By IPS Correspondents
COLOMBO, Mar 31 2004 (IPS)

Tamil voters in the north and eastern parts of Sri Lanka, dominated by the Tamil Tiger rebels, have been receiving flyers highlighting the ”dangers” ahead if Tiger-backed candidates sweep the Apr. 2 parliamentary polls.

The flyers are headlined ‘Campaign for Freedom of the Tamils’, but are unsigned. They urge voters not to support candidates who have remained silent about human rights violations, child recruitment, taxation without representation and political murders. According to some recipients, the material appears to have been posted from the capital Colombo.

Meantime, on Tuesday morning a Tamil candidate was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in the eastern town of Batticaloa, the third election-related murder in the area in March. Many link it to a recent split in the Tamil Tiger rebel group.

The distribution of the flyers as well as the killing highlights how sensitive the polls are, especially in the Tamil-dominated areas in the South Asian island nation.

This is the first time in their two-decade old violent campaign for a homeland for minority Tamils in a majority Sinhalese nation that the Tigers are openly taking part in elections – this has been made possible by the space created by the ceasefire in place since February 2002.

But not all are pleased at how its ‘participation’ has taken place, especially with reports of violence, fears by Tamil voters of going to the polls and some candidates’ receiving threats to pull out of the campaign.

Indeed, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), as the Tigers are formally known, are trying to guarantee that the candidates it officially sanctioned gain maximum representation at the general election. ”Interference” in choosing candidates, some critics have said.

Already, the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence, a group overseeing the polling, has said it is ”extremely concerned” by political violence in the Tamil areas.

The Tigers do have a registered political party, called the Popular Front of the Liberation Tigers. But this time, it decided to back candidates of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), an umbrella group of Tamil parties.

Unlike their more covert influence in earlier elections, the Tigers’ role in this election has been much more conspicuous.

Soon after President Chandrika Kumaratunga dissolved parliament in February and called snap elections, LTTE political wing leader S P Tamilselvan cut short a multi-nation European tour and returned to Sri Lanka to discuss the nomination list with TNA representatives. ”The LTTE is determined to back the political parties that have aligned themselves on a policy professing to admit the entitlement of the LTTE to the leadership of the Tamil Nation and to be the sole and authentic representatives of the Tamil people,” said an editorial in the February edition of the ‘Liberation Tigers’, the official publication of the Tigers.

”The Alliance of the Tamils (TNA) is contesting under the election symbol ‘house’ in all five electoral districts in the north east, their homeland. All Tamils are requested to go to their polling booths on the polling day and exercise their franchise marking a cross in the cage against the symbol ‘house”,” the editorial said.

But concerns are that Tamils may not be able to vote as freely because of intimidation by the Tigers.

''We are extremely disturbed by reports that Tamil National Alliance supported by the LTTE, has made it impossible for other Tamil parties and groups to carry on with a campaign,” the group said in a statement.

V Anandasangaree, president of the Tamil United Liberation Front, a main component of the TNA who is running on an independent list, has been limited to his compound in Jaffna. He alleges that Tiger supporters have made it impossible for him to campaign.

”The police and the LTTE are the two actors who have the capacity to ensure the safety and security of all candidates and their supporters in the north and east,” the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence added. The split in the Tigers’ ranks adds another dimension to the situation. Rajan Sathiyamoorthy, the TNA candidate killed Tuesday, is a close friend of Karuna Amman, the Tigers’ eastern commander who broke away from the rebel leadership. Karuna’s action accused the LTTE in the Wanni, a forested area in the north, of carrying out the killing.

After the Tigers’ split, people like Joseph Parajasingham, a TNA candidate, say they have come under pressure to switch sides to Karuna’s group. ”There were attempts to force me to accept these policy changes. I categorically told them I cannot accept those,” he told Canadian Tamil Radio.

How the vote goes on Apr. 5 – officials are trying to make it possible for people to cast their votes despite security concerns – is of key importance to Sri Lanka because voters in the north and east can play a key role in shaping the next government and who among the two rival political blocs will rule.

Though only 225,000 eligible voters out of 1.8 million in the north-east live in Tiger-held areas, according to Election Secretariat statistics, they can have a serious impact on the final majority and who between the rival groups of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and Kumaratunga wield power.

In the three districts of Mullaitivu, Vavuniya and Mannar that make up the Vanni electoral district of the 225,000 eligible voters, 85,000 voters live in Tiger-held areas. Sri Lanka has some 13 million eligible voters.

With the Tigers’ help, the TNA stands to win 22 seats and considerable bargaining power in a parliament of 225 members. Polls indicate that the election is expected to return a hung parliament and the government that follows is likely to seek support from smaller parties like the TNA.

”The LTTE will appear politically strong. Like Hezbollah, the LTTE will project itself as a political entity,” Rohan Gunaratna of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore told IPS, commenting on the possible aftermath of the election.

As polling day nears, focus is also moving to the right to vote of those in the north and east.

K Ganesh, the government’s chief administrator in Vavuyniya, announced this week that around 100 buses would be provided for voters in Tiger-held areas to travel to polling booths located in areas controlled by the Sri Lankan Army close to the line of control.

”Voters will not undergo regular checking at the Army checkpoint and voters from remote areas will be given the option to stay overnight,” Ganesh said.

The Tigers and the TNA have been lobbying heavily to get easy passage for voters from Tiger- held areas. In the last election in 2001, the army prevented sections of voters from crossing over to cast their ballots.

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