Sri Lanka鈥檚 desktop command center
Reporters on the Job: Sri Lanka鈥檚 defense secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa was described to me as the country鈥檚 most powerful figure. The reason is that his elder brother 鈥� the president 鈥� trusts him to direct the war, and huge resources are at his disposal. He鈥檚 not the only family member in the inner circle. Two other brothers are in the cabinet.
I managed to get an interview with Mr. Rajapaksa (read the Monitor's report here) near the end of my trip. After clearing security, I waited until I was shown into his office, where he sat behind an imposing desk. On his desk were four phones, plus an iPhone, and two laptops. One laptop was positioned where I could see moving images of what I thought was Google Earth or similar.
In fact, I discovered later, it was a live feed from drones flying over the war zone in the north. It felt like the command center of a war. But the phones didn鈥檛 ring too often and our interview overran by 15 minutes, with little pressure from him to end it.
