Sri Lanka

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  • What is the LTTE up to?

    Nov 10
    With barely a week to go before Sri Lanka’s Presidential elections, there is considerable confusion as to the rationale behind the Liberation Tigers’ uninterested stance on the outcome. After all, both leading candidates appear to many to have diametrically opposed stances on the peace process, one for, one against. Premier Mahinda Rajapakse has from the outset of his campaign adopted a stridently Sinhala nationalist line. His pacts with the ultra-nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Perumana (JVP) and the hardline monks’ party, the Jathika Hela Urumaya set out his position on the ethnic question with startling clarity. His manifesto was also unambiguous: a rejection of notions of self-determination and homeland and a renewed commitment to the unitary state. By comparison, opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe appeared very much the progressive candidate, courting the votes of Sri Lanka’s minorities and claiming the successes of the 2002-3 peace process.

    With Rajapakse expanding his vote bank amongst the Sinhala south through a combination of his personal ‘man of the people’ appeal and the formidable cadre-based reach of the JVP, as well as the now running electoral machinery of his Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), Wickremesinghe has had his work cut out. The United National Party (UNP) leader’s electoral alliances with the Estate Tamil parties and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) are important achievements secured after hectic horse trading. But it is the Tamil vote that Wickremesinghe needs now if he is to balance out the advantage accruing to Rajapakse from his Sinhala nationalist coalition. Which means Wickremesinghe needs the support of the LTTE.

    But paradoxically, even as Rajapakse consolidates his position amongst the Sinhalese, the LTTE has been increasingly staying aloof from the Presidential race. Why, having quietly backed the UNP at previous Parliamentary elections, are the Tigers now uninterested when the most powerful political office in the country is up for grabs? The answer, according to many political analysts, is that LTTE would prefer Sri Lanka to be led by Sinhala-nationalists as this would undermine the state’s in the eyes of the world and thereby boost the movement’s own quest for legitimacy. Thus, the thinking goes, the LTTE is ‘holding back’ the Tamil vote from Wickremesinghe to allow Rajapakse to win. Some writers have even claimed the Tamils themselves are eager to vote for Wickremesinghe but the LTTE was preventing them from doing so.

    Whilst there is some truth to the logic that a Sinhala nationalist faction heading the Sri Lankan state would provide a welcome foil against which the LTTE could argue its case in the international arena, this is not a sufficient rationale for the LTTE to throw away the possibility of a peace process progressing towards other, more tangible gains. These include, for example, the possibility of LTTE-run areas of the island getting a share of the substantial amount of international aid pledged for post-conflict and post-tsunami reconstruction as well as the possibility of an LTTE-run interim administration emerging in some form in the mid term future. Such hard gains, many analysts forget, would in themselves contribute to international legitimacy of a fashion while, more importantly, further enhancing the LTTE’s standing within the Tamil constituency.

    Thus, by settling on the ‘Rajapakse good for us, Ranil bad for us’ explanation for the LTTE’s present uninterested stance, observers are excluding important dynamics of Sri Lanka’s politics and conflict from their analysis.

    What is clear is that there has been a shift in the LTTE’s stance over the past few months, or at least, in the clarity of the LTTE’s stance. When Rajapakse kicked off his campaign with an unabashedly stridently Sinhala nationalist line, Sri Lanka’s minorities promptly recoiled. However, this does not mean there was an automatic stampede towards Wickremesinghe. Both the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) and the SLMC negotiated hard for concessions and guarantees of post-victory allocations from the UNP before they gave their endorsements. Hobson’s choice amongst the candidates does not imply a de-facto one, and it was some time before Wickremsinghe could claim their support.

    The question therefore is what, if anything, has the UNP offered the LTTE to make it worth the organisation’s while to come off the sidelines. To some extent, Rajapakse’s strident nationalist line did make Wickremesinghe the better choice, a theme initially reflected vaguely in election-related coverage in the Tamil press and the English-language Tamil media. Indeed, many Tamils reading between the lines saw the LTTE’s silence as a tacit endorsement of Wickremesinghe against Rajapakse. The thinking, with some justification, was that an open endorsement by the LTTE would undermine the UNP’s leader amongst the Sinhala voters, particularly amid Rajapakse’s campaign that Wickremesinghe would ‘sell out’ to the Tamils. But the perceived difference between the two leaders should not be overstated: there were many questions as to what exactly Wickremsinghe was going to offer the Tamils.

    The wind began to pick up and shift in the wake of the publication of the UNP manifesto. What was striking,from a Tamil perspective, as much as what was in the document, was what was not in it. Whilst providing a vague and incoherent vision of ‘a solution acceptable to all’ and a commitment to past declarations that had punctuated the 2002-3 peace process, there were no concrete commitments, for example to a strong federal solution. Whilst Wickremesinghe was confident enough to tell Sri Lankan troops last week that the conflict would be resolved within three years, he could not set out what this solution might be based on.

    To be fair, these are matters for the negotiating table, but there are other crucial issues ahead of that eventuality: there was no mention, for example, of an international aid sharing mechanism (Rajapakse has ruled out the moribund P-TOMs), nor of an interim administration (something clearly stated in UNP manifesto for the 2001 polls - at which the party enjoyed the LTTE’s tacit support). As the 2004 election results and subsequent surveys by respected Colombo-based think tanks underlined, Tamils overwhelmingly support the LTTE’s proposed Interim Self-Governing Authority (as do almost 50% of Muslims). This is driven by practical (reconstruction and rehabilitation) needs in the Northeast as much as by political aspirations. But Wickremesinghe avoided taking a clear position on it (while Rajapakse rejected it outright).

    In short, Wickremesinghe offered the LTTE and the Tamils absolutely nothing (except possibly not ruling such matters out). In contrast, he met the demands, implicit and explicit, of the SLMC and CWC, including controversial ones, like a third Muslim delegation at the negotiating table. His readiness to unilaterally decide on such matters, which had already proved problematic in past peace talks undoubtedly irritated the LTTE. But there was a crucial and rather opportunistic aspect of Wickremesinghe’s campaign strategy that raised crucially serious doubts about his judgement: he extended his hand to outgoing President Chandrika Kumaratunga to form a national government in the event of his being elected.

    President Kumaratunga is arguably a figure of hate for large sections of the Tamil community. Her decade-long ‘war for peace’ complete with a devastating economic embargo and its widespread destruction of Tamil towns and villages not only polarised Sri Lanka’s communities, it arguably provided considerable impetus to the LTTE’s cause amongst the Tamils. Wickremesinghe’s repeated efforts during his term as Prime Minister to mollycoddle his recalcitrant archrival visibly irritated members of his own party as well as exacerbating the LTTE’s frustrations.

    But there are more important practical considerations if a future peace process is to be considered. Two rationales frequently cited by the UNP negotiators for the lack of progress during the 2002-3 peace process were either the risk of President Kumaratunga unilaterally overriding agreements that might be struck at the table, or impeding the implementation of those reached. For example, President Kumaratunga’s obstinacy as armed forces chief was repeatedly blamed for Colombo’s failure to implement the normalisation clauses in the ceasefire agreement, as well as those obligating the disarming of Army-backed paramilitaries. The UNP also insisted on keeping discussion of an interim administration for the Northeast off the negotiating agenda, citing the risk of Kumaratunga’s seriously intervening in the negotiation process.

    Yet now, here was Wickremesinghe himself seeking an alliance with Kumaratunga, whilst at the same time bidding for the country’s most powerful political office. The UNP leader's invitation to the President has had two interrelated effects. Firstly, it seriously undermined the LTTE’s confidence in Wickremesinghe’s commitment to a negotiated accommodation with it (confidence that had already been frayed by the history of the 2002-3 peace process). More importantly, it immediately precluded the LTTE from supporting him without seriously undermining its own credibility amongst the Tamils.

    These are critical factors that have made the LTTE shrink back from taking a role in the November 17 elections. Indeed, the Tigers’ criticism that neither candidate has anything to offer the Tamils is based not only on the factors outlined above, but a determination not to contribute, even by omission, to Wickremesinghe’s campaign. The matter was decisively settled this week when UNP stalwart and negotiator at the 2002-3 talks, Milinda Moragoda, made a devastating series of claims in an interview with the Daily Mirror.

    In a tone devoid of the accommodation that might be expected if future talks are being eyed (indeed, Moragoda was more conciliatory towards the JVP than the LTTE) he claimed credit for promoting the violent rebellion by the LTTE commander, Colonel Karuna, and for entrapping the LTTE in an ‘international safety net.’ Most damagingly, Moragoda even claimed credit, on behalf of the UNP, for sinking two LTTE ships during the 2002-3 talks. The LTTE has not commented on Moragoda’s statements, but the reaction in Kilinchchi can be easily predicted.

    In short, what might appear to be a straightforward choice between a Sinhala nationalist Rajapakse and a pro-peace, progressive Wickremesinghe is, from a Tamil perspective, not clear cut. This is not to say that a commonality of interests could not have been arrived at in the interests of a future peace process. But the UNP failed to provide unambiguous incentives for the LTTE and the Tamils.

    The argument that the LTTE would prefer a Rajapakse-led Sinhala nationalist leadership in Colombo to undermine Sri Lanka’s standing in the international community and boost its own is not wrong. But had Wickremesinghe committed himself unambiguously to a model of substantial federalism, agreed to discuss an interim administration with the LTTE (which is where he was when Kumaratunga intervened in the peace process two years ago) and pledged to institute an aid sharing mechanism to rebuild the Northeast (for all of which international support would undoubtedly have been forthcoming), could it be said with certainty that the LTTE would not have mobilised an eager Tamil electorate behind him?
  • Briefly: Sri Lanka
    Most tourists from India

    India has edged past traditional leader Britain to secure its place as the biggest tourism generator for Sri Lanka.

    The number of Indians visiting the island jumped 21.5 per cent to 82,434 in the first nine months of the year, the Ceylon Tourist Board said.

    Britain, which enjoyed the number one slot earlier was at number two now with 68,493, a drop of seven per cent compared to the corresponding period last year.

    The island had plans to increase its shopping attractions as most Indians visited the island for stop over holidays offered by Colombo’s national carrier Sri Lankan Airlines.

    Overall, the number of tourists visiting Sri Lanka increased eight per cent to 402,585 during the first nine months of this year. However, hotels did not do well with occupancy dropping sharply.

    The number of room nights spent by foreigners dropped to 240,307 compared to 377,839 last year.

    Tourism earnings too dropped by 11 per cent to 208 million dollars.(PTI)

    ADB to fund highway network

    The Sri Lankan government has decided to reconstruct highway network in the country with the financial assistance of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the state-owned Daily News reported on Saturday.

    With an estimated cost of US$ 208 million, the project, which aims at rehabilitating a number of grade A and B roads in western, central and eastern provinces, will receive the assistance from the ADB, Highways Ministry Secretary S. Amarasekere said.

    ‘‘The ADB will provide 150 million dollars of the estimated cost of the project including the expenses regarding land acquisition. This is the first time that a donor has agreed to provide funds for land acquisition,’he said.

    Among the highways to be reconstructed under the project are the Puttalam-Anuradhapura, Udakanda-Mahiyanganaya, Nuwara Eliya- Badulla and the Hatton-Nuwara Eliya highways.

    The Sri Lankan government and the ADB finalized negotiations on the implementation of the project on Wednesday, Amarasekere said, adding ‘We are hopeful that the reconstruction could be commenced early next year.’

    Dhanapala quits

    The Sri Lankan government’s top peace official, a candidate to become the next U.N. secretary-general, resigned on Wednesday, a week before a presidential election.

    Jayantha Dhanapala, head of the government’s Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process, will step down at the end of November, the secretariat’s deputy secretary general, John Gooneratne, told Reuters.

    ‘He was appointed by the government and there’s an election coming, and he feels whoever comes in should have their own choice,’ Gooneratne added.

    Outgoing President Chandrika Kumaratunga had accepted the resignation.

    ‘He has other plans that he needs to work on,’ Gooneratne said, referring to Dhanapala’s publicly announced bid to succeed U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

    Peace talks have been suspended since the Liberation Tigers pulled out of them in 2003, and Dhanapala’s departure was not expected to have any immediate impact.

    Dhanapala angered the Tigers in August when he said the government would not subdue a splinter rebel faction which is mounting attacks against the mainstream guerrillas in the east.

    The Tigers accuse the military of helping the Karuna faction, a charge the military denies, and insist the government abide by the cease-fire and disarm paramilitaries.

    ‘They do not qualify as a paramilitary group because they were not there prior to the cease-fire agreement ... This is an internal problem of the LTTE,’ Dhanapala said at the time.
  • Sri Lanka economy to grow even faster
    Sri Lanka’s economy will expand at the fastest pace in three years in 2006 as the island rebuilds after the December tsunami, the central bank said this week.

    The $20 billion economy may grow 6 percent next year after expanding an estimated 5.3 percent in 2005, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka said in an annual review released Monday.

    The economy grew 5.4 percent last year and 6 percent in 2003.

    Sri Lanka’s pace of inflation will slow to below 8 percent in 2006 from an estimated 10 percent this year, Finance Minister Amunugama says.

    Agriculture will grow 1.9 percent, industry will expand 6 percent and services will grow 7.1 percent next year, the Colombo-based central bank said.

    ‘The effective implementation of tsunami-related reconstruction could further boost aggregate demand and output,’ the central bank said.

    Aid worth $2.2 billion and a debt moratorium worth $300 million together with another $500 million to boost foreign reserves were pledged to Sri Lanka following the tsunami which killed over thirty thousand people.

    Even before the aid influx this year, Sri Lanka has experienced more than three years of economic expansion since the February 2002 cease-fire between the government and Tamil Tigers.

    An increase in government spending promised in the lead-up to next week’s presidential election and rebuilding work after the tsunami may see economic growth accelerate next year, Bloomberg reported.

    ‘Reconstruction activity will be a key driver of economic growth,’ Channa Amaratunga, chief investment officer at Boston Asset Management Ltd. in Colombo, told Bloomberg. ‘There will be an indirect rub on the rest of the economy.’

    ‘Since the next drought cycle is not expected to emerge until 2008, both agriculture and hydropower production are expected to expand further,’ the central bank says.

    Both leading contenders in next week’s Presidential election, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse and opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, have both promised to boost government spending if elected.

    Sri Lanka will build a harbor in the southern town of Hambantota and resurrect a project to construct an expressway linking the capital Colombo with the country’s international airport, Finance Minister Sarath Amunugama said in Parliament Tuesday.

    Projects to rebuild roads destroyed by the tsunami will also commence in the last quarter of 2005 as planned.

    ‘Our public investment including those in conflict- affected districts and tsunami-affected areas will be funded through a large quantum of concessionary loans as well as grants for the next three to five years,’ Amunugama.

    ‘This means that our nation can afford to embark on large-scale development programs and add new earning capacity to our economy.’
  • Defence bill soars in ‘carrot’ laden budget
    Sri Lanka’s government hiked defence spending by 30% in its annual budget unveiled Tuesday amid a boycott by the main opposition which accused the ruling party of offering ‘carrots’ to the public just days ahead of a presidential election.

    Sri Lanka is to spend almost 61 billion rupees on the military next year, a rise of 30%. Expenditure is to rise again in 2007 to almost 69 billion rupees and in 2008 to 74 billion rupees.

    The spending, the government said, was for the ‘formulation, co-ordination and execution of policies with regard to defence and safeguarding the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Sri Lanka.’

    Notably, amongst the rises, capital expenditure was expected to rise modestly (or in the Navy’s case, to fall substantially), suggesting the military expenditure is being underpinned by a major hike in salaries.

    Sri Lanka’s Army is numerically the largest of the three services, with over 100,000 soldiers (the same size as Britain’s Army). The almost all-Sinhala army is drawn from the rural south. The Navy and Air Force are also overwhelmingly Sinhala.

    The 2006 budget won’t face a parliamentary vote until after the November 17 poll to select the successor to President Chandrika Kumaratunga.

    But it eased the tax burden on farmers, who make up a third of Sri Lanka’s 20 million people, and raised government salaries.

    The government has exempted agriculture from income tax for five years and removed a 15 percent tax on farm exports.

    The increased salaries to government employees will cost the government an additional 17.8 billion rupees, widening the government’s deficit to almost 9% of GDP.

    The main opposition United National Party (UNP) charged that presenting the budget before the election gave an undue advantage to the ruling party candidate, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, who the UNP accused of offering ‘carrots’ to the masses.

    Rajapakse, who has allied himself with Sinhala nationalist political parties has promised to halt privatisation. His rival, UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, has vowed wide-scale market reforms and to revive stalled peace talks with the Liberation Tigers.

    The UNP, along with its allies, the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), Upcountry Peoples Front (UPF) and Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), boycotted the parliamentary session in protest.

    The areas around the Sri Jayawardenepura Parliament complex was heavily guarded to prevent incidence of violence by potential protesters, TamilNet reported, adding it was the first time in Sri Lanka’s democratic history that a budget was presented without the presence of the main Opposition parties.

    ‘We will present a fresh budget after the election,’ vowed Mahinda Samarasinghe, an UNP lawmaker.

    As part of its 2006 budget, Sri Lanka will restrict a costly fuel subsidy to a few groups and boost infrastructure development, AP quoted Finance Minister Sarath Amunugama as telling parliament.

    The government will spend US$350 million (euro298 million) on building new roads across the island with donor funds, he said.

    Amunugama said the government expects inflation to be under 8 percent in 2006, but didn’t elaborate. Higher global oil prices have put upward pressure on inflation which is expected to hit 10 percent this year, an increase of 2.4 percentage points from 2004.
  • NE violence continues, fewer incidents
    Violence continued in Sri Lanka’s Northeast with kidnappings being reported amid gun and grenade attacks on Sri Lankan security forces, the Liberation Tigers and civilians, but there were fewer incidents than in the previous week.

    A Muslim owner of a business was shot and wounded in Monday night at his residence in Eravur, 15 km north of Batticaloa town, by gunmen believed to be belonging to a Muslim armed group.

    Last Friday night another Muslim businessman shot and wounded at Mavadichenai in Valaichenai, 32 km north of Batticaloa, by gunmen also believed to be Muslims, Valaichenai police said.

    Police allege that a Muslim armed group in the east is engaged in extortion among Muslim business owners in Batticaloa.

    Armed men believed to be cadres of the paramilitary Karuna Group kidnapped three youths at gunpoint Saturday night in Kaluwankerny in Eravur. Parents of the kidnapped youths told Eravur police the kidnappers had come in a white van.

    At least five youths have been reported disappeared last week in the Batticaloa district.

    A worker attached to Sammanthurai bus depot of the Ceylon Transport Board (CTB), was shot dead by unidentified gunmen at his home in Akkaraipattu, in Amparai district, 64 km south of Batticaloa, Sunday night.

    The motive behind the killing was not clear, Akkaraipattu Police said.

    Unidentified assailants Thursday morning opened fire at a tri-shaw transporting a cadre of the paramilitary Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) and the policemen providing escort to his vehicle.

    Three policemen, the EPDP cadre and the tri-shaw driver were wounded and rushed to Batticaloa Hospital. The incident took place near a police post located north of Batticaloa town on Trincomalee Road.

    The policemen returned fire at the assailants, however they managed to flee from the site, police said, adding that the gunmen had used T-56 assault rifle.

    However, violence in Jaffna tailed off this week, in comparison to the previous week which saw several grenade attacks on Sri Lankan military checkpoints and vehicles.

    Two men who entered the Liberation Tigers controlled area near the Muhamalai crossing point on Friday and attempted to lob grenades at the LTTE sentry post were shot while they tried to escape.

    One of the attackers was later rushed to Chavakacheri hospital by the Sri Lanka Army. The fate of the other is not known.

    Also Friday, a grenade was thrown at the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) sentry point located near the gas station close to Jaffna Windsor theatre. No one was injured but the structure was badly damaged.

    Following the incident additional SLA troops were brought to the town. Security forces established check points at several locations and started checking the public.

    Eight soldiers attached to the SLA’s 512 brigade, presently occupying the landmark Gnanams and Subash hotels in Jaffna, were electrocuted when the truck they were travelling in entangled with the live electric perimeter fence.

    All have been admitted to Jaffna Teaching Hospital, two o having suffered life threatening injuries.

    Civil groups and fishermen’s unions have been complaining to the SLA and Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) to abandon the practice of electrifying fences, especially following the recent death of a Gurunagar fisherman who was electrocuted by a SLN fence.

    In Trincomalee, unidentified men shot dead a Tamil youth on a scooter Saturday night in front of a leading jewellery shop along Dockyard Road in the eastern port town.

    The incident took place a few meters from the main entrance to the eastern headquarters of the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN), police said.

    Security forces and police immediately launched a cordon and search operation blocking all roads leading the scene.

    The murdered youth is said to be an informant of the Sri Lanka security forces. He was earlier in the LTTE and later left the movement.

    Civilians entering the LTTE-controlled Muttur east territory in the Trincomalee district are now subjected to severe checking and interrogation by Sri Lanka troops. Several people were refused entry.

    A group of Sri Lankan officials of the Education International (EI), all Sinhalese, were detained Wednesday for two houres at the Kaddaiparichchan SLA checkpoint because they were Sinhalese.

    The EI officials told the soldiers that they were going to two Tamil villages Cheenanveli and Uppooral in the Muttur east to lay foundation stones for new buildings of two schools, which were damaged by recent tsunami.

    The defense ministry later authorised the SLA at Kaddaiparichchan camp to allow them through.

    Also on Thursday, representatives of fisheries co-operative societies in the Trincomalee district on their way to meeting being held in Chenaiyoor Central College were blocked by the troops at Kaddaiparichchan.

    After the intervention of the international ceasefire monitors, the troops allowed the officials to proceed to Muttur east.

    On the other side of the island, two unidentified gunmen entered a jewellery shop located on Puttalam Mannar Road in Puttalam town and shot at the owner, wounding him. The gunmen fled on a motorbike. Motive behind the shooting incident is not clear, police said.

    Compiled from TamilNet reports
  • Double agent blamed for intel officer’s killing
    A senior Sri Lankan military intelligence officer shot dead last month might have been murdered by one of his own operatives being groomed to assassinate a senior Tamil Tiger commander, the Sunday Times reported this week.

    Lt. Col. Tuan Rizli Meedin was shot dead on October 29 by a gunmen seated in the passenger seat of his car, investigators found.

    The Sunday Times’ Defence Correspondent, Iqbal Athas, reported this week that Lt. Col. Meedin had met the evening of his death with a friend and a military intelligence operative in the Trincomalee district before leaving with them.

    The contact, Andrahennedige Chaminda Roshan, is a Sinhala businessman in Trincomalee. Among other things, he sold fish including those caught in Tiger guerrilla held areas.

    Chamley Dissanayake, the friend, claims Chaminda shot Lt. Col. Meedin from the rear seat of the car.

    “Chaminda had beaten a hasty retreat to Trincomalee. From there, he had slipped into Tiger guerrilla dominated Sampur area. Early this week, rumours had been floated that Chaminda had been shot dead. But authorities have heard through reliable channels that he had found safe haven,” Athas wrote.

    Athas says investigators have found Chaminda was a ‘close associate’ of Colonel Sornam, LTTE Military Wing leader for the Trincomalee district.

    Lt. Col. Meedin is said to have known Chaminda since 1995.

    Lt. Col. Meedin was warned on October 21 of a Tiger guerrilla threat to murder him, Athas wrote. “Though such a warning was not accompanied by specific details of the plot, he was told that his circle of contacts had been infiltrated.”

    “Some persons were identified. But this senior intelligence officer found it difficult to believe the people whom he associated with would turn traitor to him. He had been convinced they were helping him.”

    Lt. Col. Meedin had said of Chaminda to a close friend and colleague who was among those who gave him the warning: “Don’t worry, I know what I am doing. I am careful. I am trying to get at Sornam. I am running him. This guy has promised he would kill him.”

    As Athas points out, the questions raised by the saga assume greater importance in the light of another fact: officially, state intelligence agencies have called a halt to all covert operations against the LTTE since the ceasefire of February 2002.
  • Poll rigging fears mount
    Fears of election rigging taking place in Sri Lanka’s Northeast expressed by European monitors last week gained weight this week as continuing apathy amongst Tamil voters suggested turnouts might be low.

    Leading Sri Lankan papers said names of deceased voters and those who had immigrated abroad were still on the electoral register.

    The Sunday Leader reported the Liberation Tigers had protested to election monitors over the failure to update the register.

    Jaffna’s Government Agent K. Ganesh said he was certain the names of the dead had been deleted, but admits that the district’s estimated population was only 600,000 while some 701,000 people have registered as electors.

    Election monitors are concerned that in the close race between the two leading contenders, election fraud by Arm-backed paramilitaries may play a crucial role, particularly in conflict-wracked Batticaloa district.

    ‘What has happened in previous elections is that there was serious malpractice in a number of areas, but it wasn’t enough to affect the overall result. [But] in a very close run presidential contest, it could make a very significant difference,’ Chief EU election monitor John Cushnahan told Reuters.

    ‘I’m worried what will happen in the north and east. There’s been a lot of speculation over what Karuna will do,’ Cushnahan said referring to the former Tiger commander who defected to the Army after his failed rebellion against the LTTE.

    In Jaffna, the paramilitary Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP), which has a history of electoral fraud, is campaigning for Premier Mahinda Rajapakse, ironically the Sinhala nationalists’ candidate of choice.

    But the Sunday Times newspaper suggested that LTTE might be intending to rig the polls, claiming in Jaffna residents have been requested by the Tigers to register those deceased or living abroad.

    The LTTE has said that they are uninterested in the election since neither Rajapakse nor his main rival, Ranil Wickremesinghe, are going to address Tamil interests.

    On the day of the election, PAFFREL intends to deploy 20,000 election monitors island-wide with 1500 mobile units.

    In addition to this, the European Union plans to send 72 experts to join observers from Asia, the Commonwealth, and around 33,000 local officials in monitoring the election in the violence-prone island.

    Discussions are ongoing to securely provide 81 cluster polling booths in government-held territory for the 100,000 voters in LTTE-held areas.

    Election Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake says he will not hesitate to cancel voting in the North and East if any irregularities are reported, and hold a re-run in these regions two days later.
  • Wickremesinghe lurches to the right
    A week before Sri Lanka’s Presidential election, both leading contenders are aggressively courting the Sinhala nationalist vote, with trips to the northern conflict zones to meet with troops and adopting patriotic slogans.

    In a surprise move, Ranil Wickremesinghe, hitherto seen as the de facto choice for Sri Lanka’s minorities given the stridently Sinhala nationalist platform adopted by his rival, Mahinda Rajapakse, has also shifted sharply to the right.

    Last week Wickremesinghe, the former Premier who signed a ceasefire and held talks with the Liberation Tigers, flew to the former war zones in the northern Jaffna to meet with Sinhala soldiers on Thursday.


    Ranil Wickremesinghe visiting the Palaly base complex last week. Photo Sunday Leader
    Rajapakse, the present Premier, followed with a tour of his own on the following day, Friday. Both leaders stayed within the confines of the military’s High Security Zones (HSZs) and did not travel into the town or peninsula to meet the Tamil residents.

    Both adopted patriotic slogans as they spoke to some of the forty thousand troops garrisoned in the northern peninsula.

    Rajapakse reiterated his commitment to a united Sri Lanka, declaring he would sacrifice everything to end the war, “except my motherland.”

    “No one can wage a war and divide this country,” Rajapakse said.

    Wickremesinghe vowed to strengthen the armed forces and to seek international assistance in this regard, adding that his peace process with the LTTE would in no way betray the nation.

    Whilst Rajapakse has, from the outset, taken a stridently Sinhala nationalist line, signing electoral pacts with the radical Janatha Vimukthi Perumana (JVP) and the hardline monks’ party, the JHU.

    Analysts had seen Wickremesinghe, however, as courting Sri Lanka’s minority voters – from the Tamil, Estate Tamil and Muslim communities – through a pro-peace campaign.

    However in the past few days, his United National Party (UNP), has also taken strong Sinhala nationalist positions and Wickremesinghe has reportedly been attending campaign meetings alongside the Lion flag.

    In a blatant sop to Sinhala nationalism, UNP stalwart Milinda Moragoda, one of Wickremesinghe’s close confidantes, this week spelled out how his party had sought to weaken and undermine the LTTE whilst being engaged in peace talks with the movement in 2002 and 2003.

    In an interview with the English language Daily Mirror newspaper, Moragoda claimed credit on behalf of the UNP for engineering a split within the LTTE through the peace process whilst at the same time keeping the movement locked in via an international security net and also claimed credit for the sinking of LTTE vessels during the peace talks.

    “There was so much [naval] activity and with the help of the international intelligence network that we had set up, our navy managed to intercept several LTTE arm ships,” he said. “But we hardly heard about such interceptions after the UPFA came into power.”

    The United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), which toppled the UNP-led one in April 2004, is headed by Premier Rajapakse.

    Rejecting accusations by the UNP’s critics that the party had strengthened the LTTE through the peace process Moragoda instead said the party had fostered fissures within the LTTE, referring in particular to the rebellion against the organisation’s leadership by its former eastern commander, Karuna.

    Moragoda’s comments have stirred a hornet’s nest amongst the Tamil communities, with newspapers lambasting the UNP. One of the Estate Tamil parties which had among the first to swung behind Wickremesinghe has said it is reconsidering its position.

    Analysts say that with barely a week left before campaigning closes, the UNP runs the risk of not making sufficient inroads into Rajapakse’s Sinhala nationalist vote bank whilst alienating the Tamil vote.

    Some point out that the UNP’s party machinery may not be a match for the highly discipline and effective cadre based organisation that the JVP is deploying in the Sinhala rural areas.

    “[Wickemesinghe’s] party machinery is still stuck, as the Colombo-centric operatives manning his campaign refuse to see what’s happening (or not happening) in the hinterland,” the Sunday Times’ political column said.

    “He would have had no problem in winning if he was to face Rajapakse and the SLFP machinery. But with the JVP youth out in their numbers, in rain and sunshine, at day and in the night, the UNP campaign seems to have placed over-reliance on their US$ 5 million advertising campaign.”

    An analyst with the Hindustan Times, P.K. Balachandran, points out that Rajapakse has the advantage of novelty, which Wickremesinghe’s recent lurch to the right cannot erase.

    “The Sinhala-Buddhist voters believe that Rajapaksa has not had a fair chance to prove himself though he is the Prime Minister and had been a minister for long. They think that Wickremesinghe had been given a chance between 2002 and mid 2004, when he was Prime Minister, but he had failed miserably to deliver.”

    (Comment) What is the LTTE up to? [Nov 9, 2005]
    (Comment) Today's UNP is no exception, [Nov 9, 2005]
    (Feature) Hopefuls’ flying visits to Jaffna enclaves. [Nov 9, 2005]
  • Tamils immune to election fever
    Whilst Presidential election race heats up in Sri Lanka’s south, in the island’s Tamil areas, there is a continuing distinct lack of interest, with many voters telling journalists they are awaiting a signal from the Liberation Tigers as to how vote, if at all.

    The LTTE itself has said it is neutral in the race, described as too close to call, between leading contenders Premier Mahinda Rajapakse and Opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe.

    Many analysts have suggested Mr. Rajapakse’s pacts with Sinhala ultra-nationalist parties makes Mr. Wickremesinghe the de-facto choice for the Tamils.

    But the Tigers argue that there is little to choose between the two Sinhala heavyweights, and the sentiment is reflected in the Tamil press and, as journalists in Jaffna and the Vanni found this week, amongst voters too.

    ‘We will act according to what the LTTE tells us. If they tell us to vote, we will vote. If they tell us not to, we will not,’ Kilinochchi storekeeper Suppiaah Ravi told Reuters.

    ‘If Mr. Rajapakse wins, we will move towards war. But the LTTE has not yet advised us and if they do we will follow. The LTTE is the people, and we the people are the LTTE,’ one trader in Kilinnochchi, Nadesan Thanigasalam, told Reuters.

    Unlike in the last Parliamentary election, when 650,000 Tamils voted to elect 22 MPs from the pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance, the Tigers are not making a concerted effort to mobilize Tamil votes for either candidate.

    LTTE political head S.P. Tamilchelvan told Reuters the LTTE remains disinterested because both candidates are manipulating the issues of peace and conflict to garner Tamil votes.

    ‘After the election, all promises are forgotten. We are totally unconcerned about the outcome of this election. We are a responsible political organization and have decided that people are at liberty to decide whether to vote and how to vote,’ Mr. Tamilchelvan said.

    Sri Lankan newspapers quoted some Tamils saying they did not wish to vote against the LTTE’s wishes.

    ‘In addition to the doubts of the benefits of voting, one of our main problems is whether the LTTE wants us to vote or not. Everybody knows the influence they have even over the government-controlled areas and nobody would want to take a risk by going against its wishes. But I am sure there are people who want to vote. We will have to wait for the LTTE’s orders,’ school teacher Kanageshwari Thangamma told the Sunday Times.

    However, Thangamma admitted said there was minimal enthusiasm among Tamils since they are disillusioned that voting can resolve their problems.

    Practical difficulties further dissuading many voters. Many Tamils in LTTE-held Kilinochchi described the time-consuming efforts needed to travel the 33 kilometres to Muhamalai to cast their vote. Voters have to leave early in the morning, undergo security checks and return home late after missing a day of work.

    LTTE official K.V. Balakumaran stated on the Tiger’s Voice, their radio station, that Tamils are neglected by the presidential candidates.

    ‘This election conveys a message to the world. That is the Tamil people have nothing to do with the Sri Lanka presidential election. Our position is that both the candidates have not shown the least consideration toward the Tamil people’s problems,’ he said.

    The Tamil Government Clerical Services Association also asked all government workers in Jaffna to boycott the upcoming election to send an unequivocal message to the international community.

    ‘Both presidential candidates are focused on becoming the supreme commander of the Sri Lanka Security Forces to continue suppression of the Tamil people. Neither is interested in finding an amicable solution to the burning Tamil National question,’ the group stated.

    This comes a few weeks after the Jaffna Student Organization of Higher Education Institutions called upon Tamils to boycott the elections to show the world that ‘the land of the Tamils will no more trust Sinhala leaders.’

    If the Tamils adopt the LTTE’s disinterested stance, election analysts believe Rajapakse, campaigning on a strident Sinhala nationalist platform, will win.

    Last week posters bearing the LTTE emblem and signed by the movement’s Political office in Jaffna appeared in the town exhorting the people to turn out and vote. The LTTE swiftly denied the posters were theirs.

    Meanwhile pamphlets have been distributed in Jaffna by a hitherto unknown group calling itself People’s Force, or ‘Makkal Padai,’ asking people to abstain from voting.

    These leaflets have been distributed throughout the region and have been posted in government offices and private buildings, according to Sri Lankan papers, which also said the Makkal Padai is an LTTE front.
  • Diaspora urged to promote Tamil struggle
    Speakers at the annual meeting of the US Tamil Sangam last weekend called on expatriates to play a greater role in placing the Tamil struggle in the international agenda.

    Congressman Danny Davis (D-Ill.), the first United States congressperson to visit areas held by the Liberation Tigers, discussed the parallels between the Blacks’ struggle for freedom in America and the struggle for Tamil freedom.

    ‘There is no greater feeling than the human need to be treated fairly and equally – this burns deep within the hearts of every creature. I can see this burns in your hearts, minds and souls,’ Congressman Davis said.

    ‘Frederick Douglas, the great freed slave, said struggle and strive are the prerequisites to progress. What a man will submit to is exactly what a man will get. The limits of tyrants are determined by the will of those they would seek to oppress, so we must continue to fight.’

    ‘I saw areas totally devastated, I visited the orphanages and saw the wonderful children, and thought, ‘how can I be helpful, how can I do anything but assist in any small way I can,’ their struggle is parallel to that struggle I have experienced as an individual and as a group,’ Congressman Davis said.

    Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam spoke about the current political climate in Sri Lanka that is highly hostile to the peace process.

    ‘[Premier Mahinda] Rajapakse’s pacts with the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) make creating a consensus within the country very difficult. We will be lucky if the agreements from the peace process are actually enforced,’ Mr. Ponnambalam said.

    Professor John Neelsen from the World Centre for Peace, Liberty and Human Rights from France offered an international perspective on the Tamil issue.

    He reiterating the need for the Tamil diaspora to persuade their host governments to support their struggle.

    ‘Territorial autonomy must be supported by the international community,’ he argued. ‘[This] needs to be done on two fronts. By action in Sri Lanka, but also with a political front on the international level.’

    ‘It is the major responsibility of expatriates to act as citizens of their new countries to represent the voice of Tamils. There is no guarantee of success, but Tamils are fighting for a just cause,’ Prof. Neelsen said.

    ‘In the battlefield of the international community, Tamils and the LTTE have failed to present their point or even neutralize the voice of Sri Lanka. The LTTE is still considered a clandestine guerilla organization that holds territory, as the European Union ban and the United States’ designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization shows,’ he said.

    ‘The government of Sri Lanka is the official representative and the only intermediary and partner in an international system based on states. This does nothing regarding the culture of impunity, or the human rights violations, the question of maintaining paramilitaries, or the necessary transfer of aid to the Northeast to address disparate standards of development,’ he said.

    After Congressman Davis people must work towards peace, placing ‘peace within the hearts of men as a world order,’ Prof. Neelsen added that Tamils must also appeal to the international community’s self-interest.

    ‘People operate not by goodwill, but by interests. You must figure out who is really the power that will make a difference, such as the United States. If the U.S. withdrew the designation of the LTTE as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, this would be simple recognition that no possibility of a peaceful settlement is possible when one party is proscribed as a terrorist group.’

    ‘You must help to redefine the Tamil point of view where we currently only see the Sri Lankan government’s view,’ Prof. Neelsen stated. ‘You must present the situation as the fight of Tamils, and show that establishing an independent state is in the interest of fighting terrorism’


    Panel at the Sangam AGM: (l-r) TNA MP Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, Professor John Neelsen, Dr. Francis Muthu and US Congressman Danny Davis.
  • Western Koothu in West London
    Hundreds of Tamil youth in Britain attended a cultural show with a twist in West London last Saturday. The Tamil Youth Organisation’s (TYO) branch in Britain, in cooperation with several University Tamil societies, successfully held their second 2005 event – titled ‘Western Koothu’ - at the Greenford Assembly Hall.

    TYO said there were two objectives behind the glitzy event. The first was to raise funds for the Knowledge Centre or academy that is being built in Visuvamadu, Vanni. This centre is to allow young Diaspora Tamils visiting Vanni on teaching holidays to lodge and work from a permanently available base. The current centre is a pilot scheme and is being funded by TYO branches in Canada, USA, Australia, Germany, France and many other European countries.

    The second reason for holding the ‘Western Koothu’ show was to attract more Tamil youth living in the UK to TYO and its projects.

    ‘TYO aims to foster an appreciation and understanding of the linguistic and cultural richness of Tamil among the second and third generation Tamils living outside the tradition Tamil homeland,’ a TYO official said.

    ‘It also wishes to encourage youth in the Diaspora to help those underprivileged youth living in the Tamil homeland,’ she said.

    The Western Koothu show included performances by the Tamil societies of University College London (UCL), Imperial College, Leeds University, Surrey University and Kings College’s Sri Lankan society. The societies also make up the United Kingdom Tamil Students Union (UKTSU) which is affiliated to the TYO.

    The audience were enthralled by the performance by MC Subzero and Krishan. The ‘blind date’ spoof was a hilarious piece of theatre, albeit with a subtle blend of social messages.

    There was an ‘east meets west’ catwalk, dances and karaoke to Tamil popular and cinema songs.

    A documentary on TYO’s ongoing projects, produced, naturally, by TYO’s own media unit, was played shortly before the interval. The documentary introduced TYO’s aims and structure and allowed each subsection to pitch to Tamil youth at the event to join them.

    The event organisers say they were delighted with the success of Saturday’s events. TYO-UK and its affiliate University organisations say they raised a sizeable sum of money for the teaching centre and convinced several Diaspora to join up.
  • Hopefuls’ flying visits to Jaffna enclaves
    With barely two weeks to go before Sri Lanka’s Presidential elections, the two leading contenders separately visited Jaffna briefly last week – but not to press the flesh amongst the Tamil residents.

    Premier Mahinda Rajapakse and Opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe spent their day-long visits in the northern peninsula in the company of troops in the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) base complexes.

    Wickremesinghe was the first, arriving last Thursday. Rajapakse followed on Friday. Neither leader visited the town or other parts of the Tamil-populated Jaffna peninsula, staying instead within the confines of the sprawling military High Security Zones (HSZs).

    During his tour Wickremesinghe visited the military hospital at Palaly, police and naval installations near the Kankesanturai harbour and a token Hindu temple - within the perimeter sprawling base complex.

    Rajapakse copied him, visiting the Kankesanturai harbour and the naval base there and attending a pooja at the Mavittapuram Kanthaswamy temple, all within the Palaly HSZ.

    He was accompanied by the leader of paramilitary Eelam Peoples Democratic Party (EPDP) and a minister in his cabinet, Mr. Douglas Devananda, and Deputy Minister Sripathy Suriryaarachchi.

    The EPDP is campaigning in the northern peninsula for Rajapske, ironically the Sinhala-nationalists’ choice in the November 17 polls.

    Wickremesinghe claimed he would have visited civilian areas beyond the HSZ but could not for security concerns. Like his archrival, he has begun speaking at rallies from behind a shield of bullet-proof glass.

    ‘‘‘But I know the problems of Jaffna people very well. I reach them through television. They are in touch with me over the phone and I know how to solve their problems,’ he declared.

    On the other hand Rajapakse reiterated his commitment to a united Sri Lanka, declaring he would sacrifice everything to end the war, ‘except my motherland.’

    ‘No one can wage a war and divide this country, and I don’t intend to start a war,’ Rajapakse said when speaking to troops in the Nadeswara College building located in HSZ in Kankesanturai.

    ‘I believe even the LTTE, the other party in the war has also realised the futility of war. Nobody could divide the country by war. War brings only destruction,’ he said.

    Speaking to a small audience of civilians bussed in by the EPDP to the Nadeswara College, he said that his country is not faced with one war but several wars.

    He said there is a war being waged to bring about unity to the country. There is also a war to uplift the living conditions of the people and another one to provide better education to the children of Sri Lanka, he said.

    Later he addressed Jaffna residents over the broadcasting service operated from Palaly said that he would create peace in the country and pave way for the people displaced from HSZs in the north to settle back in their own places, promising compensation for those displaced due to the HSZs.

    Rajapakse said he would use negotiations to derive a lasting solution to the conflict, calling for all groups to revisit the current ceasefire agreement, a clear attack on his opponent, Wickremesinghe, who signed the truce in February 2002.

    ‘As prime minister I can go to London and to America... wherever in the world. But I cannot visit some parts of my own country … The ceasefire needs to be revised.’

    Wickremesinghe has been criticized by Sinhala nationalists for conceding too much to the Tigers in the truce.

    But the former Premier told troops that despite claims from his opponent, his work towards the peace process would further protect the unitary nature of Sri Lanka.

    Wickremesinghe also answered questions posed to him by soldiers on planned defence reforms outlined in his election manifesto. assured the troops if he was elected president he would take steps to strengthen the armed forces while at the same time proceeding with efforts to achieve lasting peace.

    He told troops that his peace process with the LTTE would in no way betray the nation as alleged by his detractors.

    Mr Wickremesinghe emphasised the need to strengthen the Navy and the Air Force in terms of men and material. He said for this effort, he would seek assistance from India and the United States.

    Both Presidential candidates have made rare visits to Jaffna before as serving Prime Ministers, Wickremesinghe doing so under decidedly happier circumstances than Rajapakse.

    Rajapakse’s last visit to Jaffna was abruptly disrupted by furious tsunami refugees protesting the lack of aid from Colombo.

    Decrying reports Colombo was blocking aid, protestors threw mud and insults at the Premier and leaders of his Sinhala nationalist allies, the JVP.

    His entourage was forced to turn around when it tried to go through Valvettithurai in December 2004. Protestors blocked the road and his entourage’s passage in Manalkaadu, and later in Varani.

    Following these incidents, Rajapakse received word that protestors were also gathering at the Jaffna Peace Secretariat and so cancelled his scheduled visit there and was instead air-lifted to the Army’s main garrison in Palaly.

    Wickremesinghe’s last visit to Jaffna was in March 2002, three weeks after he signed the ceasefire agreement and a few days prior to a visit from Christina Rocca, the United States Assistant Secretary for South Asian Affairs.

    In the flush of peace, he was mobbed by Tamil residents and met with local community leaders as well as the Sinhala troops, visiting both a Buddhist and a Hindu temple.

    Wickremesinghe was the senior-most government official to go to Jaffna in two decades. His visit was also acclaimed as a major accomplishment in establishing trust between the two parties to the peace process.


    How the Daily Mirror's cartoonist saw the visits to Jaffna by Ranil Wickremesinghe and Mahinda Rajapakse last week.
  • Money and guns fuel paramilitary war
    Tamil men and boys are being kidnapped from Sri Lanka’s impoverished east by Army-backed paramilitary groups before being given weapons training and paid hefty salaries to engage in attacks on the Liberation Tigers.

    The base salary for graduates in Sri Lanka is between 3,000 and 5,000 rupees a month, according to the Asian Development Bank. The Sri Lankan military is paying paramilitaries in its campaign against the LTTE 6,000 rupees a month.

    Three conscripts who surrendered to the LTTE in recent weeks whilst on Army-sponsored missions to assassinate Tiger members and supporters in the Batticaloa district revealed the mechanisms of paramilitary recruitment at a press conference this week.

    They also revealed details of the extensive involvement of Sri Lanka’s armed forces in sustaining a cycle of violence which has claimed almost 200 lives this year alone.

    Apart from providing bases and training for the paramilitaries, the military is supplying weapons and coordinating the attacks, they said.

    The LTTE says Sri Lankan military intelligence is deploying five paramilitary groups in a concerted campaign of violence against its members and supporters in the eastern province.

    The military denies any involvement in the attacks and claims gunmen loyal to renegade LTTE commander, Karuna, are responsible.

    Karuna, the Tigers’ most senior commander in the east, defected to the SLA in April 2004 following the collapse of his six-week rebellion against the LTTE leadership.

    Since then several LTTE cadres and supporters, paramilitaries and security forces personnel have been killed in violence that has come to be characterized as a ‘shadow war.’

    Suresh Kandasamy (16), Babu Selvam (15), and Shanmugam Sarwarajah (21), who addressed the press conference this week surrendered to the LTTE on separate occasions in the recent weeks.

    Suresh and Selvam, from the Tamil village of Karapola in the Polannaruwa district, were kidnapped in August this year by cadres of the Karuna Group.

    Suresh said he was first held in a bunker in the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) camp at Kakachiaveddai, before being processed by a senior member of the Karuna Group, Jim Kelly Thatha.

    He was given weapons training and sent on missions against the LTTE. He was paid a salary of 6,000 rupees a month to work for the Karuna Group.

    Suresh surrendered whilst on another mission against the Tigers: he had been given a pistol and sent to gun down a person on the Mandoor bridge.

    ‘I was staying at the home of my relatives in Murakadanchenai and receiving daily wages through my jobs at the mill and the paddy field. The Army came to my relative’s house after I returned from work one day and arrested me,’ he told reporters.

    ‘They sent me to the Karuna Group and placed me in a dark room. The next day, a man named Sitha, from the Karuna Group, forced me to work for them and said they would pay me Rs. 6,000 each month,’ he said.

    ‘They trained me for six days. After the training, they sent me and another boy to Kaakaachiveddai, which is an LTTE-controlled area with orders to shoot an LTTE cadre.’

    ‘Sitha commanded the other boy to shoot the LTTE cadre and then steal the cadre’s ID and other personal belongings. I wanted to escape from the Karuna Group, so when I arrived at the camp I took refuge with the LTTE,’ Suresh said.

    Selvam was kidnapped by paramilitary cadres riding in a Dolphin van and taken to a paramilitary camp in Thivuchenai, Welikanda, located close to an SLA base. He was also pressed into the Karuna Group’s ranks and paid 6,000 rupees a month.

    Selvam said he knew of the murders of at least seven Tamil youths who were brought into his paramilitary camp.

    Although the paramilitaries are being sponsored by the Sri Lankan military, the Karuna Group boosted its revenue by carrying out robberies in Oddamavadi area in Valaichenai, Batticaloa, he said.

    Selvam told reporters: ‘as I was returning from work one night, three people kidnapped me. Their names are Rajikumar, Rangan and Majakan. They told me to stay with them and they would pay me Rs. 6,000 each month.’

    ‘I was sent to Theevuchenai, where there is a paramilitary camp. They trained me for five days and took me with them when they performed an attack that happened on 30 October in Kaddumurivu.’

    ‘The SLA also came with us for this attack and they spoke in Sinhala,’ he said.

    After that attack, he was ordered to use a grenade to kill an LTTE member named Mahesan, Selvam said.

    ‘They told me that if I did this, they would give me Rs. 10,000. I took the grenade and went to the LTTE camp and that is when I escaped and told the LTTE about this.’

    Shanmugam, said he had been lured back from a job in Qatar by Markan, a Karuna Group cadre who promised him a job in a Sri Lankan embassy.

    ‘I believed him and went to Colombo and Markan met me at the airport. We went to Theevuchenai and introduced me to the SLA forces from the Senapura camp. They told me that now I am one of their members,’ Shanmugam said.

    ‘Markan asked the SLA to help me while I travel, requesting that they not ask for my ID, passport or other documents so that I can travel easily,’ he said.

    Shanmugam said there were at least 65 persons in the paramilitary camp in Thivuchenai where he was given training.

    He said that many were unemployed when the paramilitary group approached them and promised to provide a job and Rs. 6,000 each month.

    After a month of training Shanmugam was taken in a Sri Lanka Army armoured vehicle to an SLA base in Chenaipuram in Welikanda where he was introduced to Captain Kumarasinghe, the camp commander.

    The paramilitary group received supplies, instructions and was under the complete supervision of the SLA, Shanmugam said. Paramilitaries drew rifles and grenades from SLA camps before attacks on the LTTE, he said.

    Notably, Shanmugam accompanied Sri Lankan Navy commandos during the killing of a Sea Tiger commander, Dikan.

    Shanmugam was supervised by a Sri Lanka Army officer, Kumarasena, who leads a unit of military intelligence soldiers based in the toothpaste company in Batticaloa.

    Shanmugam escaped on September 25 when he was sent on his own to assassinate a senior LTTE member.

    Kumarasena had driven him in a vehicle belonging to the elite counter-insurgency force, the Special Task Force (STF) to Manmunai and sent him by a fishing boat with a rifle to Kokkaddicholai to kill his target at an LTTE camp there. Instead, Shanmugam surrendered.

    The cycle of killings that escalated in the wake of Karuna’s rebellion and defection has alarmed international truce monitors who fear for the February 2002 ceasefire.

    ‘The way the two parties have been behaving in the last few months is not exactly in the spirit of the ceasefire agreement,’ said Helen Olafsdottir of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM).

    ‘If (the Tigers) are committed to peace, then they had better well sort themselves out, and that goes also for the government,’ she said. ‘The killings will not stop until you have the LTTE and the government sitting down to find a political solution.’

    Last Saturday, paramilitary cadres abducted three young men at gunpoint in the area of Kaluvankeni, Eravur. Uthayan Selvaraja (25), Subramaniyam Kanapathipillai (32) and S. Leethan (31) were forced into a white van and then taken away in the evening. In the preceding week, at least five people were reported to have been abducted.
  • Today's UNP is no exception
    For advocates of the liberal peace in Sri Lanka, the choice in next week’s Presidential election might have seemed quite clear: Ranil Wickremesinghe of the United National Party (UNP) over Mahinda Rajapakse of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). Why? Because Wickremesinghe represents the liberal vision of a market-friendly all-inclusive pluralist society while Rajapske is a Sinhala and economic nationalist.

    But these observers would have got a rude awakening this week when one of the Sri Lanka’s supposed arch-liberals, Milinda Moragoda – the former minister for Economic Reforms (read unadulterated neoliberalism) – and a government negotiator in the talks with the Tamil Tigers, launched a gloriously nationalistic interpretation of the former UNP administration’s successes.

    Mr. Moragoda took credit for engineering the materialization of the anti-LTTE Karuna paramilitary group, for creating an international safety net to constrain the LTTE and even crowed over the sinking of two LTTE ships whilst engaged it in the peace process.

    Whilst many Tamils have always been cynical of the UNP’s bona fides, even those who had placed their faith in the Premier Wickremesinghe and his UNP-led coalition had grown increasingly skeptical as the peace process dragged on.

    And Mr. Moragoda’s assertion, delivered no doubt for the benefit of the Sinhala nationalist voter, that the UNP government has in fact delivered few dividends to the Tamils while at the same time undermining the LTTE, will reaffirm their suspicions that Wickremesinghe’s administration was cut from the same cloth as previous Sri Lankan governments.

    Regrettably, many of the points Mr. Moragoda is seeking to score amidst the feverish electioneering taking place in the south are grounded in fact. Despite having agreed a comprehensive ceasefire agreement with the LTTE, the UNP government failed to implement many of it crucial clauses, particularly those pertaining to the return of normalcy to the Northeast, and the dismantling of the Army-backed paramilitaries. The UNP government allowed several joint sub-committees setup in the earlier rounds of talks to fall by wayside due to bureaucracy and inaction. More seriously, it sought to marginalize the LTTE from efforts to solicit international aid.

    Mr. Moragoda this week also justified the LTTE’s assertion that the Sri Lankan government sponsored the Karuna insurrection against the Tiger leadership. He also boasted of the destruction of two LTTE vessels. The naval attacks, conducted whilst the ships were in international waters, were arguably the most provocative of the ceasefire violations.

    The point is, the comments by Mr. Moragoda, a senior UNP member and a close confidante of Mr. Wickremesinghe, fly in the face of common wisdom that the UNP is the unambiguous choice of liberal peace advocates.

    Mr. Moragoda is one of the key architects of this image of the party amongst the international community in recent years - though the centre-right credentials claimed by the UNP hark back to the almost religious reverence with which Junius Jayawardene embraced market economics in the late 70’s.

    Mr. Wickremesinghe’s administration is credited with being the first Sri Lankan government in the two decades since the ethnic conflict erupted to have maintained a stable and comprehensive ceasefire with the LTTE. But many Tamils argue he had little choice but to call a truce given the impossibly weak economic and military position in which the state was when his government came to power. They also point out that political history of the island is strewn with political deals signed by Sinhala and Tamil leaders and subsequently abrogated by the former once the agreements had outlived their usefulness.

    Reeling from the annihilation of its air force in the July 2001 Katunayake airport attack and with its army demoralized after the disastrous defeat of operation Agni Khela a few months earlier, Sri Lanka was in no position to continue an armed conflict. The economy had been battered by the airport attack: tourism had collapsed and the hiking of insurance premiums was threatening to wipe out the country’s export driven industries. Indeed, civil unrest was not an impossibility unless something changed. Conversely, engaging the LTTE in ceasefire would enable the UNP to build its much vaunted international safety net, give the Sri Lankan economy a respite from the intensifying conflict and arrest the Tigers relentless military advances.

    These uniquely challenging circumstances are crucial factors which served to differentiate the policies of Wickremesinghe’s administration from those of its predecessors. These include the UNP government led by J.R. Jayawardene, Wickremsinghe’s uncle, which enshrined the present Sinhala Buddhist constitution and the presidential powers to protect it. Jayawardene is also held responsible for engineering the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom - which he characterized as fitting retribution for Tamil demands for greater autonomy. Subsequent UNP leaders, such as President R. Premadasa, were equally nationalistic.

    But a close examination of Mr. Wickremesinghe and his brand of UNP also reveals latent Sinhala nationalist tendencies. For example, when President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s government put forward its devolution proposals in 2000, Mr. Wickremesinghe and the UNP opposed the package – as did the ultra-nationalist Janantha Vimukthi Perumana (JVP). Even though the Tigers had already rejected the proposals – first unveiled in 1995 and then repeatedly watered down as to be meaningless – the UNP nevertheless opposed the package as conceding too much to the Tamils. Indeed in the late nineties, the UNP put forward its own counter-proposals for devolution – which were even more tightly bound to a unitary state than Kumaratunga’s.

    Upon closer inspection, Wickremesinghe’s manifesto for next week’s election doesn’t appear to have progressed significantly from the UNP’s past positions on the ethnic question. It even advocates devolution within the framework of the 1987 Indo-Lanka accord, a bilateral agreement with India which proposes a system of provincial councils with laughable powers. But the UNP, it seems, is still wedded to Jayawardene’s legacy.

    Mr. Wickremesinghe’s liberal credentials are further brought into question by his policies on religion. While magnanimously allow Hindus, Christians and Muslims to practice their religions, his manifesto still insists that Buddhism be accorded a privileged status, including efforts to establish Sri Lanka as the global home of Buddhism.

    The UNP’s claim to be Sri Lanka’s ‘moderate’ main party is further eroded by its conduct in opposition after April 2004. The party didn’t challenge Buddhist right-wing legislation such as the anti-conversion bill, aimed undoubtedly at curbing the work of Christian organizations in Sri Lanka. And what ought be understood from the UNP’s failure to support the P-TOMS agreement on sharing international tsunami-related aid with LTTE-controlled areas, when the deal came under fire from the JVP-led Sinhala nationalists? Indeed, the UNP’s only contribution was to complain about the lack of Sinhalese in the structure.

    Furthermore, Mr. Wickremesinghe’s party has never defended foreign governments, including facilitator Norway, and other international actors, such as the World Bank, that have come under attack from the Sinhala right wing for their efforts in support of the peace process.

    However, the most telling aspect of the UNP manifesto is its call for a united front with the other major parties on the island - Mrs. Kumaratunga’s SLFP and the JVP – on the ethnic question. Considering the JVP’s vehemently anti-Tamil, anti-peace stance and Mrs. Kumaratunga’s brutal ‘war for peace’ history, one wonders how Mr. Wickremesinghe closing ranks with these parties could advance a liberal peace. The Tamils, for their part, are understandably apprehensive of such a coalition.

    Supporters of Mr. Wickremesinghe may counter that the UNP is indulging in pre-election populist rhetoric in order to secure power so that it may reengage with its longer term project of a sustainable peace process. Furthermore, it can be argued, unity amongst the main Sinhalese parties is essential in order to have the parliamentary majority to implement the constitutional reforms a final solution will require.

    However, as recent history of Sri Lankan politics attests, southern parties have failed to reach agreement on anything but the more Sinhala nationalist of principals. There is no reason to believe things will be different in the near future – if anything, the communal polarization is even deeper than before. Whilst the Tamils expect substantial autonomy as part of a permanent solution – a position endorsed by international analysts such as the Washington based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), any emergent southern consensus can only be on the barest deviation from the unitary state. This is irrespective of the UNP’s less than unambiguous acceptance of a federal solution in itsmanifesto.

    The recent effort by the UNP to woo the island’s Sinhala nationalist vote has exposed key aspects of the previous government’s ideology. Clausewitz famously described war as continuation of politics by other means. Mr. Wickremesinghe and the UNP have inverted the axiom. For them, the peace process was a way to continue the Sinhala nationalist project i.e. politics through the peace process was effectively a continuation of war by other means.

    Tamil confidence in a negotiated solution with the UNP have been undermined, not merely by Mr. Moragoda’s statements, but by the day-to-day history of UNP action and statements spanning several years. The comments this week by Mr. Moragoda and his peers have confirmed Tamil suspicions that UNP, like its right-wing predecessors, also reverted to type after coming to power.

    Sri Lanka, it would appear, is stuck in a vicious cycle of nationalist majoritarianism and anti-minority outbidding. And with no mainstream party principled enough to break the cycle, the result has been a series of Sinhala rightwing governments with policies aimed at appeasing their hardliners. The UNP of Ranil Wickremesinghe is no exception. Whilst this might be a bitter pill for advocates of the liberal peace, it is one they must swallow – the Tamils already have.
  • Is Sri Lanka's Presidency here to stay?
    It is now 27 years since the Presidential system of Government was introduced (in 1978), making the people vote twice - for an Executive, i.e. the President, and for the Legislature, i.e. Parliament.

    During the debate when then Prime Minister J. R. Jayewardene moved a constitutional amendment to introduce the Presidential system of government more like that of France than the US, he argued that a developing country like Sri Lanka required strong leadership and a President immune to the fluctuating fortunes of Parliament.

    In the flush of the biggest electoral victory in the country’s history, President Jayewardene steamrolled through. The only issue was that even if he was fit to assume the mantle of the Republic’s first Executive President, what about those to follow?

    His own handling of the job has been subject to much debate, especially the Referendum he held in 1982 in lieu of a general election so that he could maintain his five-sixth majority in Parliament. With his exit the baton was passed down to a ‘man of the people’, R. Premadasa.

    President Premadasa’s term was turbulent. Then with his assassination came the benign figure of D.B. Wijetunga, followed by Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, who satellite-like shot to stardom.

    At the 1994 Presidential elections, the Peoples’ Alliance candidate Chandrika Kumaratunga promised she would abolish the Presidency and her erstwhile confidant Prof. G.L. Peiris even set a date by which this would be done - July 15, 1995.

    The JVP put forward a candidate for that election - Nandana Gunathillake - but realising they did not want an electoral drubbing like what their founder Rohana Wijeweera faced in the 1982 Presidential poll, got its candidate to eventually withdraw on an assurance given by Ms. Kumaratunga that she would abolish the Presidency and revert to the Westminster Parliamentary system.

    Ms. Kumaratunga swept in, receiving a stunning 62 per cent of the votes polled. Then came July 15, 1995 - and it was the UNP that asked what happened to the promise?

    The UNPers organised a protest. They - and the journalists covering the event - were met with tear gas and batons by the Presidential Security Division.
    But ten years on - in typical Sri Lankan ‘Soda -bottle’ fashion - the Presidential system of Government is no longer a burning issue.

    Both Presidential aspirants, the JVP-backed Premier Mahinda Rajapakse and the UNP’s Ranil Wickremesinghe have downplayed this once major issue in their respective manifestos. It is certainly not a subject for television debates and talk shows or at political rallies.

    It is very much like the stormy introduction of the Provincial Council system in 1987. The SLFP and the JVP went around, burning buses, electricity pylons and telecom towers in protest. Today they enjoy all the perks the Provincial Council system affords - duty-free cars, free telephones, free travel - all from the peoples’ purse.

    Sniffing victory on Nov. 17, neither side wants to dwell too much on the Presidential system of Government because they both know that in this, ‘winner takes all’ election one might as well go for the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

    The Prime Minister has said a new constitution which abolishes the Executive Presidency will be introduced with the consensus of all. Until then the Constitution will be amended so that the President is officially accountable to Parliament. The Opposition Leader has said, with optimum brevity, that Presidential powers will be amended.

    But, whoever wins the Nov. 17 election, there are serious issues to be ironed out. There is a school of thought that suggests instead of two six-year terms - to have three four-year terms - giving a political leader 12 years, but having to get elected thrice; that six-year terms are too long and complacency sets in; that the country tends to get too polarised on party lines; that there should be a fixed date for the assumption of office and for elections (like in the US), to avoid the confusion that arose this time, not least with the secret second oaths ceremony.

    There is the need to strengthen the President’s Office with public servants and advisors of standing rather than those who are sub-standard material.

    But the fact of the matter is that the winner of the Nov. 17 election is not going to give up his powers easily. Mr. Wijetunge swore he would, but didn’t. Ms. Kumaratunga said she would, but didn’t.

    So has the Presidential system of Government, come to stay in Sri Lanka? Or are we to simply say “For forms of Government, let fools contend; That which is best administered, is best”. And leave it at that?

    The question now before us as we go to the polls is, who will use the awesome powers of the President’s office for the country’s gain and not his own or his party’s or his coalition’s, and to whom we can entrust this Presidential system of Government, that seems to have come to stay.
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