federalidea.com

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]

“With a terrible record of torture and disappearance, Sri Lanka doesn’t deserve a seat on the UN human rights council. It should be voted out,” says the first black South African Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, in a comment that appeared on the daily Guardian, U.K., May 15th edition.

[Archbishop Desmond Tutu]

No right to be there:
“With a terrible record of torture and disappearance, Sri Lanka doesn’t deserve a seat on the UN human rights council. It should be voted out.”

Full text of the article follows:

It would seem self-evident that a country which tortures and kidnaps its own people has no place on the world’s leading human rights body. Apparently not: Sri Lanka, despite repeated criticism for its human rights record, is running for re-election to the UN human rights council, with a vote to be held in New York on May 21.

Governments owe it to Sri Lankan human rights victims-and to victims of human rights abuses around the world-to ensure that the Sri Lankan bid fails. This will be an important test of the 47-member council, to show that the UN’s standards for it will be honoured.

If Sri Lanka is defeated this year, that will be important not just for the Sri Lankan human rights leaders who, at great personal risk, have called for Sri Lanka’s defeat, and for Sri Lankan civil society. In combination with the humiliating defeat last year of Belarus, it will send an important signal for the future: governments with track records of serious human rights abuses do not belong on a body set up to protect the victims of such abuses.

Sri Lanka has failed to honour its pledges of upholding human rights standards and cooperating with the UN since joining the council two years ago. Indeed, its human rights record has worsened during that time. The Sri Lankan idea of cooperation with the UN, meanwhile, has been to condemn senior UN officials (including the high commissioner for human rights, Louise Arbour, and the under secretary general for humanitarian affairs, John Holmes) as “terrorists” or “terrorist sympathisers.”

The systematic abuses by Sri Lankan government forces are among the most serious imaginable. Government security forces summarily remove their own citizens from their homes and families in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again. Torture and extrajudicial killings are widespread. When the human rights council was established, UN members required that states elected must themselves “uphold the highest standards” of human rights. On that count, Sri Lanka is clearly disqualified.

The separatist Tamil Tigers have used despicable tactics in their war against the government, including frequent suicide bombings. But that can in no way excuse the scale of government abuses.

Fortunately, the news from the council is not all bad. Countries running from other regions of the world have credible claims to be leaders in promoting human rights. Argentina and Chile, which suffered terribly from torture, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in the past, have become leading supporters of human rights, and now seek to join the council. On the African slate, there are some true human rights leaders, and-thankfully-no candidacy from Zimbabwe or Sudan. In the entire world, Sri Lanka stands out as the most clearly unqualified state seeking election to the council this year, and the place where things are getting unambiguously worse.

Defeating the Sri Lankan candidacy would be a comfort to the people of Sri Lanka. It would place international pressure on the government to respect human rights, and to accept a UN human rights monitoring mission, which it has stubbornly refused. It would help make the council a place where true human rights leaders in all regions can help lead the world towards greater respect for human life and human dignity. An outcome, in short, that would benefit those who care about human rights in the world. Any other result would be a travesty.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu is a winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace.

Courtesy: Guardian, UK-[No right to be there]

By Kusal Perera

The much pampered and wholly manipulated elections for the de-merged Eastern Province came to a close during the week end. The government insists it was a free and fair election and said so even during the voting. Statements made on behalf of the government says the victory it gained proves the people in the East have pinned their faith on democracy. JHU boss Champika says even the Tamil people have joined in defeating Eealm separatism. Thus the government would now want the South to bear all its corruption, mismanagement and plundering till the war is won in the North.

The opposition rejects the election almost in unison and cries foul. The JVP and the SLMC / UNP alliance said so from the start. The UNP and Rauf Hakeem came out very clearly in rejecting the results as totally rigged. Election monitoring groups kept pumping news of numerous incidents of thuggery, assault, vote rigging and stuffing all through the day the polling was on.The Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) reported over 80 instances of severe rigging where they said voting would have to be cancelled and re-elections held in those booths. Lanka Polls Watch (LPW) claimed the elections had been so violent it does not reflect the people’s decision and therefore the whole election has to be declared null and void.

As for the quality of the elections held, the Opposition and the Election Monitoring groups are of the same mind, though PAFFREL would say the violence this time is a countinuation of election violence from all previous regimes. Granting it is so, the fact that this election was totally rigged does not in any way make any of those violations simple and pardonable. “So what now ?” is the most important question.

Now the Opposition could, if it is realy serious about rejecting the election results on the basis of violent rigging, publicly declare they would not accept the results and therefore decide not to take oaths and sit in the Provincial Councils. The argument is very simple and logical if argued as follows. The government promised a free and fair election. Though with very serious doubts, the Opposition decided to give the government a chance to prove its bona fide offer and therefore contested. Since the government went back on its promise and brutally suppressed the democratic right of the people in electing their own representatives, the Opposition decides to withdraw its participation in the PC. Thus the decision, not to take oaths and sit in the Council.

With such politics, the role of moitoring bodies too would fold up with a report or two and may be with a media conference that would provide many theoretical arguments. While all those heavy decisions are deliberated here in Colombo, what would happen to the people in the East ? Will their lives change for the better after the PC is established ? Will they get those powers as defined in the 13th Amendment and as promised by the government ?

On May 08th in the ‘Daily Mirror’ under the caption, ‘What makes free and fair different in the East’ I noted with much disgust that “Either way, Pillayan winning or losing, numbers of election related violence increasing or decreasing, elections being free and fair or heavily rigged, East will not have democracy under a PC that would any way have to maintain a heavy military presence to exist.” That most unfortunately seems the only option left now, after the elections. With Trincomalee becoming the provincial capital of the East, the LTTE proved it could penetrate Trinco’s most secured area with the sinking of the Navy ship within the harbour itself. There were also reports of artillery firing between the LTTE and the TMVP in the Verugal Aru area on the day of the elections. Thus it is clear the TMVP not only carries personal arms but has heavy weapons as well. It is also very imminent the TMVP PC members would now carry their arms and openly too as security for themselves. Most of them would have heavy presence of their own armed cadres with justifications that they need to have security in the face of LTTE threats. State security forces would have to maintain all the barricades, all search operations and all other security measures to help the PC function amidst LTTE ambushes and sporadic attacks. The threat of the LTTE, the presence of heavy military deployments and armed Pillayan cadres would continue without a change.

There is also the possibility of TMVP transferring the chief administrative functions of the PC to Batticaloa, as it is there they have a formidable armed presence. It would also mean, the opposition in the Eastern PC would not have the democratic right to do politics in any of the 03 districts, without arms. Yet it’s a fact the SLMC / UNP men are not made for such politics. They would thus lose any possibility of opposing the Pillyan rule in the PC.

Within that context that would certainly evolve, what relevance is there for the 13th Amendment and for its full implementation as promised by the President ? For sure, there is absolutely no chance for any devolution, even to the extent one sees in the South. Chief Minister of the NC Province, Bertie Premalal, wanted the people in the East to vote for the UPFA as that would give them the benefit of having President’s development projects in the East. It’s thus the President who would decide the course of development, depending on which way the PC goes. That would be how the 13th Amendment is to be fully implemented.

Again, just 03 days before the Eastern elections, 05 schools in the East were taken over by the central government through a gazette notification. Although the 13th Amendment does have provisions for such central government interventions, if the government is politically determined to devolve all powers available under the 13th Amendment, then the government would not take over institutions that are already under the provincial administration. That is not what the government would be doing. The government has already moved in with the Oluvil port development work. There is that much marketed “Negenahira Udanaya” [Awakenig of the East] and then “Maga Neguma and Gama Neguma” [Road and village improvement programmes] going East. All of them not only mean centralising whatever development the government is talking of, but also taking them under the Rajapaksa family. That simply is the petty mindset of Sinhala centralism.The JHU reacted immediately to the 13th Amendment proposal with their own opposition to devolution and said, “no police powers to the East and even land must not be devolved”. The JVP with their version of “Indian expansionism” wants the 13th Amendment proposal dropped from the APRC. The government would use all of it to prune the 13th Amendment and the way ahead is too conspicuous that it needs no forecasting.

Who would oppose such Sinhala centralism ? Not the Opposition for sure. The UNP that tries to safely avoid the issue of devolution would not want to campaign for the 13th Amendment. Right now the UNP is searching for escape routes to get back to a more Sinhala platform thinking they could also compete with the JHU and the government for Sinhala votes. In the East too they played for the Sinhala votes. Ravi Karunanayake’s stress on the D.S. Senanayake era as one who improved the East, was for the consumption of the Sinhala votes in the East. He little knew that it was this same DS who changed the demographic pattern in the East against Tamil representation. So was Ranil W’s last minute statement on the GSP+. He wanted to promote himself as the saviour of the Sinhala labour in the apparel industry, at the expense of all HR violations, for all those violations effect mostly the Tamil polity.

Therefore, in this society no political leadership would want the 13th Amendment implemented in full. Not even Pillayan who would only want power, which he has gained by joining the government and his project would have little or no relevance to the people in the East and their lives in a devolved province. For them, as before, it would be living under a gun and no power no matter who holds it above them. [dailymirror.lk]

by Bob Rae
[Former adviser to the Sri Lanka peace talks, 2002-2004]

A United Nations agency recently declared Sri Lanka one of the world’s most dangerous places for aid workers and journalists. It is also a terrifying place to be a soldier. Both the government and its opponents, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), count scores of fighters killed and hundreds wounded during recent fighting. Sri Lanka’s already horrific war is entering a quantitatively new phase.

[Bob Rae, MP]

The country’s once admired democratic institutions are buckling under the strain. It is worth recalling that the LTTE emerged in the late 1970s against a backdrop of mounting grievances in the north and east of the island country over declining access to language, employment and political rights. A radical leftist group, the People’s Liberation Front (JVP)-composed primarily of disgruntled Southerners-raised similar concerns, albeit from a different perspective.

The response of the Sri Lankan government to these grievances was as swift as it was severe. It has waged a virtually uninterrupted military campaign against the LTTE since the early 1980s. For its part, the LTTE, a merciless armed group, has engaged in brutal attacks against civilians as well as assassinations of their opponents, raising support and money in the Tamil diaspora, including the large community in Canada. A conservative estimate puts the number of deaths in the fighting at 75,000. The government also launched aggressive operations against the JVP and about 60,000 civilians died over a two-year period in the late 1980s before the JVP made its transition to politics.

Such wars are inevitably accompanied by authoritarianism and fear. Along with the growing role afforded the military and the introduction of emergency regulations, the government has cracked down on independent oversight bodies and press freedoms.

War-related militarization has far-reaching implications for democracy. Symptoms include skyrocketing military spending and related racketeering. Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the President’s brother, says he’s determined to win the conflict militarily and matches his words with an impressive will to spend. Defence expenditures in 2007 were more than 50 per cent higher than in the previous year. They are expected to grow by another 20 per cent in 2008, to $1.48-billion. Defence now accounts for a fifth of all public spending.

While Western governments have been unanimous in labelling the LTTE as a terrorist organization-the Tigers commit suicide bombings and recruit child soldiers-they have also been critical of the Sri Lankan government. Consequently, Colombo turned to China and Pakistan for support. Even the President of Iran was in the country recently. These governments are far less likely to criticize Sri Lanka for a democratic deficit. They are offering billions of dollars of aid with no strings attached.

There is much that the warring parties can do to reverse this situation. A complete ceasefire and a return of the government and the LTTE to the negotiating table could reverse the escalation in casualties on both sides. Thousands of civilians have been killed or displaced since the resumption of war. Re-engaging independent monitors and getting them on the ground is critical to rebuilding confidence.

Sri Lanka’s standing as a model South Asian democracy is suffering under the weight of war. The warning signs are clear. The Worldwide Press Freedom Index, published by Reporters Without Borders, places Sri Lanka in 109th place, tied with Cambodia and right after U.S.-occupied Iraq. Likewise, Transparency International consistently reports corruption at the highest levels of executive and legislative government. The relentless conflict continues. Democracy itself hangs in the balance.

Above all, Sri Lankans need to be able to imagine a country where mutual respect, an abandonment of extremist ideologies and new forms of autonomy and shared governance are possible. It will require extraordinary courage and determination to get there. The alternative – more death, more repression, more corruption, deeper economic stagnation – must not be allowed.

Canada can hardly be indifferent to this conflict. Our own experience with federalism and conflict prevention, our deep attachment to pluralism and our ties to this troubled country should push us to far more active engagement. We need to get the diasporas to talk to each other and put an end to the funding pipeline. [courtesy: The Globe and Mail.com]

Bob Rae is the MP for Toronto Centre.

Statement by National Peace Council:

On Saturday May 10 the people of the Eastern Province will cast their vote at crucial elections that will have a bearing on the future course of politics in the country, and especially with regard to the ongoing ethnic conflict. The election can be historic as it will represent for the first time the hopes and opinion of the people of the east through an electoral process that is confined to the Eastern Province alone. The National Peace Council expresses its concern that the period of the election campaign has been marked by undercurrents of intimidation although there has been low overt violence. If conducted unfairly, these elections can misrepresent the will of the people of the east, who are unique in being from all three major ethnic communities and in significant proportions.

The National Peace Council views the forthcoming elections as providing an opportunity to the government to demonstrate its commitment to the democratic process as part and parcel of its strategy to resolve the ethnic conflict in a just and democratic manner. So far the level of violence has been relatively low which is a positive feature that we hope will continue until election day on May 10 and in the post-election period. However, available evidence indicates that campaigning was carried out under a security environment not conducive to a free and fair election.

[A boy looks out of his classroom at the Kaliyakadu camp for internally displaced Tamil people in Batticaloa, east of Sri Lanka May 8, 2008. REUTERS/Anuruddha Lokuhapuarachchi-via Yahoo! News]

The relative fairness of an election cannot be determined solely by considering what occurs on election day, as there are a number of other factors which can affect the citizen’s and political parties’ ability to participate effective in the democratic process. One of the controversial features of the elections is that the TMVP, which is a former militant organization continues to retain its arms on the grounds of self defence. In addition, the TMVP is contesting in alliance with the government, which has put the system of checks and balances on electoral malpractice into jeopardy. The basic requirement for a free and fair election is that all the contesting parties are unarmed and not in a position to intimidate both their political rivals as well as voters who will be fearful to cross the path of the armed party. Election monitoring organizations even filed action in the courts calling for the disarming of the TMVP for the purposes of conducting free and fair elections but without success due to the absence of jurisdiction of the courts in this matter.

Reports from the opposition political parties contesting the eastern elections, and from election monitors and the media, have highlighted a significant level of intimidation that has obstructed the electoral campaigns of the opposition parties. There are allegations that the TMVP has been intimidating its political rivals and put them into such a state of fear that they dare not campaign in areas in which the TMVP has its armed presence. The very low level of campaigning by opposition parties in some parts of the east has been independently verified by election monitors and the media. These same sources have also reported that in some instances polling cards have not been delivered to voters and that the TMVP has been issuing identity cards on its own, which could be used to fraudulently cast votes.

The National Peace Council urges the government to ensure that the election officials and police are suitably empowered to deal with any and all attempts made to tamper with the electoral process on May 10. We believe that having elections in the east, accepting some flaws, is an important step towards empowering the people in the east to democratically determine their future. But we wish to register our concern that an electoral process marked by intimidation, unless rectified even in these last days, will undermine the democratic processes that are necessary to restore peace and ethnic harmony in the country and can lead to a further marginalizing and alienation of disempowered ethnic minorities.

Executive Director
On behalf of the Governing Council

National Peace Council of Sri Lanka

By Kusal Perera

The east has now become a battleground for interpreting democracy. The President claims the PC elections in the east would be an ideal example for democracy in comparison to all other elections. Whatever that example is and whatever lesson one would learn from it, it could never be assessed and analysed by “numbers and percentages” in interpreting democracy. There again, whatever the interpretation, the East would have to either kneel down with its heavily tortured social life in front of an armed group, the government claims is very democratic and live under licensed suppression, or try out a different leadership that opposes armed politics altogether and still live through an extended armed conflict. That second choice would leave an experienced, brutal armed group as the opposition in the Eastern PC with open and official government backing as the TMVP and UPFA are one in the same nomination lists. The choice for the eastern polity therefore would reduce to what is comparatively less bad and not what is best for the East.

Entrenched within this reality in the practical life of the East, is the future developments in the south as well. Except for the Pillayan led TMVP, all others have gone from the political south (meaning those who predominantly live with the politics of the Sinhala south) to the East, to come back with a result that could be interpreted to the South as their mandate to play politics in the south. With Pillayan’s TMVP providing the oppressive hand for the Rajapaksa glove, the bottom line remains in how much power the East could give those contesting the elections, to wield their influence more in the south.

It is for this reason the government wants the south in particular and the world at large to accept the PC elections in the East as free and fair. And it is for the opposite reason the SLMC/UNP and others in the fray want to contradict the government and prove it is not a free and fair election.

Free and fair elections were declared as impossible in the East by the Opposition including the JVP, with the Pillayan group running around carrying weapons with tacit government support even before the LG elections in Batticaloa. But then with PAFFREL giving credence to that election, the Opposition could not avoid contesting the PC elections to the east. With the credibility of PAFFREL openly challenged after its two decade plus history, monitoring the East PC elections have become a totally new issue with two more new outfits, CAFFE and SL Polls Watch entering the scene with their own reports..

Not only PAFFREL, but the other two new entities monitoring election campaigns, CAFFE and SL Polls Watch are talking of what they are trained to check in monitoring elections. They are perhaps reaching out to have more complaints recorded in their reports that PAFFREL may be accused of ignoring. They are definitely out to see the numbers of election related assaults, threats to life, abductions, killings, unregistered vehicles on the roads, white vans, blocking of election rallies, use of State resources and State media, etc., etc. These numbers do give meaning to what a free and fair election could be. But is that everything in East PC elections ? There is a serious politico-military factor in the east that is not brought out in answering issues related to election violence. It is this factor that had grown and evolved with savage intensity that obstructs and denies a free and fair election in the East.

The Citizens’ Committee was killed off during the IPKF backed EPRLF regime as the North-East PC. The East in particular became politically militarised with the LTTE challenging the military might of the IPKF from October 10th 1987. The EPRLF as the PC authority could not exert much influence in those parts outside the East with the war on and they concentrated in establishing their militarised administration in the East with the IPKF helping out with policing, banking, transporting and other civil work as well. Thereafter the fall of the North – East PC, the packing off of the IPKF and the EPRLF deserting the East in 1990, led to a change of military power in the east. The power vacuum was immediately filled by the LTTE, once again surfacing as a formidable force in the East. With the courting between the Premadasa regime and the LTTE coming to an end by 1991, the war swallowed the bits and pieces of social life there were.

Thereafter, except for a brief period from end 1993 to mid 1995, when the East enjoyed a respite from war starting during the tenure of President Wijetunge, that allowed for LG elections in early 1994, the general elections in August 1994 and the Presidential elections in November the same year, the East had always been living with a bloody war till the CFA was signed in 2002 February. This CFA was not given the political advantage of making space for confidence building and managing conflict. It was humiliated and violated to leave us with a war more brutal than what was there previously. The justification for TMVP carrying arms is just that. They are still under threat from the LTTE despite government claims of clearing the east of the LTTE.

Here lies the paradox of the democracy in the east. To begin with, living with these brutal and bloody calamities the east had never been able to survive with a social fabric that could stand against militarising due to the bloody protracted nature of the war after the IPKF intervention. The role of the Citizens’ Committee that one witnessed previously was never in force.Thereafter the IPKF propped N-E PC folded up in 1990 , it was armed players who called the shots in the East and not the people. People, especially the Tamil people in Tamil villages could not have their social organisations unless the armed players in the area wanted them. The Tamil people were always at the receiving end, with opposing armed groups wanting to ensure the villages did not have infiltrations from their “enemy group” and the State security forces wanting to eliminate LTTE work among the Tamil people. This was at times thought possible through ethnic rivalry. Within all this militarization and provoked ethnic rivalry, even the State administration was brought under direct control of the State security forces.

There was thus no space for civil life even within the Tsunami rehabilitation work where most aid agencies had to comply with security requirements. In fact all temporary shelters where Tsunami affected people still live is under a double scrutiny, with State authorities hovering around to keep tab of LTTE infiltration and Pillayan after Karuna Amman also stalking the lives of the displaced. To these displaced were added another innocent lot from the so called “liberation of the East from Tiger claws”. There are now over 200,000 “refugees” diplomatically labelled as “internally displaced persons” who are at the mercy of the armed groups and government security authorities, that dictate terms in their every day life. Worst among them again are the Tamil people.

Do remember that with all these negative developments that have eroded any possibility of the people living and thinking independently for over a decade, where they first have to think how secure their lives would be if they acted independent of the armed TMVP and then the LTTE as silent trespassers now, the numbers of election violence give little meaning to freedom and democracy. With all logistics and infrastructure controlled by the State security forces and the Pillayan group having access to all that, numbers of election related violence have little impact on the lives of the already subdued and threatened lives in the East.

It is in such a tortured and torn society that election monitoring is done as if numbers matter. It is within this savagely numbed social life that Pillayan threatens opposition candidates and numbers are given unnecessary importance. People would never be a deciding factor in this game of armed conflict that is now wrapped up in this election of power wrenching.

Either way, Pillayan winning or losing, numbers of election related violence increasing or decreasing, elections being free and fair or heavily rigged, East will not have democracy under a PC that would any way have to maintain a heavy military presence to exist. It is this truth that is not being said in the South. For the South is made to believe armed suppression in the name of peace could democratise a society. The worst is, the Sinhala South prefers to believe it too. [dailymirror.lk]