by T. Sabaratnam; Colombo, March 1, 2004
Weekly Review
Now, the battle is to win votes with a peace cry. President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe are competing with each other to show to the electorate that their government would be in a better position to usher in permanent peace in Sri Lanka.
In what is regarded by political analysts as a sudden about turn Chandrika Kumaratunga told her party, the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA)’s, election rally on Thursday at the sacred Buddhist city Anuradhapura that she was ready to open peace talks with the LTTE without any conditions if returned to power in the April 2 election.
“Please give us a mandate to continue the peace talks with the LTTE,” she told her supporters.
To soften the ground for such talks she heaped praise on the LTTE, saying the Tigers had acted with responsibility despite Ranil Wickremesinghe’s attempts to get them explode bombs.
She said, “The LTTE has shown discipline in maintaining the ceasefire. The Prime Minister’s party tried to persuade the LTTE to set off bombs, but they did not agree.”
Presidential adviser Lakshman Kadirgamar reiterated the President’s announcement of her readiness to hold talks with the Tigers in a special media conference on Friday. He said the President had the information that some responsible ministers close to the Prime Minister had asked the Tigers to explode bombs soon after the President took over the ministries of defence, interior and media and they had declined to do so. “We believe there is substance in that information,” he added.
Kadirgamar clarified that the UPFA had decided to invite only the LTTE to the negotiating table and to talk to the Tigers based on the LTTE’s proposals, the Interim Self-Governing Authority (ISGA).
But he maintained the UPFA position that they would not recognize the LTTE as the sole representatives of the Tamil people and would not accept the ISGA proposals in totality. He said other Tamil parties would be consulted and informed of the outcome of the talks. He also said some clauses of the ISGA proposals are bent towards declaring a separate state and those matters would be discussed during the talks.
Kadirgamar failed to indicate how the UPFA hoped to commence the peace talks if it came to power and how they hoped to resolve the conflicting positions between the SLFP, its main constituent, and the more vocal partner, the JVP.
He accused the Prime Minister of trying to create a fear psychosis in the minds of the voters by saying that, if the UPFA was elected to power, the country would return to war.
The Prime Minister told the United National Front (UNF) inaugural election rally at Kandy, another sacred Buddhist city, on Thursday that the choice before the people on April 2 is between war and peace: a vote for the UPFA would mean a vote for war and a vote for the UNF would mean a vote for peace.
He said the JVP wants changes in the ceasefire agreement and Norway’s facilitation, and had rejected the ISGA proposals, which meant a rejection of the peace process and a return to war. Ranil Wickremesinghe is repeating this as a slogan even after Kadirgamar rejected it as ‘simplistic.’
A private survey carried out by the Presidential Secretariat, consistent pressure from the international community and the pinching of the hard-line Sinhala extremist votes by the Buddhist monks who are contesting under the Jathika Hela Urumaya (National Heritage Party) banner were the main causes for Chandrika Kumaratunga’s about turn.
The survey has shown that the peace constituency is considerably larger than the hardliners and the fact that Ranil Wickremesinghe is campaigning on war or peace caused Chandrika Kumaratunga to change her election campaign strategy. The United States, Britain, the European Community, Japan and Norway have told the president and the prime minister that they should restart the peace process once the election is over. They strictly linked aid to progress in the peace process.
The Buddhist monk factor had also disturbed the President. She fears that the monks would draw away the Sinhala-Buddhist extremist section of the voters which the JVP hoped to harness. The campaign she launched using the state-controlled media and the protest the JVP organized failed to deter the Buddhist monks from contesting the election. They are launching their campaign on Tuesday with a procession from Kelaniya temple to Sri Dalada Maligawa in Kandy. There, after attending a pooja, they will take a pledge to establish a righteous state (Dharma Rajya). Then they will release their election manifesto.
A group of intellectuals are expected to join the procession of the Bhikkus and it has decided to call for the proclamation of Sri Lanka a Buddhist state. In a statement issued on Sunday the group has said Sri Lanka is a Buddhist country and not a multi- racial, multi-religious, multilingual state.
Jathika Sangha Sammelanaya spokesman Dhammaloka Thera said the Buddhist monks would win enough seats and hope to function as the kingmaker in the next parliament. “We want to prevent the kingmaker role passing to the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), a front organization of the LTTE,” he said.
TNA Election Manifesto
The TNA, which has already come into the focus of local and international attention, released its election manifesto in Jaffna on Monday. The manifesto is seeking the approval of the Tamil people for both an interim and a permanent solution to the Tamil problem. Its proposal for an Interim Self- Governing Authority is the interim solution. The permanent solution should be based on the recognition of the Tamil-speaking people’s homeland, the Tamils’ identity as a distinct nation, and their right to self-determination, the manifesto said.
The manifesto also reiterates the right of the Tamil people to exercise their option to establish a separate state if the Sri Lankan state continues to reject the legitimate aspirations of the Tamil people, continues to deny them an acceptable political solution and continues military occupation and state oppression.
The LTTE, which had nominated its supporters in the TNA lists of candidates, has commenced its campaign in support of the TNA. It is conducting its campaign in an orderly manner by holding pocket meetings and house-to-house campaigns. It has told the candidates to avoid unnecessary expenses and the voters that they must use their votes without fail to demonstrate the unity of the Tamil people. It is drilling into the minds of the voters that the LTTE means the Tamils and the Tamils mean the LTTE.
The LTTE’s strategy is to induce all Tamil voters to exercise their voting right. Maximizing the turnout of Tamil voters will increase the number of the TNA candidates entering parliament.
The total number of voters in the Batticoloa electoral district, which elects five members, is 303,928. Of them 224,911 are Tamils and 75,375 are Muslims. Of the Tamil voters 79,236 are living in the areas under LTTE control.
In the 5 December 2001 election 171,106 voters cast their votes. The TNA collected 86,284 votes and got three members. The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and the PA won one seat each. The PA polled 25,705 votes and the SLMC 26,725. Most of the voters in the LTTE-controlled area were prevented by the army from crossing into the government-controlled areas where the polling stations were located in that election.
The strategy this time is to increase the voter turnout in the government-controlled areas and to get the voters in the LTTE-controlled areas to vote. “We are trying to get at least 200,000 Tamils to vote and to increase the number of TNA MPs to four,” Joseph Pararajasingham, MP, who is heading the Batticoloa TNA nomination list, said.
Fourteen political parties and eight independent groups are contesting in the Batticoloa district, including the EPDP and PLOTE. The EPDP polled 4,153 votes and PLOTE 9,030 votes in the last election. This time they are expected to fare no better.
Overall, the TNA is expected to win 23 or 24 seats which many sources are anxious to prevent. They are anxious that at least Anandasangaree and Douglas Devananda win so that they could be made use of to deny the LTTE its claim to be the sole representative of the Tamil people.
So, many ruses will be resorted to to achieve this purpose. Attempts may be made to block voters from the LTTE-controlled areas from voting. Noises may be made to make a show that the LTTE had prevented other candidates from door-to-door canvassing. And the JVP will become the champion of democracy in the north and the east. Expect a lot of fun over the next four weeks.
Originally published March 2, 2004