Sri Lanka

War and politics

Until a genuine power-sharing arrangement acceptable to Tamils and all concerned is put in place in Sri Lanka, the Tamil issue will not go away, comments Samuel Fernandes

  It is full-scale war going on in northern Sri Lanka since the beginning of this year. With restricted media access to the frontline, the reports filtering out through the government-controlled print and electronic media suggest a steady advance of government troops into the LTTE-held areas. On the contrary, the pro-LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) sources provide tales of LTTE bravado in arresting the march of the security forces.
However, the sense of desperation and hurry demonstrated by the Tamil diaspora indicates that all is not well with Vellupilli Prabhakaran and his men. After capturing the East, and clearing Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Ampara districts of LTTE rebels in July 2007, the government was on an overdrive to finish off the LTTE strongholds in the north.
   LTTE political chief Tamilselvan was killed in an aerial-bomb attack on 2 November 2007. Media reports even said that Prabhakaran was nearly killed, when 12 bombs were dropped by the Lankan air force on the Jayanthinagar bunker complex in the northern district of Kilinochchi on 28 November.
   On 16 January 2008, the government withdrew formally from the Ceasefire Agreement and made its intentions clearer. Since then Sri Lankan media persons have been busy flashing reports of massive losses suffered by the LTTE almost every day.
   The government has, in the meanwhile, started a political offensive in the East to try out a popular system of governance at the local level. This is well in line with the Mahinda Rajapakse government’s efforts at making a clean break with the past. Armed with a judicial verdict annulling the merger of the East and North as per the India-Sri Lanka accord in July 1987, the government has now conducted local bodies’ elections separately in the East.
   The government has even gone further ahead and declared its intention to hold provincial elections in the East separately. Two days after the local bodies elections, the Department of Elections issued a gazette notification calling for nominations, between 27 March and 3 April, to contest the Eastern Provincial Council elections. The elections will take place on 10 May.
The North-East provincial council was dissolved in July 1990 after the withdrawal of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) from Sri Lanka. The councils came under the Governor’s rule after this. In October 2006 the Supreme Court declared the merger null and void.
   On 10 March this year the government held elections for nine local bodies in the Eastern Province. As the government noted, the elections were part of its plan to restore democracy and civil administration in the East.
   Government sources later claimed that almost 60 per cent of the electorate cast their vote. Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP), the party controlled by Karuna, who broke away from Prabhakaran’s LTTE, swept the elections with its alliance partner United Freedom Party, which is ruling at the centre in Colombo.
   The elections were boycotted by the opposition United National Party (UNP) and the pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance (TNA). Elections were monitored by a Sri Lankan civil society group called People’s Action for Free and Fair Election (PAFFREL), which stated that there was no violence nor incidents of rigging on polling day. However, there was a lot of pressure on candidates opposed to the TMVP to not stand in the elections.
   Before holding the elections the government has taken some steps expressing its intentions to take notice of the grievances of the Tamil people. Government sources have claimed that the government has initiated action to recruit 2000 Tamil-speaking police officers; 175 have already been recruited, trained and deployed in the Eastern province. Efforts are also being made to increase the proficiency of the Sinhalese bureaucrats in Tamil language. It has been made mandatory for all persons who are recruited to the public service to be proficient in the two official languages. The government has also promised to implement the recommend-ations of the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) towards achieving a durable political settlement to the current conflict.
The government has called its efforts in the East Negenahira Navodaya or Reawakening of the East Programme. It has sought to restore civil administration, to settle internally displaced persons (IDPs) in their original homes and to reconstruct damaged vital infrastructure. The elections have sought to install a popularly elected civilian government at the local level.
   However, the response from the international community has not been too encouraging. The government, if at all it was serious about its efforts in the East, could have encouraged TNA and UNP to participate in the elections and taken the help of the international community in monitoring the elections, some of the international observers would say. This would have also ensured greater legitimacy for the governmental efforts.
Sceptics would thus argue that the entire exercise was an eyewash and the international community, with its bias against LTTE — primarily perceived as a terrorist organisation — has indirectly supported the government’s massive offensive against the Tamil rebels. The government has persuaded many to believe that the offensive is well planned and executed and maximum care is being taken to avoid major civilian casualties.
   However, in reality, there has been a massive exodus of Tamil population from the north to the southern states of India. Strangely, the reaction from the Indian government has been rather muted. The Tamil population in southern India has also not been able to exert adequate pressure on the state or central government to take the issue up with the Sri Lankan government. There is a view that the government at New Delhi led by the Congress Party may quietly allow the government of Sri Lanka to exterminate the LTTE, the organisation that assassinated its leader Rajiv Gandhi way back in May 1991.
   Unaddressed in the prevailing conundrum of war is the issue of genuine devolution of powers to the Tamil-majority areas. The APRC report makes a good beginning. But in the absence of a consensus between the two principal political parties (Sri Lanka Freedom Party and UNP), it will not be easy to implement the recommendations. The ruling alliance, composed of hard-line parties such as the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), may also develop cracks from within if the power-sharing arrangements suggested by APRC were to be translated into reality in the North and the East.
   An all-party delegation from UK is now in Sri Lanka on a fact-finding mission. One of its members, Liam Fox, had made an unsuccessful attempt to bring the two principal political parties together in the mid-1990s to resolve the ethnic crisis. Let us hope he can make some difference this time.
   Until a genuine power-sharing arrangement acceptable to Tamils and all concerned is put in place in Sri Lanka, the Tamil issue will not go away. If the LTTE is quashed today, one may apprehend a more radical version tomorrow if the genuine interests and aspirations of the Tamils remain unfulfilled.
                       
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