POLITICS-SRI LANKA: Citizens For End to Poll Violence

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, May 2 2000 (IPS) - Basnayake Chandrawathie will never forget that January day a year ago in a northern Sri Lankan village, something she had been too embarrassed to talk about till now.

However, putting aside inhibitions, the 52-year-old woman political worker narrated her traumatic experience before a weekend gathering here of Sri Lankan politicians, academics, former senior government officials and rights activists.

“That was the day they almost snatched my dignity away,” she recalled, describing in graphic detail how she was stripped of her clothes by armed political rivals during a provincial poll campaign in the north central region.

A senior village level political worker of Sri Lanka’s main opposition United National Party (UNP), Chandrawathie was the only woman in the group of 10 party campaigners that was stopped by supporters of a rival politician who were carrying guns and sticks.

“They ordered us to stop campaigning and to leave the area. We refused. After a few blows, they ordered the men to strip at gunpoint,” she said. They beat her up and removed her outergarments, but she sat on the ground and successfully foiled their bid to strip her naked.

The January 1999 provincial polls, won by President Chandrika Kumaratunge’s People’s Alliance (PA), was slammed by independent poll monitors and civic groups as one of the worst in the country because of large-scale ballot fixing and physical violence, allegedly by PA supporters.

Worried by worsening poll violence since then, citizens, political leaders and rights groups have come together to find ways of making Sri Lankan democracy cleaner.

The weekend National Convention Against Political Violence followed international appeals to Sri Lanka to ensure free and fair elections. The European Union has written to both the PA and the UNP, expressing concern over poll irregularities.

The EU’s concern, like the Convention, was inspired by the forthcoming parliament elections due later this year. The EU said it would closely monitor the poll and also offered to help the National Election Commission with foreign monitors.

The speakers at the Colombo gathering said the election violence was as worrying as the unending, bloody 17-year-old ethnic conflict waged by Sri Lankan Tiger rebels demanding an independent homeland.

The use of muscle power during polls is not new to Sri Lanka, but the once rare incidents have become increasingly common and more violent in recent years. Political observers have blamed the Tamil Tiger ethnic conflict for this.

According to lawywer Javid Yusuf, a former member of the state set up Human Rights Commission, the Tamil insurgency has encouraged the use of firearms by political cadres.

“Too many arms in the hands of the people is the cause of this malady,” he said, adding that the prevalence of the “gun culture” was keeping well-meaning people away from public life.

Even last December’s presidential election which returned Kumaratunga to office, has been criticised by two top poll monitors. In a joint report released recently, the watchdogs noted that the election was “seriously flawed”.

The election was marred by violations of election laws and widespread violence, the report said. The monitors — the People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections and the Movement for Free and Fair Elections — used more than 5,000 volunteers to monitor the exercise.

Godfrey Gunatillake, chairman of one of the two and a senior civil rights activist, told the meeting that the two main political parties must accept responsibility for the violence.

He, however, said it was worrying that both were accusing each other of having started the violence. “This approach only means that both parties would continue using various forms of force and violence when they come to power and justify it on the grounds that the other had done worse,” he added.

The meeting approved of efforts by some politicians to ensure clean campaigns.

It passed a resolution to launch a nationwide campaign against political violence and initiate a non-partisan dialogue between people, community leaders and politicians on election violence.

Participants also resolved to initiate a public campaign to exclude candidates who have a proven record of violence, a public non- partisan agitation for the reform of political parties, and a code of conduct for politicians.

A provincial council poll in April 1999 and the December 1999 presidential campaign in the southern towns of Kamburupitiya and Moratuwa, were cited at the meeting as examples of how political rivals can make sure violence is minimised.

Karu Jayasuriya, a top UNP provincial leader, admitted that his party was also to blame.

“I am not absolving my party from its share of responsibility for the state of affairs in the past. There was an element of violence during our periods of governance, but violence at recent polls have exceeded anything we have seen in earlier times,” he said.

Jayasuriya advised using see-through plastic ballot boxes in place of the wooden ones used at present to check ballot fraud. He pointed out that western nations were prepared to fund the supply of such boxes.