POLITICS: Elections Leave Sri Lankan Tamils Cold

By Amantha Perera Reprint | | Print |

Amantha Perera

JAFFNA, Nov 8 2005 (IPS) - Fighting elections in Sri Lanka’s embattled northern Jaffna peninsula can resemble fighting a real war. Candidates move from bunker to bunker communicating constantly over wireless with soldiers in forward positions while helicopter gunships provide cover and gunboats patrol the coastline.

And when the two frontrunners for the Nov. 17 presidential polls, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse and Opposition leader Ranil Wickremasinghe decided to campaign back-to-back in this Tamil stronghold, last week, it bore all the characteristics of a military operation.

Wickremasinghe arrived in the Tamil stronghold Jaffna on Thursday and Rajapakse followed suit within 24 hours.

The main focus of the two whistle stop tours appeared to be to woo the 100,000 plus voters of the armed forces and police, rather than the Tamil minority for which Jaffna is the cultural and political capital.

Ethnic Tamils make up 14 percent of Sri Lanka’s 20 million-strong population and recent opinion poll suggest that their vote could be decisive in what is likely to be close contest.

”I came here to find out for myself the welfare of the troops,” Wickremasinghe said while touring the Palaly military base. He did not venture out of the base to interact with civilians.

Rajapakse, too, kept to the same schedule more or less, the only difference being a meeting with a group of 300 civilians, carefully selected by a Tamil political party supporting his candidature.

Both tours were given extensive airtime on local TV channels in the capital Colombo just days ahead of the first round of postal voting. Both candidates vowed to push for peace and recommence negotiations with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), or Tigers for short, stalled since April 2003.

The Tigers have been fighting for a separate Tamil state in northern Sri Lanka for the last two decades, leading a raging ethnic conflict that has claimed more than 65,000 lives.

Major confrontations have, however, stopped since a February 2002 ceasefire signed between Wickremasinghe and Tiger supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran but the truce has come under severe strain since the defection of a high-ranking Tiger military commander into government-held areas in April 2004.

Wickremasinghe has indicated that he was willing to accommodate the Tigers, if elected. ”I am ready to do anything other than harm the sovereignty of the country,” he said, adding that the Tigers had accepted the sovereignty of the Sri Lankan government within the truce agreement.

Rajapakse, who is campaigning on a much more nationalistic platform and has pledged to renegotiate the 2002 truce agreement, took a more hardline stance, ”I am prepared to make a commitment towards ending the war completely. But to achieve this, I am not prepared to sacrifice the country.”

Security concerns prevented both from campaigning in civilian areas. Government intelligence agencies had warned earlier that there was a threat to both candidates and on top of that another minor candidate at the polls had been prevented from holding a meeting in Jaffna where the Tamil Tigers enjoy substantial support.

”It is a question of the amount of security, but I would like to (campaign in Jaffna),” Wickremasinghe said. The Tigers, for their part, have so far officially appeared to resist backing any of the main candidates.

”The LTTE will not exert any pressure on the Tamils on this issue. However, we will be vigilant during the election period,” Tiger political head for Jaffna, C Ilamparathi, said soon after the visits concluded.

Nevertheless, several shadowy organisations have released statements in Jaffna asking voters to boycott the polls. The Tigers also officially released a statement denying any responsibility for a purported letter from the organisation asking the voters to cast their ballots.

The Tiger Peace Secretariat said that it was a hoax. Tiger high rankers have claimed that neither of the main candidates was fully committed to solving the ethnic conflict and that their main aim was to win the election.

Notwithstanding such comments, some observers in Colombo feel that that the Tigers are flexing their muscles just before the election so that they could have a stronger bargaining power with the next president.

The call for a boycott comes in the wake of an opinion poll that indicated the Tamil vote would be key factor. The Social Indicator, a poll conducted by the Colombo-based Centre for Policy Alternatives, said that Wickremasinghe gained a national advantage on key issues due to the overwhelming support he received from the minority vote base.

Forty five percent of the majority Sinhala community felt that Rajapakse was best suited to handle the peace process during the survey. However, Wickremasinghe increased his approval rating to 45.4 percent nationally, riding largely on the 82.4 percent rating he received from the Tamils.

”From an ethnic perspective, interestingly, the Sinhala community places higher confidence in Mahinda (Rajapakse) than Ranil (Wickremasinghe). Analysed further, on issues that Ranil leads nationally, Mahinda leads by above 10 percentage points within the Sinhala community. Voters from Tamil, Muslim and upcountry Tamil communities place a greater degree of trust in Ranil’s ability,” the survey said.

Election monitors have already sounded the alarm that an increase in violence in the Tamil dominated areas could prevent voters from casting their ballots. Several incidents were reported from Jaffna during the week the candidates campaigned, including an attack on a police patrol and a grenade attack near the office of a party supporting Rajapakse.

The situation is the same in the volatile east where renegade Tiger commander Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan, alias Karuna, and cadres loyal to him have been waging a bloody internecine battle against the Tigers since his defection.

Voters living within areas under the control of the Tigers have to travel to cluster booths located in no-man’s land and are most likely to stay away if violence flares up or the Tigers indicate support for the boycott. Around 400,000 voters are registered from Tiger-held areas in the north east.

Despite the ceasefire, civilians in Jaffna are apprehensive about the current climate. ”You always get that funny feeling that someone is watching you and following you. It is an irritating feeling,” G Arul said. He added that the recent increase in attacks have made the civilians nervous. ”People are reluctant to vote, especially after the notice in the newspapers asking people not to take part in the elections a few days ago.”

But after two decades of war, the people of Jaffna want the three- year lull in fighting to be permanent. ”Peace is what we need. If that is assured, we can go to our place and do whatever job we get and live with a clear mind. I don’t know whether we’ll vote,” said K. Anantheeswari, a war displaced person living in a run-down house in Jaffna with her husband and seven children said.

”Whether the people (Tamils) will vote or not is a different issue, but this election will definitely decide the future of the country, especially of the Tamil people,” Arul agreed.