Decommissioning Pillayan through provincial council administration

May 16th, 2008

By M. S. M. Ayub

It is now time for the political parties to use the Eastern provincial council election results to justify their policies and stands. The New Left Front says that the results point to the fact that power devolution must be carried out on ethnic lines and the JHU views that the Eastern people have totally rejected terrorism. The JVP’s Wimal faction one day prior to their announcement of the National Freedom Front, their new party, said in a statement that JVP’s vote bank in the East had been eroded.

Government’s claim that the results are an endorsement of its actions is in some places contradicted by the very results. For instance the UPFA has been defeated in Mutur where one of the three symbolically significant areas in the liberation of the East, Sampur is located. Interestingly Government was defeated in Mutur by the UNP, a party that repeatedly scorned the Government’s war efforts in the East. One might question as to whether the people in Sampur, Mutur and Eechilampattu areas did not want to endorse the liberation from the grips of the LTTE.

The reality is otherwise. They probably approve the government’s war victory in the area for they are free from the LTTE harassments and especially their lands in places like Manirasakulam are free now, though they did not want armed clashes in their area for fear of being caught in the crossfire and being rendered homeless. The majority of people in that area are Muslims who are more loyal to the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and the sense of ethnic allegiance has surmounted their willingness to express approval to Government military victories at the election.

As far as the Sinhalese who voted for the UNP are concerned, no sane person can claim that they were opposed to or did not desire the troops gaining an upper hand in the battles in Thopigala and Kanjikudichchaaru jungles and villages around Sampur. But their political allegiance has excelled their patriotism.

The majority of the Tamils in the East this time have voted with the UPFA-TMVP alliance and this too is being interpreted by the leaders of the Government as an endorsement of their war victories or the liberation of the East, as they call it. Had the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) which supports the LTTE contested and had the Tamil people in the East voted with the TMVP in the same way as they have voted this time, then it would have been a clear manifestation of their endorsement of the liberation of the East. What really has happened is that Tamils have voted to the Tamils who are prominent in the fray, irrespective of whether they are fighting for or against the Tamil Eelam.

Forty per cent of voters in the east have not cast their votes for reasons known only to them. What prevented them from voting? Fear of violence, disgust over the political system, protest against the Government’s military campaign, fear of LTTE reprisals or the call by the TNA to abstain from voting may have been the reasons. Therefore it is too early for the Government to rejoice over the approval of the liberation of the East by the majority of the people in the East.

Provincial Councils (PC) as well as District Development Councils (DDC) were brought about to solve the ethnic problem in the long run and also to impart the message of democracy to and build confidence in the Tamil people in the short run by way of power sharing. However the very mechanism has been manipulated by the ruling parties for their short term political ends shattering the confidence, if there is any, in Tamil people as well as the other communities in the very concept of democracy.

At the first and the only election in 1981 for the DDCs, the first ever power sharing mechanism in the effort to solve the national question, thugs transported to Jaffna from the south by the ministers of the UNP Government of President J.R. Jayawadene went berserk chasing away polling agents and voters and stuffing ballot boxes. They also burnt the Jaffna library, one of the best in south East Asia and six ballot boxes went missing and were never located.

The last meeting of the TULF campaign for that election at Nachchimar Koviladi in Jaffna on May 31, 1981 was disrupted by the goons of the ruling party and police following PLOTE gunmen shot dead two policemen injuring another two at the meeting site. Government by its folly could not win over the Tamil people for its first ever power sharing programme.

The first Jaffna DDC election in1981 and the first Easrtern Provincial Council election in 2008 are two elections where the ruling parties used undemocratic means in the process to inculcate love for democracy in those who have resorted to violence to win political rights.

It is very vital for any government to free the Pillayan group from their armed life and bring them into democracy, not the one that is taught in schools and universities, but at least into the democracy that is followed by the ministers of our country. Although ridiculous to call it democracy, it is better than resorting to jungle warfare in the name of a community and kill members of other communities in hundreds while being hunted down by the ever growing security forces.

Government’s support for the Pillayan group is acceptable in that perspective though its motive most probably is not that but just to gain the former terrorists’ expertise in terror and surveillance in its war effort against the LTTE. However there is always a risk of lower rank cadres of the group re-joining the LTTE in the event they get fed up or annoyed with the democracy they have newly embraced. They were for a long time in a utopian separate state which filled them with hopes and enthusiasm and if they poise to break link with the new-found democracy due to the maladministration, corruption and lethargy of the Government which are rampant, they, unlike the youth in other parts of the country, have an option, the utopia.

The LTTE is eagerly looking for avenues to re-surface in the Eastern Province which they call “Then Thamileelam” or Southern Tamil Eelam and they might be vying to win over their former cadres currently with Pillayan. Unless the Government succeeds in retaining the former rebels in the East occupied in some work they consider fruitful and satisfied, there is every possibility that the short-term aspirations of both theirs and the LTTE might meet and coincide.

However the leaders of the Karuna-Pillayan group have no option but to be assimilated with the present political system in the country, however much it is corrupt, for there is no room for them to go back to the LTTE’s fold. LTTE would not pardon them even if they genuinely desire to re-join the Tamil Eelam struggle dissociating again with the so-called democratic process. Ordinary members of the Pillayan group would be pardoned and absorbed into the ranks of the LTTE as the outfit needs an Eastern regiment in its efforts to re-capture and annex the East with the North.

Therefore it is imperative for any Government to give Pillayan group some kind of administrative responsibility so that the cadres of the group in the long run would be assimilated and absorbed by the non-insurgent ordinary society. Since the UPFA-TMVP coalition has won the Eastern Provincial Council election the Government’s task in this regard has become uncomplicated.

It is reported that the Muslim ministers have collectively requested the President to appoint Hisbullah as the CM. Some of them were actually not voicing for Hisbullah but they fear that the SLMC would ridicule them in the event Pillayan becomes the CM. And also they have reportedly threatened to withdraw from the portfolios they are holding, in that event. Although this was good news for the media it was sure no ministers, be they Muslims, Tamils or Sinhalese would resign their portfolios for another person, especially given the way some of them joined the Government. And Hisbullah also would not be in a position to go against the Government.

On the other hand, had the Government appointed Hisbullah Chief Minister, Pillayan also would not be able to oppose it in a decisive manner, since he too has no alternative in the present circumstance other than to stick to the Government, for he gets supplies for his armed cadres totally from the Government. Therefore President Mahinda Rajapaksa is in position to take the cudgel against any of the both any time. [dailymirror.lk]

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