(February 08, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) The raids on the opposition press and politicians immediately followed, as expected, the victory of Mahinda Rajapacshe’s in the recent presidential election. Arrests of army men accused of organising coups and later an assassination attempt on Mahinda, and the disappearance of few more journalists meant Sri Lanka becoming a police state is now all but complete. Unconcerned by all the nonsense about democracy and human rights, the trumpeters blew the right notes for few Dollars more as the old and the infirm danced with the teenagers around the lampposts in the Sinhala homelands, singing the praises of King Mahinda - the Tiger Slayer. All in all, the election was a capital affair for Mahinda’s clan and those in the election-business, and even for some citizens who received the Rs 1,000 notes printed from recycled newspapers. They can’t wait to have a go again when the parliamentary elections come around.
What does the result really mean for the people in the blood soaked island for the next decade?
For the majority community the election was a choice between a police and military state. For the minority communities, particularly the Tamils it is a question of survival. There is no doubt the strength of feeling in the Sinhala homelands that Mahinda should not be cheated out of his victory against their old ‘enemy’, the Tamils. Perhaps, there is also a conscious choice, preferring the corruption and repression of a police state than a leap into the dark with the general; known devil is always better than an unknown one. Therefore, we will spare the torture of an analysis about the South and focus more on the North and East, for the present.
For the minority communities the process underlines many unpalatable truths.
Most importantly it has put an end to the number game their politicians play, for a foreseeable future.
The Tamils took up arms in the late 70s, after exhausting all non-violent means to secure a reasonable solution to the national question. It also laid bare the inadequacy of the single tier parliamentary system dominated by a single ethnic group. While some thought of horse-trading with Sinhala parties for Tamils ‘rights’, the Federal Party had the novel idea of a ‘unity’ of all Tamil-speaking communities as a strategy, which was partly an acceptance of the failed attempts to play number game in the parliament effectively.
When the clan chiefs wanted to crown themselves as El Presidentés and discarded the ‘Premier’ title, to become the sole-representative of the entire population, there seemed an opportunity opened to make the Tamils’ votes count. Yet, the civil war raged on, and only after the LTTE established military parity and imposed itself as the ‘leaders’ of the Tamils such an opportunity could be tested. Due to its unique position to impose severe sanctions on Tamil communities, the LTTE was able to exploit the idea of delivering the Tamil votes en massse. Which it did, and determined the outcomes of two presidential elections, not by encouraging the Tamils to vote to a preferred candidate but by preventing them from voting altogether.
But how the TNA, until recently the appendix to the LTTE, was persuaded to think they could also succeed in this shady business?
The hard facts from the elections tell a different story than its different members tell each other (see table below). It should be now completely clear to all the leaders of the minorities, they cannot expect make use of their vote banks to determine the outcome of an election of the Sinhala polity. That is, just as the parliamentary system disenfranchised them, the presidential system has also now rendered them powerless, therefore, non-participants in the Sri Lankan electoral process for all practical purposes.
TNA’s talk of delivering half a million Tamil votes was a fantasy, and to continue with it and lay claim to any votes cast to Sarath Fonsehka would surpass even that.
If they had thought that the Tamils would actually listen to them, then they would have to explain the difference in the turnout between the North (28%) and East (58%). Does this mean the people in the East listen to the TNA more than in the North?
How could they have failed to bring their magic and enthusiasm to the North we wonder, which they miraculously managed in the East?
Moreover, while there existed this big difference in their turnout, the share of votes for Mahinda (24%) and Sarath (69%) were consistent in both provinces. How is this possible, could this be a paradox?If the ‘non-participants’ in an election can make such a fantastic claim, why can’t the great champion of “Tamil nationalism”, Mr. Sivajilingam of TELO, while it is also a component of the TNA?
How could anyone, having had no effective political role for the past twenty years as the underlings to the LTTE could think of ‘delivering’ the Tamils votes is beggar’s belief?
The truth is the people in the East paid little heed to the utterances of the TNA or the ramblings of Mr. Sivajilingam, as much as the attention paid to the presidential election itself by their cousins in the North.
Pillaiyan, the Chief Minister of East has been in ‘power’ for more than a year is an ardent supporter of Mahinda. Karuna, the deputy chairman of Mahinda’s party and its chief enforcer in the East had been working flat out with his usual threats of killings and thuggery. Yet, they mustered only a paltry 24% share of the Tamil votes in the East.
Then if the Easterners, presented as non-relatives and anti-Jaffna people during the provincial council elections, turned out in relatively larger numbers than their cousins in the North and voted for Sarath would you rush to interpret it as their show of loyalty for the TNA?
No, a sensible responsible person would not even interpret the results as a positive vote for Sarath but definite no to Madinda.
If s/he had ears to the ground and listened to the heartbeats of the East, then they would have heard their overwhelming feeling against politics of violence didn’t end with the ousting of the LTTE. It still persists, now as a secret will against the gangs and thugs employed by Mahinda, who are former LTTE cadres in different guises, and their political culture.
In this sense, unlike all the claims and counter claims, the vote in the East was a reference to the past than any expectations of Sarath or the TNA.
Herein lies also the explanation for the low turnout in the North. Unlike the East, the Northerners don’t have the provincial council or anyone to vote against. They couldn’t careless or concur with the TNA. They knew the election was a process far removed form their reach or thoughts, hence their apathy.
It is lesson in politics that should not be lost on the TNA alone, which teaches the simple fact that, “there is no meaning in embroiling with something that has no direct benefit for the welfare of your kind or common good of the whole”.
If the TNA had this knowledge, then they wouldn’t have got involved with the hangers on, pseudo-intellectuals, and strategists working for someone else, who would want to test their wit and whim at the expense of the ordinary folks, and entered into a pact with Sarath or any other Sinhala politician.
Tamils in the East and, recently North learned that in a hard way, coming of age if you will towards another stage in their political maturity, through a torturous journey with the LTTE and their brand of Tamil nationalism.
The fact, we do not even have to waste our breath to analyse the failure of groups that supported Mahinda to ‘deliver’ or the recriminations among them about loyalty, is a relief and a credit to the Tamils that validates our faith in people.
It was a demonstration that the Tamils are no fools to easily get mugged by every self-important politician or thug comes their way. Their voting pattern and turnout gives confidence in our belief in them and take those to be the confirmation of our earlier assertion, long before the elections, that the “Tamils had decided how they voted on their fateful days: two years ago in the East, and half a year or so ago in the North”.
This is why one could not avoid questioning the insincerity and the wisdom of the TNA members making such hollow sounds, a group dominated by Northerners?
Then there are the questions of principles about democracy and who are the partners for it.
How could TNA go into an agreement with Sarath or any other Sinhala party or politician for that matter?
TNA’s “understandings” with the general suggest they want an end to the detention camps and security zones. They also want an end to the long suffering of the Tamils at the hands of the Sri Lankan state, noble ideas one would agree.
But, based on what principles?
Aren’t these problems associated with the state rather than a government? Could a political party or worse still, a single Sinhala politician, a general who successfully eliminated thousands of Tamils in batches at that, sort these out because of an electoral pact with a Tamil group?
If anything, should they be the responsibilities of the ‘outsiders’, who gave the “go ahead” for the destruction of the LTTE, and the depletion of the Tamil communities?
How does the man claiming the manle of the Sinhala legend Dudda Gemmnu, leading an assortment of all sorts including broken revolutionaries and chauvinists, differ from Mahinda? Did he ever repudiated his views on ‘Sinhala ownership of the island and the Tamils place in it’ whereby he found it easy in the past to “obey orders” to murder the Tamils in their thousands?
Even if he were the only candidate with whom the ‘Tamils could do business’, what about the political system itself as defined by the ‘Southern consensus’? Could he have ever overcome it to deliver on his ‘promises’? If he was sincere in honouring those ‘promises’, shouldn’t he have put them in front of his people to get that illusive ‘Southern consensus’ rather than putting out a steam of statements denying that he wasn’t selling out to the Tamil agenda? Shouldn’t we have a judgement about these before jumping into deals with any Sinhala politician or party?
It is the misfortune of the Sinhala and Tamil speaking people the only time a Sinhala leader won over the ‘southern consensus’ for peace, the Tamils had LTTE as self-imposed leaders. They never understood their political responsibility or an opportunity, and worse the fragility of their being. Meanwhile there was also the Sinhala political culture wanted to perpetuate the ‘war’ for its own political and financial benefits. That window of opportunity shut as quickly as it appeared, and Mrs. Chandrika Kumarathnga lost her political impetus only to suffer the grenade attack on herself and the murder of her close Tamil ally Neelan Thiruchelvam.
It is ironic, after suffering years of suppressed political life under the LTTE, controlled and conditioned by violence and secrecy, saddled with the knowledge of electoral pacts with Sinhala parties, the TNA could think the Tamils would believe in any such things?
Bad political judgement and arrogance due to position and status are expected in any political system. But, the secrecy amounting to conspiracy in the dealing about a people, in that the implicit assumption of their stupidity therefore, the argument of untrustworthiness, is one of the most corrosive element in the politics of a feudal-democracy, propagated by every self-important person, bringing untold human sufferings to all the masses.
Beyond these considerations there was also another important principle at stake here.
Can the minority votes used as a deciding factor in any democracy?
We believe it is wrong in principle, despite our unflinching objections and rejection of the Sri Lankan state. Majoritism in all its manifestations is a curse to any meaningful democracy and, minoritism is its partner in that same crime.
It is true the Sinhala majority does not understand the gravity of their state’s oppression of the minorities, and the national question is being treated as a distant provincial or ‘Sinhala ownership’ problem.
But, could the TNA through electoral pact with Sarath or Mr. Sivajilingam with some other agreement with Mahinda, point this out to the Sinhala masses in their ‘national’ election, especially after failure of years of trying by the LTTE?
Can you polarise the Sinhala polity using Tamil issues or Tamil nationalism? Had there been a window of opportunity to ally the national question with the issues of the majority? Few hundred votes for Bahu would give that answer away to anyone.
Even if one rejects our objection to minoritism, and consider such alliance as a strategy, then the Tamil groups have to look at the results once more. It was a blunder as strategy then, as a consequence the Sinhala political leaders conspired to reduce their power through various measures: disenfranchisation and deportation of the Plantation Tamils, colonisation schemes and constant redrawing of boundaries, and ultimately wars and destruction. The fault lines of this failed strategy was there for all to see if they had been following the trend and the external conditions. To see the TNA pick it up and run with it, what could any thinking person make out?
It was a display of total political ineptitude for a group that acted as the LTTE’s parliamentary front, an assortment of individuals and a few ‘parties’, to assume the role of dealmakers on behalf of the Tamils. Without having a period of recouping and consultation with their people, to put firm roots in the ground after long protracted war under the shadow of the LTTE, after watching their masters killed off while the world watched with them, and did nothing, how could anyone rush into such important decisions is another question, which only members of the TNA should answer.
Entering the phase of representing a people is a serious matter, and the TNA must learn quickly that is exposed to all elements. It no longer has someone to blame or place to hide now the LTTE has gone. They are even had to face up to with the advices and criticisms from insignificant Tamils like us, but more significantly to the challenges that faces the Tamil people.
For all its faults and deficiencies and lack of political skill of its members the TNA still remains the only semblance of continuity that can serve the Tamils for the moment. If they can learn from their mistakes and understand the new level of political maturity of the Tamils, then they can even be the conduits for substantial change to the Tamil polity.
Therefore, the TNA and all other Tamil political groups and parties sincerely interested in the welfare of the Tamils must accept that,
1. Only the empowerment of our people will lead to the rejection of the violence and criminality in our politics.
2. Only by working for the establishment of the civil structures on the ground to engage within the communities on programs and projects that empower the community, family and the individual such empowerment would be possible.
3. It is the collective approach to the economic development of the poor, whether Sinhala or Tamil, where the concept of empowerment must reside.
4. The lands belong to the people who have been traditionally living there, irrespective of their race, religion or cast. And people have connections because of their needs in a region beyond the obstacle placed by racial or communal historical and hysterical sentiments. Thus, commonality of the economic conditions must also figure highly in the process of political decision-making.
5. There must be an effective coordination between the Tamil and Islamic parties and groups, particularly in the North and East.
6. Only though consultations and consensus building at the grass-root level confidence in the process of democracy and the politicians can be restored.
7. Only by a means of a forum for collective consensus building Tamils can be represented at any level of discussion and deals. Therefore, achieving a Minimum of Understanding (MoU) among all groups, about the immediate needs and the principles that govern the future would be a priority.
8. Only the change in the Sri Lankan state structure will bring any political dividend to the regions of the island, including the North and East, a project beyond ability of the Tamils or their groups. Disenfranchisation of the minorities from the Sri Lankan political process is now complete. And defeating a Sinhala government is not responsibility of the minorities; the Congress party, Federal party, the LTTE and now the TNA had tried and failed, a lesson not to be forgotten.
9. Only by taking hold of the failures as well as the successes of the past 30 years, can strengthen the case for the change in the structure of the Sri Lankan state. That includes the principles and their interpretations of the MOU between the LTTE and the state in 2002, irrespective of the retrospective view of the LTTE by TNA or the Separate state lobby outside, and those confuse their anti-LTTE sentiments with anti-Tamil positions.
10. Only a conditional but cordial and constructive relationship of India with all the peoples in the island can bring peace and an eventual solution to the crisis in the island.
With these principles and programs in mind the Tamil parties must search their roots and concentrate on the provincial council elections of the future, and consider the parliamentary elections as a welcome distraction to test their strength and values.
The TNA taking the lead, than worrying about maintaining its number as a single group, should work towards increasing number of its constituent parties, and the Minimum of Understanding among all the Tamil and Islamic parties and groups.
Finally, as we suggested the death-certificates on Pirabaharan and Pottu Amman have been dealt by the state as soon as the Mahinda’s result was settled, and now in the hands of the Indian government. This may have brought an end to a huge chapter in the Tamils history within Sri Lanka and India. However, it still hangs over the Tamil communities like a cloud, especially among those living overseas.
Therefore the TNA, with their close association with the LTTE and the respect they had for them, must take a step forward and bring about a closure to the recent tragedies in Vanni and the past 30 years, so that the Tamils can mourn the losses and honour their dead and move on with their lives, with heads erect high.
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