APRC Proposals: Cover for Perpetuating Repressive Structures in the North-East

January 27th, 2008

by Rajan Hoole

There is a disingenuously surreal quality about the President’s discovery that the Provincial Councils Bill of 1987 is the answer to giving the people of the North-East a say in their affairs. We need not detail his and his own party’s opposition to the Indo-Lanka Accord which the JVP used to trigger a bloodbath, whose continuing legacy is a nation wallowing in impunity.

A political settlement is about issues threatening the existence and welfare of minority peoples that have been raised from the time of independence. One is the right to interact with the majority Sinhalese community on terms of equality, particularly in regard to their environment and neighbourhoods with which their economic and cultural lives have for centuries been twined. A key issue is state-aided colonisation, conceived and driven one-sidedly to constrict the economic and political space of Muslims and Tamils, particularly in the East, using administrative measures aided by communal and military violence. More details in the UTHR (J) publication Sri Lanka: The Arrogance of Power.

Pressing isssues

The worst example of this is the Weli Oya Scheme of 1984 that has left scores of Tamil villages in the Mullaitivu and Trincomalee Districts forlorn to this day. Even under the best conditions provincial councils are not going to touch these most pressing issues of a political settlement. Repressive structures of control have steadily made inroads into the East with colonisation and the chauvinistic mindset which inspired it.

The North-East today is mired in impunity. In Jaffna and Batticaloa judicial areas together, the number of reported extra-judicial killings and disappearances exceed 1000 for 2007. In Mutur East supposedly cleared by the security forces, around 40 killings came to the notice of the courts in just 4 months towards the end of 2007. Conscription of children and adults, and rampant lawlessness by the state security apparatus (which includes the Pillayan and Karuna groups) are a daily occurrence in the East. The proposed elections cannot be other than torture and a travesty. Their only purpose is to provide the heavily politicised security apparatus a fig leaf for the pursuit of a military settlement and Sinhalese hegemony.

The East is now a fiefdom of military and ex-military men substituting for administrators. Under the President’s direction, these persons work very closely with fascist outfits such as the Patriotic National Movement (PNM) and Jathika Hela Urumaya, which in turn interact with and direct paramilitary outfits like the Pillayan and Karuna groups.

It was the STF that installed Pillayan in his erstwhile leader Karuna’s Batticaloa office after assaulting his men. It was Pillayan who at the direction of his handlers abducted relatives of local MPs to prevent them voting against the jumbo defence budget. Already the integrity of the parliamentary process is itself in question. Is this devolution for the East?

The democratic space in the North-East has been murderously attacked by the Tigers for many years, which failed to extinguish it. A Tamil democratic opposition learnt to negotiate Tiger terror and challenge it in Sri Lanka and abroad. But this Government and its allies cannot tolerate any dissent from the minorities or anyone else for that matter. Editors have been threatened, a newspaper press burnt and several persons including MPs murdered. Even Sinhalese have become mortally afraid of this government. Then what kind of political package for the North-East is this?

Indian gurantee

The North-East Provincial Council was originally meant to work under an Indian guarantee. That was undermined by both the LTTE and the Sinhalese polity. The demand for the merger arose in the wake of land aggression. Even with the NEPC kept dissolved, the Indo-Lanka Accord remained a reassurance. This was why the Sinhalese extremists could not leave even a toothless merger alone. Discussion of the merger should have been left for a time when all the issues which brought it about were thrashed out-and not dealt with unilaterally to satiate the clamour of Rajapakse’s allies such as the PNM.

Backdoor dealing

Behind the de-merger was also the President’s sordid backdoor deal with Karuna and Devananda, who were promised control of interim administrations for the East and North respectively for 5 years. Its immediate effects were child conscription in Karuna’s name with military complicity and the military takeover of the East resulting in enormous civilian misery. The idea of interim councils is not even original. While Ranil Wickremasinghe was prepared to hand over the people of the North-East to the LTTE in the name of an interim administration, this Government has in mind proteges who are hardly an improvement.

A political settlement should also mean dignity and justice. Instead what is envisaged would entrench repressive structures already in place. It will perpetuate the cover up of the grave crimes now dragging on before the Commission of Inquiry. The purposeful killing of ten Muslim labourers in Pottuvil is one of them. Champika Ranawaka wrote in the Lanka Web Situation Report of 18th July 2002: “To prevent Karuna or Paduman from capturing the Eastern Province, there is a need for a massive Sinhala movement, which we [the Sihala Urumaya] are in the process of building. Pujya Ananda Himi from Ampara district and Pujya Piyatissa Himi from Trincomalee have come forward for this purpose.” He is now a powerful JHU minister with eyes on the East. The ordinary Tamils and Muslims did not count for the LTTE. Would they count any more now? Successive governments which failed to give a genuine political settlement a chance have imposed heavy defence budgets on a whole generation.

President Rajapakse who demands the ordinary people go lean and hungry for a defence overdose, must ask his friend General Musharraf. A current slogan reflecting public anger in Pakistan says, “You and I have died starving, the GHQ (Military) has looted and eaten it all.” [Courtesy: Lakbimanews]

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