after all what was performed to achieve war victory," he wrote.

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RAPID FALLING-OUT

Although a war hero, Fonseka is not without his critics including those in the army who say he has shown a ruthless, win-at-all costs mentality throughout his career.

A U.S. State Department report into possible war crimes at the end of the war said some officers had questioned whether their orders could be violating humanitarian law.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security asked to question Fonseka when he visited his daughters in Oklahoma this month, but Sri Lanka protested and Fonseka left without being interviewed.

The 39-year army veteran was given nearly unbridled power as he prosecuted the war in tandem with his former comrade-in-arms, Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the president's brother.

Fonseka accused the defense secretary of making him lose face by telling subordinate officers that giving Fonseka full control of the three military branches would "be very dangerous."

Fonseka also said the president had succumbed to every Sri Lankan leader's longstanding "fear psychosis of a coup," which prompted the government to sound a false alarm to India in October. Diplomats have confirmed the account.

Two people familiar with how the letter was drafted said most of it had been written for Fonseka by opposition politicians, before he finalized its content and transmitted it.

Fonseka, who was criticized last year for accusing Sri Lankan minorities like the Tamils of demanding "undue things," echoed opposition and Western calls to free hundreds of thousands of Tamil war refugees held in military-run camps.

"Your Excellency's government has yet to win the peace in spite of the fact the army under my leadership won the war," he wrote. "There is no clear policy to win the hearts and minds of the Tamil people, which will surely ruin the victory attained."

The government on Friday declined to comment on the letter.

"He is just another public servant who had retired," said defense spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella. "Perhaps he is not in a good health and not able to perform duties."

(Writing by Bryson Hull; Editing by Nick Macfie)