R Hariharan
Introduction
The
Tamil National Alliance (TNA)’s thumping victory in Sri Lanka’s Northern
Provincial Council (NPC) election held on September 21, 2013 has to be viewed the
post-Eelam War political setting. It was conducted after electoral politics was
set free from the stranglehold of the Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in nearly
three decades. The election is a watershed in Sri Lanka Tamil history as it
marks the return of Tamil nationalism to the political platform after a
tortuous journey to extremism to insurgency. This makes the election a truly
democratic exercise. The huge 68 percent voter turnout in the election showed
peoples’ enthusiastic acceptance of the shift of leadership from the insurgents
to political parties.
The TNA won 30 seats including 2 bonus seats in the
38-member council, while the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA)
secured 7 seats and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) won 1 seat. The TNA
secured a record 78.5 percent of the votes polled. Such a huge mandate is an uncommon occurrence in the
dual vote system of elections in Sri Lanka.[i] The people of
Northern Province with their strong support to the TNA have sent a message to President
Mahinda Rajapaksa that they expect the TNA to keep Tamil nationalism alive
despite the failure of Tamil insurgency.[ii]
President Rajapaksa called the last war against
the LTTE a “Humanitarian War,” waged to free Tamils from oppression under the
Tamil Tigers. When the episodic war against the LTTE ended in May 2009 with the
elimination of its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and the entire leadership, many
rejoiced at the prospect of ushering in permanent peace. They expected President
Rajapaksa to kick start the political process to meet Tamil aspirations and put
an end to the prospect of renewed Tamil insurgency once and for all.
However, these expectations have been belied.
President Rajapaksa has used the military victory to strengthen his hold and emerge
as the all-powerful arbiter of Sri Lanka’s future. As UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights Mrs Navaneetham Pillay cautioned during her August 2013 visit, Sri Lanka was “increasingly heading in an
authoritarian direction.”[iii] Militarism is gaining upper hand in general and in Northern Province in
particular. The only redeeming feature is Tamil insurgency has ceased to be an
existential threat to Sri Lanka.
President Rajapaksa has consigned ‘Devolution’ and
‘Federalism’ - key words in the political narrative of Sri Lanka for three
decades – to the realms of political history. He has wished away the term ‘minority.’
President Rajapaksa’s new political order has had its impact upon all major
political parties, sans the Tamil ones. Even the United National Party (UNP),
presided over by Ranil Wickremesinghe who saw federalism as fundamental to the
peace process in 2002, has jettisoned it at the altar of political expediency. President
Rajapaksa continues to be averse to fully implement the 13th
amendment to the Constitution to provide limited autonomy to Tamil minority,
despite promises to do so.
During the last four years of peace, the state
has failed to create an environment free of fear and suspicion among Tamils.
Intrusive presence of army in Tamil areas has cramped normal lives of the
people. Tamils suspicion and distrust in the government’s intentions were further
aggravated when the President continued to dither on conducting the NPC
election. Probably, he did not want the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), which
had a suspect record of being LTTE proxy during the last two decades, in any
position of power. However, as pressure from India and international community
mounted, the President had to conduct the NPC election, despite objections from
the influential Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa.[iv]
Changing
environment of Tamil nationalism
Tamil
nationalism now has to reorient itself to the changes in local and
international environments during the last three decades. The leadership has
passed from one generation to another. A whole generation of youth has been
sacrificed in the years of active insurgency and four episodes of Eelam wars. Thousands
of families have been uprooted and scattered. There had been a huge exodus of
Tamil population from Sri Lanka to seek safer pastures abroad. The societal
churning up has broken the caste-oriented conservative mould of Jaffna Tamil
society. In Tamil areas, political parties have to build their grass root
structures and leadership if they want to be relevant to the people.
On the
positive side, during the two decades Sinhala population had not carried out any
retaliatory attacks on innocent Tamil population in their midst despite LTTE’s
provocative suicide attacks in many parts of Sri Lanka. This indicates the Sinhala
population has greater awareness of Tamil aspirations.
The
elimination of the LTTE and Prabhakaran has left Tamils in dismay and
disillusioned with insurgency as a favoured option to achieve their aims.
However, as the demystification of Prabhakaran has not taken place so far, he has
now found a place in the Tamil folklore. Rajapaksa’s government has kept the
threat of revival of LTTE insurgency alive to justify its reluctance to devolve
more powers to Tamils. This has suited the pro-LTTE elements abroad to rally
reluctant supporters to keep the ember of separatism glowing. Prabhakaran had
glorified militancy and denigrated politics by humiliating politicians, most of
who survived at his mercy. The TNA leadership in power in NPC now has the
onerous task of upgrading their public image by being short on rhetoric and
long on results.
Internationally, pursuit of insurgency and terrorism
has been made more difficult ever since the U.S. launched the global war on
terrorism in the wake of 9/11 Al Qaeda attacks. Stringent international
protocols are now in place to prevent money laundering and trafficking in people
and arms across the globe. This would make the revival of Tamil insurgency an
uphill task as the ban on LTTE in 32 countries has not been lifted.
India-Sri Lanka relations that had soured after Indian
intervention from 1987 to 90 are stronger than ever before. They have become
more broad-based with closer political security, trade and cultural relations. However,
India’s inability to provide the arms Sri Lanka wanted during the war due to
domestic pressures. New Delhi’s actions have been stilted due to Tamil Nadu’s
loud affirmation of political support to separatist elements which has deepened
the suspicion about India’s intentions in Sri Lanka. The TNA in power will have
to cope with the intrusive impact of Tamil Nadu’s amorphous Sri Lanka politics
while dealing with Colombo as well as New Delhi.
Since the end of the Eelam War, international NGOs,
international media and Tamil Diaspora have raised serious allegations of allegations of war crimes and
custodial killing of Tamils by Sri Lankan army. Sri Lanka has been drawing a
lot of flak from international community due to its reluctance to impartially
investigate allegations. Two U.S. sponsored resolutions passed at the UN Human
Rights Council in March 2012 and 2013 have sought Sri Lanka’s accountability on
this count. The backlash to this has led to rise of Sinhala nationalism and
Buddhist fundamentalism among sections of population. This is likely to make
the ethnic reconciliation process more difficult
Widespread sympathy for Sri
Lankan Tamils plight in Tamil Nadu has had its impact in India’s coalition
politics. Despite New Delhi’s generous
support to Sri Lanka in its rehabilitation efforts for internally
displaced people, India’s vote for the UNHRC resolutions has caused further
deepened the fissures in its relationship with Sri Lanka. The strong anti-Rajapaksa stance of Tamil Nadu
political leaders has not helped the matters. India’s weakening influence has been exploited by
China to enlarge its relations with Sri Lanka. This does not augur well for
Tamils as India’s influence could diminish in the future.
TNA’s image problem
The TNA has to build bridges with Sri Lanka
government to fulfil some of its electoral promises to the people. However, TNA’s
past association with the LTTE is probably the biggest obstacle to this process.
The LTTE seized the leadership of Tamil population through targeted
assassination of senior political leaders of Tamil United Liberation Front
(TULF) which had collectively represented Tamil political parties supporting
the call for independent Tamil Eelam. The Tamil Tigers also eliminated key
leaders of other Tamil militant groups. This resulted in total disarray of the Tamil
political scene.
The surviving leaders of TULF along with the All
Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC), the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO)
and the Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) formed the TNA in
2001 in a bid to keep the Tamil political segment alive. Later, the ACTC and
TULF quit the alliance; however, the TNA retained its identity with the Ilankai
Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK), formed by a powerful splinter group of the TULF as
the major partner.
In the process of its survival struggle, the TNA had made large compromises in their beliefs and
political role while dealing with the contending forces of the state and the
Prabhakaran-led Tamil insurgency which kept them in leash. The TNA accepted the
LTTE’s leadership as the national leadership of the Tamil and “the
Liberation Tigers as the sole and authentic representatives of the Tamil
people” as stated in TNA manifesto for the parliamentary election in 2004. In
the same manifesto it appealed to the people to work under the leadership of
the LTTE and devote their “full cooperation for the ideals of the Liberation
Tigers' struggle with honesty and steadfastness.”[v]
Even while contesting successive elections with the
blessings of Prabhakaran, TNA had struggled hard to retain its space in
national political mainstream. For many years now, TNA had been the sole voice
to talk about Tamil aspirations in the parliament. So it is not surprising that
despite its insufficient and at times contradictory articulation, the TNA had continued
to retain a strong following among Sri Lanka Tamils as shown in the NPC
elections.
However, this is process has not taken place in
national politics where TNA’s conduct is still viewed with suspicion. The
conduct and speeches of some of the pro-separatist leaders in the TNA have not
helped the process. TNA will have to carefully rework its political stance to
activate this process and that is not going to be an easy task.
Tamil Diaspora had been a source of funds for
Sri Lanka Tamil parties. The Diaspora had fled their homeland in the wake of
1983 anti-Tamil pogrom in Colombo and subsequently when Tamil insurgency
flourished in Sri Lanka they became its source of strength. With their help
LTTE built a strong network in the western world notably in Canada, UK, U.S.,
European Union and Australia. These international tentacles helped not only in
fund raising but also promote the Tamil cause and even lobby with the organs of
the UN. With the exit of Prabhakaran from the scene, the LTTE’s international
organisation had been in disarray particularly after LTTE’s arms procurer and
former international representative Kumaran Pathmanathan (alias KP) was
apprehended by Sri Lankan authorities after the war.
The TNA caught in a political dead end after
the elimination of LTTE and insurgency politics, now has to reckon with
President Rajapaksa who has emerged the unchallenged leader of Sri Lanka. TNA is
now trying to ensure that the taint of Tamil Diaspora efforts to revive Tamil separatism
does not stick to it. Moderate Tamil Diaspora elements have gained control of
the Global Tamil Forum (GTF), an internationally networked Tamil Diaspora
organisation. The GTF had closely worked to help TNA’s pursuit of the Tamil
cause democratically within united Sri Lanka. The TNA manifesto for the NPC
election reflects this.[vi]
Sri Lanka Tamil leaders have traditionally maintained
strong links with India ever since the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom in Colombo drove
a large number of Tamils to seek refuge in Sri Lanka. However, The TULF failed
to fully accept Indo Sri Lanka Agreement 1987 presumably because India appeared
to give greater importance to Tamil militant groups. Moreover, India’s well
intentioned but ill conceived and partially executed military intervention from
1987 to 90 left the Tamils stranded in a political half-way house after the creation
of provincial councils. On top of it, the LTTE’s assassination of former Indian
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi pushed the Sri Lanka Tamil cause to political
sidelines in India.
However, after the exit of LTTE, India had been
regularly bringing up the devolution issue with Rajapaksa government and
continues to insist on implementing 13th Amendment in full. TNA will need India’s political leverage to
bring pressure on Sri Lanka, without appearing to be a tool of India. And this
is going to be a challenging task.
TNA’s leadership problem
The TNA that contested the NPC election was
composed of five parties: the EPRLF, Peoples Liberation Organisation of Tamil
Eelam (PLOTE), TELO, TULF, and the ITAK. The TNA dominated by the ITAK,
contested the NPC election under the ITAK symbol of hut. The component parties
have different political ideologies and agenda. Their perceptions have been
conditioned by their exposure to Tamil militancy and politics, notably on the
acceptance of LTTE’s leadership. Many of them come from parties which were
targeted by the LTTE in the past. Their record of participation in
parliamentary politics also varies widely. As a result leaders of these parties
within the fold of TNA have their own ambitions and aspirations. Their
differences have been coming to the surface whenever TNA had to confront
critical issues. These differences came up during the selection of candidates
for the NPC election as well as in the allocation leadership of five ministerial berths in the
NPC.
However, the TNA leadership under P Sampanthan managed
to weather these differences and put up a united front during the election. This
was achieved by naming an eminent apolitical personality - retired Sri
Lanka Supreme Court judge CV Wigneswaran - as TNA’s chief ministerial
candidate. So far the new chief minister and the TNA leaders have successfully managed
to maintain unity without dissipating their energies in a leadership struggle. However,
whether this ‘unity in diversity’ can be maintained when the TNA confronts
contentious issues which defy solution is a moot point.
Implementing the agenda
The TNA’s election manifesto has tried to keep the
historical continuity of the Tamil demands in the lengthy preamble.[vii] It is emphatic “sovereignty
lies with the People and not with the State. It is not the government in
Colombo that holds the right to govern the Tamil People, but the People
themselves…. The sovereignty of the people is the principle that the authority
of the government is created and sustained by the consent of its people, who
are the source of all political power.” In keeping with this, it rejects the 13th
Amendment as flawed as it makes “the nominated Governor who is appointed by the
President is supreme when compared to the democratically elected Chief
Minister.”
More important is TNA’s call for an independent
international investigation into the allegations of violations of human rights
and humanitarian laws against both the government and the LTTE during the last
stages of war. This would be welcome to Sri Lanka politicians who have been
wary of TNA’s Eelam pedigree and fear revival of the separatist call. It is a bold step in the Tamil society which
is yet to dispassionately analyse the role of Prabhakaran and the LTTE in the
Tamil struggle.
TNA manifesto has identified ten “matters of immediate
concern to the Tamil people” many of which are “within the competence of the
provincial council.” The issues include demilitarization of troops from the
north and east, removal of high security zones, release of persons detained
without charges, comprehensive programme for generation of employment
opportunities, speedy resettlement of displaced people in their original
locations and uplift of war widows. TNA has articulated these issues have
already been articulated in parliament as well as to the international
community.
However, to achieve these long and
short term objectives,
President Rajapaksa has to turn the tide positively and resume the political
process. As a first step implementation
of the 13th Amendment in full is necessary for the NPC to exercise
some powers. It can also create conducive climate for the political process to
commence. This is what India had been emphasizing in its interactions with Sri
Lanka. But as it has not been done so
far, already the NPC appears to be in collision course as it has started
exercising its disputed powers.
Northern Province Chief
Minister C. V. Wigneswaran’s budget presented on December 10, 2013 proposed to
establish Transport and Housing departments. However, Governor Chandrasiri has
held it as unconstitutional as the NPC “can only set up Authorities."
Similarly, the TNA has objected to the appointment of DIG of police for
Northern Province without consulting the Chief Minister. Speaking in parliament
TNA member M.A. Sumanthiran said “A DIG has to be appointed with the
concurrence of the Chief Minister. Similarly even the provincial chief
secretary has to be appointed with the same concurrence.” Similarly, the NPC Chief
Minister’s request for the removal of the chief secretary has not been answered
for the two months now.[viii]
Conclusion
The TNA’s sweeping victory in NPC election is only a
baby step in the much delayed political process to resolve the long-standing
ethnic confrontation in the island nation. However, to make progress TNA will
have to maintain unity among its component parties and shed its pro-separatist
image of the past. Whether it can do so remains to be seen particularly when it
confronts contentious issues while dealing with the government. TNA can make
meaningful progress only if President Rajapaksa cooperates with it and
implements 13th Amendment in full as a first step.
Present political environment indicates this may not
come through in the near future. India’s rule in prodding Sri Lanka into
positive action will be constricted due to internal political preoccupations of
New Delhi and coalition compulsions of Tamil Nadu politics. This could become
more pronounced when India nears the general election 2014. Given these
limitations, Sri Lanka is probably heading to a period of uneasy political
relationship between the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA)
government of Rajapaksa and the TNA. It is going to be big leadership challenge
for TNA to achieve success.
Written on December 15, 2013
Col R Hariharan (Retd) is a Chennai-based defence analyst.
Courtesy: Scholar Warrior, Spring 2014, Centre for Land Warfare Studies
www.claws.in
NOTES
[i] Sri Lanka follows a proportional representation (PR)
system (under the Hamilton Method) for voting. It was introduced recognizing
the need to give proper representation to ethnic minorities. In this system the
voter has the option to choose the party as well as the candidate within the
party. -Peoples
Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFREL), a Sri Lankan NGO. http://www.paffrel.com
[ii] For an interesting
analysis of the election see “The TNA tsunami: Re-balancing the equation” by Dr
Dayan Jayatilleka, September 22, 2013, www.dbsjeyaraj.com
[iii]
Navi Pillay press conference-video, August 31, 2013 http://www.dailymirror.lk/video/34702-navi-pillay-press-conference-full-video.htm
l
[iv] Even Gotabaya Rajapaksa, President’s brother and
influential defence secretary, objected to holding the NPC election. See
‘Gotabaya opposes holding of NPC elections,’ The Hindu, May 25, 2013. www.thehindu.com
[vi] For an analysis of the Tamil
Diaspora efforts for the revival of LTTE separatism see “Leadership impact on
India-Sri Lanka strategic security dynamics” by the author in CLAWS Scholar
Warrior, Spring 2013 issue.
[viii] ‘TNA disputes appointment of DIG to
North’, December 13, 2013 www.dailymirror.lk
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