Eastern election, Northern task Force
May 6th, 2008
by Dayan Jayatilleka
In his soaring ‘rap on race’– his initial response to the Jeremiah Wright controversy–a speech that should be studied by every reflective Sri Lankan (I watched it twice myself, having read the text once), Barack Obama drew his fundamental demarcation from his former pastor. He said that Rev Wright’s main error was in assuming that racism in America was endemic and in failing to recognise that US society was capable of change for the better; of evolution. This, said Barack, was the major difference between Rev Wright and Rev Martin Luther King the 40th anniversary of whose assassination had been commemorated throughout the US just months earlier.
Martin Luther King always dreamed that that America could change, improve-and indeed the very candidacy of Obama is proof that King was right and Wright was wrong.
This point is true of many of the critics of Sri Lanka, and of this administration. Their main weakness does not reside in their criticism so much as in their endemic pessimism and negativism; their refusal to recognise improvement and the capacity for positive change.
Nowhere is this truer than in their comments on the upcoming provincial elections in the East. Vital as the conduct and outcome of the Eastern Province election are, nothing should obscure the historic achievement of the election’s very holding. The elections constitute a rare example of a win-win outcome, or in this case, a “win-4″ outcome.
The very ability to hold an election campaign and then an election in a contested territory in the context of a mid-intensity armed conflict is itself a triumph. In many countries with such conditions, any election campaign is blighted by far greater violence than this one has been. In fact the Eastern election campaign so far, has been characterised by remarkably little lethal violence.
The charge that the TMVP is armed is the height of hypocrisy in that most of those who make the charge were conspicuously silent when the province was tightly under the control of the far more heavily armed Tigers. Many of these critics were perfectly pleased to leave the Tiger militia in control of the entire North East during the CFA and under the ISGA or the PTOMS! It is, as Zhou Enlai once said, as if an unscrupulous gang which set houses ablaze took violent exception to someone who carried a lit lamp!
Inasmuch as the province remains the main unit of devolution, it preserves the main gain of the Indo-Lanka Accord and is a victory for four decades of political campaigning for the centralised unitary state to be reformed along the lines that the most enlightened opinion had suggested around the time of Independence.
The provincial councils were not only a long time coming, they were the result of intense pressure: armed struggle by the Tamil guerrilla movement and intervention by India. Having been born, these institutions were swiftly paralysed in the North East by twin armed rejectionists: the hardcore separatist Tamil Tigers and the hard-line centralists, the JVP. The paralysis of the North East Provincial Council was also greatly aided by the adventurism of the EPRLF (specifically Vardharajaperumal) and miscalculations by India.
Thanks largely to the LTTE, the Tamil people of the North and East and the Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese of the East were devoid of adequate representation and devolved power for two whole decades. Now elections are being held to one of the two Councils and barring a catastrophe, the East as a whole-as a single autonomous unit, not a collection of local government authorities- will have an elected administration within a fortnight.
The fact that at this time of writing (Sunday May 4) no one knows who the winner will be indicates the genuinely competitive character of the contest.
Furthermore, given the almost equal distribution of the three ethno-religious communities, the electoral competition dictates that the winner must bridge the gap between at least two of those three communities. This is itself no mean contribution to inter-ethnic conciliation in our society.
No Sri Lankan government was able or willing to hold elections to the Eastern Provincial council for twenty years. It might be argued in the strict sense that no Sri Lankan administration was ever able to, until now, until the Rajapakse administration-because the election of late 1988 was managed and policed in all respects by the Indian Peace Keeping Force, not the Sri Lankan state machinery.
As significant a breakthrough as the Eastern provincial election is, the achievement of the Sri Lankan state is even more impressive when this election is taken together with the Government’s important Northern initiative, namely the institution of a High powered Committee or Special Presidential Task Force for Northern development, reconstruction and rehabilitation.
The idea itself has its precedents, and interesting ones at that: in 1995 the CBK administration and the LTTE in their exchange of letters, proposed a Northern authority or task force for reconstruction, but each had a different conception and in any event the Tigers resumed hostilities unilaterally in April. More ambitiously President Kumaratunga gazetted under Emergency Regulations in November 1999, an Advisory Committee to counsel the Governor of the Northeast on a number of subject areas including law and order. Unfortunately and yet so typically of that presidency, these Emergency Regulations lapsed in 2001, without this body ever being concretely constituted.
President Rajapakse went one better. On April 30th he announced to the Cabinet a setting up of such a body, until such time as the North is liberated and elections to that province are held just as in the East. This high-level Advisory committee has all three major communities equally represented, and is chaired, as befits the ethnic composition of the North, by its Tamil member, Minister Douglas Devananda (who would have been the beneficiary if President Kumaratunga had constituted the Advisory committee in 1999-2001). Tough, smart, experienced and patient, Devananda should be able to improve the lot of the Tamil people of the North.
The timing of the establishment of the Task Force is not fortuitous. It is all of a piece with the Eastern provincial election. Bracketed together, with these measures President Rajapakse has overcome a blockage of two decades and done for the North and East in terms of devolution, of power-sharing with the Tamil allies of the Sri Lankan state, that which leaders with a far more enlightened rhetoric were unable or unwilling to do in practice. Such is the cunning of History, but it is not unknown: it took Richard Nixon to make the opening to China and Menahem Begin to sign the Camp David Accords with Anwar el Sadat.
The situation today is thus roughly similar to that of exactly two decades ago, when the North East Provincial Council was set up. (Then too, elections were not held in the North, only the East.) Late 1988 was what Kishore Mahbubani, Singapore’s former Permanent Representative to the UN in New York and outstanding foreign policy thinker, calls a “plastic moment”, a moment when the decisions we take can shape the future as at no other time.
We failed to emerge from the tunnel then, because of the obduracy of the LTTE, JVP and a needlessly protracted external presence. Today we have a government that correctly resists external presence and is explicitly committed to overcoming the LTTE. If we exit the tunnel this time, we are well placed to benefit from the explosive economic rise of Asia. The basic premise for this exit remains the military defeat of the LTTE. The Eastern election and the Northern Task Force provide the openings for the political, ideological and diplomatic isolation and defeat of the LTTE which must be either prelude or parallel for the military defeat of the enemy.
The lessons of Muhamalai 3-the outcome of which seems to be more of a draw than the previous battles of 2001 and 2006 - must be absorbed, and these are four-fold: the enemy must be out-thought in order to be out-fought; predictable linear advance must be eschewed in favour of the element of surprise stemming from creative tactics of manoeuvre and mobility; such a war of manoeuvre and mobility in unpropitious terrain can only result from Air-Land-Sea battle concepts, requiring close cooperation and integration between all arms of the military; improved intelligence is needed to closely estimate the enemy’s capabilities and possible responses.
There are reasons to be optimistic of the final outcome, and indeed be proud of being Sri Lankan. The latest survey of public opinion, the Peace Confidence Index of the Centre for Policy Alternatives reveals majority opinion the country to be resilient, resolute and reasonable. The Sinhalese are almost (slightly under) 2/3rds of the country’s population, inhabiting very approximately, the Southern 2/3rds of the island’s land area. The majority of this majority “show a decrease in support for peace talks from 25.7% to 16.6 % since November 2007, while support for the government’s defeat of the LTTE remains constant”. Most of the majority prefer peace talks after the war, while over 60% feel that the country is close to reaching a permanent settlement to the conflict. 62.5% of the Sinhalese perceive the security situation to have improved, 70% feel that the LTTE is militarily weak, and there is a 4% increase in Sinhala perceptions of the military strength of the government. Over 70% of the Sinhalese do not perceive the conflict in ethnic or ethnocentric terms-against the Other-but as a “war against terrorism”. Most Sinhalese approve of “development NGOs” but disapprove of so-called peace/conflict resolution NGOs. The greater percentage of the Sinhalese polled approve of the abrogation of the CFA. 61.3% of Sinhalese are willing to undergo economic hardship for the sake of the government’s war with the LTTE, and list the war and world prices, rather than “government mismanagement” as the main reasons for the increase in the cost of living. There are “fair majorities” among the Sinhalese for an Indian role, in the war, peace talks and development.
“The Sinhala community express (sic) a high level of satisfaction”, to use the phraseology of the CPA, with President Mahinda Rajapakse’s handling of a wide range of topics, demonstrating its balance, fairness and open-mindedness by being critical on the management of the cost of living. 73.5 % of the majority community are satisfied with his efforts to solve the conflict, 77.1 % approve of the President’s international relations, 68.8% approve of his management of the SLFP and 81% support his handling of social values. Most striking, and strikingly ignored by the foreign and local media, is the 91% approval rating among the Sinhalese for the President’s handling of the war (a statistic that should stick in the eye of local commentators fond of grotesque analogies with President Bush and Iraq!).
[The writer is Ambassador and Sri Lanka’s Permanent representative to the UN; This article represents the entirely personal views of the author.]
Entry Filed under: Federalidea
16 Comments Add your own
1. Dr KC | May 7th, 2008 at 2:21 am
Besides the results of the opinion polls that you have boasted about, I wish you had included the following quote in this article by JR Jeyawardene in the mid 80’s to a foreign journalist:
“If I say to the Sinhalese people I am going to starve the Tamils, I will get more and more support from the Sinhalese”
People like you remind me that only the LTTE has got it right.
2. Sri | May 7th, 2008 at 6:54 am
Dr Dayan Jayathilake has made some interesting comments as usual.
But it raises more questions than answers.
Dayan had come with a valid argument with quotations from Obama defending government’s unwillingness to come out with any political solution!
.
When there is a need he will quote even from FBI or CIA favourably! .
Here he is only quoting from Obama.
.Barack Obama and Martin Luther King had become his latest heroes only because Dayan could justify his present betrayals. with these quotqtions!
Dayan did you read Uncle Tom’s Cabin? and Mahatma Gandhi’s and Leo Tolstoy’s writings!. Then you will be able to impress with many more impressive similar quotations..
It is a pity that you were unable to quote from Castro or Che Quvera.
Poor Castro!
Poor Che quera!.
So we need not be revolutionaries. Time will solve all the problems by evolution.
Let us have a dream for Sri Lanka!
The critics of this government are pessimist! And Dayan wants everybody to be patient and optimist and do nothing about state sponsored killings abductions, ransom and even genocide Because it will stop one day may be in twenty years due to evolution!
.
All the human Rights activist both national and international have to be optimist.
The killings, ransoms and abductions will stop one day!
. The eternal pessimist will say “yes!” but all the human rights will automatically stop anyway when all the Tamils are killed!.
Dayan is so optimist the he believes that this process is applicable to corruption, nepotism, governance, rule of law etc and as a good Christian he knew the distinction between a believers and non believers .and any way the non believers will go to hell.
When you see evil what a good man should do is to do nothing!
Now Dayan is talking about the hypocrisy of those who supported the ISGA and PTOMS.
Why not for a change speak about the hypocrisy of those who fought against ISGA and PTOMS like Dayan!
They also were against armed LTTE now supports armed TMVP!
What is good for the goose is good for the gender!
.
Now you want to bring in Chou en lai!
Now he refers to the time when the North East Provincial Council was constituted in 1988. and elections were held.
Yes! There is something in common between the democratic elections of 1988 and 2008.
In 1988 in the North there was an uncontested election! Had there been an election will Dayan be able to safe even his deposit? and thanks to IPKF and EPRLF the members were elected uncontested and among others Dayan also has become first a member then a minister!
How the election was uncontested only Dayan could enlighten us.
Anyone who needs further details about the most violent period in the history of Sri Lanka could read
UTHR-J ‘S “Broken Palmyra”
2008 seems to be worse. After liberating the East the TNA was not allowed to contest. Yet you dare to call it a n election? Is this how elections are conducted in democratic Cuba?
Dayan talks about the Peace Confidence Index!. Here again he is not talking about a Sri Lankan nation but about a Sinhalese nation! Is it because he believes in the existence of two nations in this island with irreconcilable differences.
T he approval ratings among Sinhalese is 91%.What is the corresponding percentage among the Tamils?
Why the majority of Sinhalease support the War whereas the majority of Tamils wants peace?
These bastards don’t count!
I wrote these comments only to expose the hypocrisy of Dr Dayan Jayathilake!
3. Devinda Fernando | May 7th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
I love people who gripe about the TMVP being armed. The minute the TMVP broke away from the LTTE, they themselves became targets of the LTTE. The LTTE are still looking to Kill them… Karuna, Pillayan, Pradeep Master, all these people are Top Targets of the LTTE. If you were in their shoes would you give up your arms so easily? Seriously? - think about it like that? After working for the Most Ruthless Terrorist Organization and knowing how they operate, then if you break away do you think you are safe???? Of course not, they keep their guns, and they resort to taking out those they know are LTTE supporters in the East because if they don’t then the LTTE will KILL THEM!… isn’t that the reality of the situation? Can you legitimately expect the TMVP to disarm and let the LTTE kill them off and return to power? Do you seriously want that to happen?
How many times have the LTTE tried to kill Douglas Devananda? Do you seriously think he will give up his arms and his armed thugs when there are Brutal unrelenting enemies looking to kill him everyday???? Lets be serious here… I don’t agree with some of EPDP or TMVP’s tactics but I understand completely the reality of the situation they are in.
Things will not get better overnight, but they are getting better and will continue to get better. All that money being poured into the East is going to do good things for the people of the East…the majority of the people to benefit there are Tamil. Surely these naysayers of the transformation of the East cannot continue to harp on the situation when they know it is not perfect but it is for the greater good of the majority of the people. Those who feign ignorance to this obviously have an ulterior political motive which is at a heavy cost the Tamil people because they want failure in the East so that they can go back to the Old way! The LTTE way…
The reality I can see is that Mahinda’s government is not perfect. They have made many mistakes in this war, and will probably make more before this is over,… but at the end of the day the suffering is going to end and the system will be fixed.
4. nathan | May 7th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
On Tuesday 25 Mar 2003 a three judge bench of the Supreme Court held that that the fundamebtal rights of five voters of the eastern province had been violated as they were prevented ( among thousands of other voters who too were prevented) from voting in the December 2001 election. by the army. The state was ordered to pay Rs 100,000 to each of the five peititioners; the Army Commander to pay Rs 9,000 to each from his personal funds; the Commissioner of Elections Dayananda Dissanayake to pay Rs 1,000 to each peititioner out of his personal funds.
The Court also held that the casting of votes from their residences by President Chandrika Kumaratunge, Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, Deputy Defence Minister Anuruddha Ratwatte and Speaker Anura Bandaranaike was against the law and had no legal validity.
Now, objecting to one of the parties carrying arms and intimidating voters is being held as “the height of hypocrisy”.
The same Elections Commissioner is ignoring this situation.
The same Army Commander is mentioned as likely to be appointed Governor of the of the eastern province.
It is obvious that the Ambassador is only bent on pleasing his political masters.
Worse, he is insulting the intelligence of all voters in sri lanka.
5. Murugan | May 7th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Mr. Dayan,
congratulations on managing to provide an intellectual justification for Rajapaksa’s war.
I am sure you will one day become Foreign Minister or some very high up position for the Rajapaksa Family’s SLFP.
It is all very funny though because Rajapaksa’s war only plays into the LTTE’s agenda to divide the country.
If you truly cared for Sinhalese, you would have convinced Rajapksa to pursue an Internationally supported policy of containment like what Ranil had done.
And this whole scheme to develop the East and hold elections is just a ploy to pacify the Tamils. While I commend Rajapaksa for holding elections in the East and for saying he will develop the North and East, the only reason he is doing this is to obfuscate the core issues.
Why are the North and East de-merged?
First remerge the Northeast, and then devolve powers. Northeast merger is a fundamental tenet of Tamil nationalism.
Any devolution and development of the East is just a ploy to condition the Tamils for a de-merged North and East.
6. Venkai | May 8th, 2008 at 12:32 am
If what Devinda Fernando says is justifyable, then every Tamil must be allowed to carry arms. Tamils in Sri Lanka are targetted by the security forces, sinhala thugs, EPDP thugs and TMVP thugs and “white van” people!!!
7. Devinda Fernando | May 8th, 2008 at 3:59 am
*** I wrote these comments only to expose the hypocrisy of Dr Dayan Jayathilake! ***
LOL! I thought you wrote those comments because you took some bad Shrooms….sure sounds like it!
8. Devinda Fernando | May 8th, 2008 at 4:02 am
*** On Tuesday 25 Mar 2003 a three judge bench of the Supreme Court held that that the fundamebtal rights of five voters ***
LOL! Oh BOO HOO! lets all hold hands and Cry for them!!! NOT 5 VOTERS! I can’t believe it! I MEAN I COULD UNDERSTAND ONE OR TWO,… AND MAYBE EVEN THREE! BUT FIVE!!!!!!! VOTERS! OH NO! CALL CNN! CALL THE MEDIA! WE GOT THE NEXT SPET 11TH SIZE CATASTROPHE ON OUR HANDS!
Yikes…….
9. Sundaram | May 8th, 2008 at 6:23 am
I am a Tamil who from North & East and later worked in South.
I appreciate that personally Sinhalese people are one of the best civilized people in the Indian sub continent. Personally I find Sinhalese people more understanding and helpful.
However when it comes to ethnic crises in Srilanka they have many misapprehensions and wrong ideas.
You seem to be jubilant about being able to hold an election in the East.
But what about the many thousands of people from Sampur and surburbs who are not permitted to go back to their homelands. That large area has been earmarked as High Security zone. Have the authorities uttered any words about resettling them anywhere?
I am aware that in South also government has relocated the people because of development projects. But those were done in internationally acceptable ways. Do you feel that Sampur people will think that they have been librated?
Also majority of refugees who fled to India during past two years were from East(Trinco.) Do think this election will mean anything to them?
You have mentioned that there is almost equal distribution of the three ethno-religious communities in East. That was not so when Srilanka gained Independence. Only the Covert and Overt government program made this province to become like that, and that is one the major reasons for the armed struggle by Tamil youths. Quite a good number of Tamils were chased away by Sinhalese thugs backed by the security forces.
Even now govt. is considering the 13th amendments only because of the pressure from India. I do not think that govt. is doing this whole-heartedly.
So after defeating of LTTE, what is the guarantee for Tamils, that the devolution to the province will continue forever and the state sponsored anti Tamil programs will not be repeated in North and East?
Anyway I am not all a supporter of LTTE.
I believe that present talks about 13th amendment are only to hoodwink India and get their blessings to destroy the LTTE.
10. Devinda Fernando | May 8th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
*** EPDP thugs and TMVP thugs and “white van” people!!! ***
EPDP and TMVP are Tamil…
11. nathan | May 8th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Further to Comment 4. I should add that the Army Commander was rewarded with a promotion; the Elections Commissioner was not allowed to even retire - in the old days public officers punished by the courts were dismissed from service after an inquiry which only verified the punishment by the courts.
This is in the Establishments Code. Thus both became the most indispensable public servants in sri lanka.
This may show that the GoSL was not unhappy with what had happened during the 2001 elections in the eastern province.
This may again be repeated on the 10th.
12. Dayan Jayatilleka | May 9th, 2008 at 7:50 am
nathan is oblivious to the irony of what he says. He only proves that we have an independent Supreme Court in sri Lanka, unlike in the Tiger controlled areas.
13. nathan | May 9th, 2008 at 8:01 am
Ref. Comment 10.
Quite correct.
The first two are now partners of the government of the Democratic Socialist Republic - under the guidance of the great Chinthanaya !
The leader of the first group mentioned is even a full Cabinet Minister !
The leader of the second aspires to be the Provincial Chief Minister !
Maybe the Ambassador is unaware.
14. Venkai | May 9th, 2008 at 8:40 am
Comment #10
EPDP and TMVP are Tamils, but they are under the payroll of the Government!! According to Devinda govt has no obligation to protect Tamils from Tamils!! Why is the govt. exists? Don’t they have a duty to maintain law and order? Govt. is there ONLY TO ENJOY THE POWER , PERKS AND COMMISSION (WHICH COMES FROM THE ARMS DEAL)
No wonder the Tamils are asking for a seperate state so that they can manage their own affairs including protecting the Tamils from the sinhalese TERRORIST STATE. For them and their family to enjoy life Tamils and poor sinhalese soldiers are to die in thousands!!
15. Devinda Fernando | May 11th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
“IRONY” is not a word found in the Eelam Dictionary,…
*** EPDP and TMVP are Tamils, but they are under the payroll of the Government!! According to Devinda govt has no obligation to protect Tamils from Tamils!! Why is the govt. exists? Don’t they have a duty to maintain law and order? Govt ***
Venkai,
Why do you think the Security forces are fighting the Tigers in the First place???? To protect the Tamils from the LTTE.
Law and order involves securing our borders from Enemies like the LTTE who seek to destroy us and our citizens.
Why don’t you try looking into that Inconvenient Fact and then get back to me, ok?
*** The leader of the first group mentioned is even a full Cabinet Minister !
The leader of the second aspires to be the Provincial Chief Minister ! ***
Nathan,
Good for them… ironic how you say Tamils cannot succeed in Sri Lanka, and yet the ones who do Succeed become prime Targets of the LTTE…. and if they get killed (Kadirgamar, Fernandopulle) you will secretly laugh to yourselves… TMVP entered the Political mainstream because they came to their senses. No one would have complained if the LTTE did the same,..but LTTE will never settle Politically - we all know this, and none know it better than the EPDP and the TMVP….
EPDP and TMVP carry guns because the LTTE want to kill them… and have tried many times. Another Fact you conveniently ignore.
16. Murugan | May 11th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
The elections were a farce.
The Muslims make up about 40% of the population and with an alliance with the main oppossition, UNP, and no TNA, the Muslims should have won at least 17 seats. And through forming an alliance with some smaller party like the 1 seat of the TDNA, this alliance should have been able to pool together 18 seats. But then,
Pillaiyan went and stuffed Batticaloa ballot boxes to give Rajapaksa a slim victory.
And how is it possible that the Muslims lose Ampara by two seats? That doesn’t seem right, given Ampara’s high Muslim population.
Rajapaksa comes out with 18 seats out of 35 total.
Rigged just enough to give Rajapaksa full control.
And now they are counting ballots to demonstrate credibility? That Doesn’t MATTER! The ballot boxes were stuffed, so counting ballots will just give the same results.
Pillaiyan has done this for Rajapaksa because Rajapaksa promised him the CM post.
Now what if Rajapaksa denies Pillaiyan his CM post, after having already made good use of Pillaiyan?
I hope Pillaiyan does not get the CM post after his faustian bargain.
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