Col R Hariharan
Highlights
- The swearing in of CV Wigneswaran as the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) chief minister in the presence of President Rajapaksa and his selection of ministers against objections from a section of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leaders heralds troubled times for the TNA government.
- The passing of a resolution by the TNA-run Chavakachcheri Pradeshiya Sabha requesting the newly elected NPC to rebuild LTTE cemeteries in the Northern Province sparks off a controversy.
- Indian minister for external affairs visits Sri Lanka and reiterates India’s expectation from the Sri Lanka President to fulfil his promises on devolution without much success. Apparently he expects the newly elected NPC government to politically take up these issues forward. He has confirmed India’s participation to attend the CHOGM summit in Colombo despite the Tamil Nadu assembly’s resolution asking the Centre to boycott it. However, the Prime Minister seems to be undecided about his attendance though a media story on Oct 31 said the Congress core group has decided the PM should attend.
TNA’s troubled start at NPC
CV
Wigneswaran who was sworn in as the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) chief
minister in the presence of President Rajapaksa appears to be facing a tough
time from within the Tamil National Alliance (TNA). It started with some of the
TNA leaders objecting his choice as the chief ministerial candidate. One of the
reasons is that he was an “outsider” as he lived in Colombo. The other unstated
reason could be his son is married to the daughter of Sri Lanka minister
Vasudeva Nanayakkara, a Sinhalese.
President
Rajapaksa is reported to have assured “fullest support” to Wigneswaran at the
swearing in ceremony. He is said to have added, “I expect you to reciprocate…I
am not the President of one community. I am President for all communities.” The
new Chief Minister assured him the NPC would work with the government. This
bonhomie probably irked those who did not like the swearing in ceremony to be
held in the presence of the President. Issues came to a head when Wigneswaran
insisted on selecting his team of ministers rather than accepting those
suggested by Alliance’s constituent parties.
Nine
newly elected NPC members belonging to the Eelam Peoples’ Revolutionary
Liberation Front (EPRLF), Peoples Liberation Organisation for Tamil Eelam
(PLOTE), Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO) and Tamil United Liberation
Front (TULF) in a show of defiance decided to be sworn in as members at
Mullivaikkal (where Prabhakaran died) rather than at Jaffna. However, good
sense seems to have prevailed when they gave up the idea thanks to the
mediation of Mannar Bishop Rayappu Joseph.
On the other hand, the NPC chief minister
speaking at the NPC’s inaugural session in Jaffna, said that the army must be confined
to barracks. He said the mandate the Tamils gave his party included working
towards withdrawing the army from the area."Our people will not work in a
way which makes it necessary for the army to remain in full strength in the
North," he said. Earlier he has reminded that his government would pursue
the TNA demand for the creation of a unified North-eastern province as well as
securing police and land powers for the NPC. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Defence
Secretary and brother of President Rajapaksa, was quick to condemn all the
three demands of the chief minister. He said for reasons of strategic security
15,000 troops would be permanently stationed in Jaffna and police powers would
never be given to provincial councils.
The
NPC chief minister and the TNA leaders appear to have different views on Sri
Lanka’s hosting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) as well
as the question of India’s participation in it. Initially Wigneswaran said it
would better for India to attend the CHOGM. On the other hand, even moderate
TNA leaders like national list parliamentarian MA Sumanthiran said that the
coalition was against the CHOGM in Sri Lanka. They wanted India to boycott the
CHOGM. In view of this, Wigneswaran has agreed to go by the Alliance consensus
on this subject and stay away from CHOGM. However, he has invited Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh to visit Jaffna.
Controversy over restoring LTTE cemeteries
Apart
from controversial issues like the implementation of the 13th
amendment, police and land powers for provincial councils and the unification
of Northern and Eastern provinces, issues from the LTTE past have started
appearing in the horizon. The TNA-run
Chavakachcheri Pradeshiya Sabha in a resolution has requested the NPC to
rebuild LTTE cemeteries that were destroyed by the Sri Lankan army after the
rout of the Tamil insurgent group in the Eelam War.
Suresh Premachandran, leader of the EPRLF, commenting
on the demand has said that though the desire to remember those who died for
the Tamil cause was genuine, this was not an appropriate time to take up this
initiative as it would be considered a provocation by the army.
As
expected the demand has raised the hackles of Sinhala right wing elements as
well as the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). Defence Secretary Gotabaya
Rajapaksa has threatened to arrest any former LTTE cadres who raise the issue.
Former LTTE leader and former arms procurer Kumaran Pathmanathan (KP) said the
move was an obvious attempt by hardliners to provoke the government and trigger
angry reaction from the military. He urged the government to be extremely
cautious in handling the issue as it could be a rallying point for both
northerners and easterners.
CHOGM Controversy
The Indian Minister for External Affairs Salman
Khurshid returned from his maiden visit to Colombo after vainly trying to
persuade the Sri Lanka government to implement its promise on 13A in the first
week of October 2013.
Even his plea to treat Indian fishermen humanely
appears to have had little effect Sri Lanka called India’s High Commissioner to
protest against continued large scale fishing by poachers from Tamil Nadu which
was depriving the livelihood of Sri Lankans. Sri Lanka had been rounding up and
prosecuting large number of fishermen from Tamil Nadu found poaching in Sri
Lankan waters. This has caused a lot of unrest among the people in Tamil Nadu.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms Jayalalithaa has been writing letters to PM
seeking severe action against Sri Lanka without taking any worthwhile measures
on her part to resolve the issue.
This climate of confrontation resulted in the Tamil
Nadu legislative assembly’s unanimous resolution on October 24 asking India to
boycott the CHOGM. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms Jayalalithaa who moved the
resolution wanted India to take steps “to suspend Sri Lanka from the
Commonwealth until Tamils are given rights on par with the Sinhalese and live
freely.” She drew attention to the failure of the Centre to respond to
Assembly’s 2011 resolution asking the Centre to prevail upon the UN to take
action against war criminals responsible for attacks on Tamils and to impose an
economic embargo on Sri Lanka until Tamils were fully resettled and
rehabilitated.
However, the MEA has confirmed that India would
participate in the CHOGM in the larger interest of India-Sri Lanka relations
and in order to continue to engage with Sri Lanka. Though a media report has
said the Congress core committee has decided that the PM should attend the
CHOGM, as of now no firm decision appears to have been taken on the issue. Petrol bomb attacks on two
post offices in Chennai by pro-Tamil Eelam fringe elements in protest against
Indian participation in the CHOGM highlights the danger of politicians turning
this issue into an emotional rather than adopting a pragmatic approach in the larger
interest of Tamils and India.
Written on October 31, 2013
Courtesy: South Asia Security Trends, October 2013, Vol 7 No.9
URL: www.security-risks.com
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