COLOMBO, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's government widened its new-found parliamentary majority on Wednesday when a hardline Buddhist monk party which wants to see Tamil Tiger rebels destroyed in battle joined its ranks, officials said. The alignment of the hardline Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), which helped President Mahinda Rajapakse come to power in late 2005 but did not formally ally themselves with the government, means its narrow one-seat majority rises to nine. However their support could prove a thorn in the side of Rajapakse, who is under pressure from the international community to halt fighting with the rebels and return to peace talks -- which the monk party is vehemently against. "We are going to support the government," said JHU policy adviser Patali Champika Ranawaka, who is not himself a monk. "We want to strengthen the President's (vision) to defeat terrorism." "Peace talks have failed. The Tigers are intransigent. (Peace) cannot be done with the Tigers, So they must be defeated militarily," he added, saying he would replace one of the party's MPs and had accepted the post of environment minister. The JHU has nine seats in parliament, but one dissident monk earlier left the party and has not joined the government. The government clinched its majority on Sunday when 25 opposition MPs defected to its ranks, some securing posts as ministers in a major cabinet reshuffle. With the JHU, the government now has 121 votes in the 225-seat chamber, a majority that will make it easier to get legislation through. But the crossovers have deepened a rift with the main opposition United National Party (UNP), and jeopardised a pact aimed at finding a consensus approach to end the two-decade civil war. Analysts say that the UNP defections have destroyed a pact between the island's two main parties to build consensus on how to end a war that has killed 67,000 people since 1983 and which many fear is set to escalate. To the worry of observers, the government -- apparently emboldened by the capture of a key eastern rebel stronghold -- has vowed to wipe out the Tigers' military machine altogether, paving the way for more bloody war. They say the government is underestimating the rebels, and see no clear winner.
