“Prior to the promulgation of the 1972 Constitution, Sri Lanka met yet another conflict when Sinhala youth, led by Rohana Wijeweera of the Jathika Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), revolted against the government in early 1971. It was the first massive armed revolt in the country and the government was shaken. A state of emergency was declared and the army deployed. No Tamils or Muslims were involved in this insurrection. It was an exclusively Sinhalese revolt by the under-privileged youth rallied from the peasantry and the petit-bourgeois sections, the product of the frustration caused by the SWRD Bandaranaike’s – Sinhala--Only policy of 1956.”_______________________________
by Satheesan Kumaaran
(April 16, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Sri Lanka is enjoying a rather shaky status as a democracy in the world. Although, a universal definition on democracy is not available, one of the fundamental principles of democracy is competitive elections where there is freedom of the press, and civilian control of the military. Other important aspects include political pluralism, equality before the law, due process, civil liberties, human rights and elements of civil society outside the government. However, some events have put Sri Lanka’s democracy in doubt (eg: civilians being coerced at gunpoint to cast their votes for paramilitaries in the Batticaloa elections). Proponents of democracy question whether Sri Lanka is actually a democratic state or rather an authoritarian state?
According to the basic accepted definition, democracy is government by the people in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system. Events such as the attempted coup of 1962, abolition of minority rights in 1972, JVP insurgencies, Constitution of July 1978, and the elections of 1988 just to name a few have threatened what little democracy exists in Sri Lanka.
When Sirimavo Bandaranaike was Prime Minister in 1962, a military coup was attempted by about 30 senior army and police officers. If this had succeeded, it would have changed the course of Sri Lankan history. The chief organizers of the coup were mostly Christians brought up in the British tradition who were resentful towards the way things were going. The coup fizzled out and those involved were indicted. They were sentenced but, after a change of government, were acquitted on appeal to the Privy Council. The Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) blamed British and American imperialism because they opposed Bandaranaike government’s actions of taking over of the private business establishments, including the leading American-owned petroleum industry, under Sri Lankan state control without compensation. The failure of the coup at the time proved that Sri Lanka could successfully challenge any attempt to overthrow an elected government.
When Mrs. Bandaranaike came to power for the second time in 1970, her government abolished the right to Appeal to the Privy Council and thus abolished any recourse for vindicating minority rights on the island. The new Constitution in 1972, renamed Ceylon as Sri Lanka, and eliminated section 29(2) of the preceding Soulbury Constitution which provided a meager safeguard to minority rights. Buddhism was given the foremost position while other religions were given the private right of freedom. Of significance was that the judiciary, which was hitherto under the independent judicature, came under political control and with it went the separation of powers. Anuradhapura was declared a Sacred Buddhist site and all Hindu temples in the vicinity were demolished. The Sinhalese language was made the single official language of the courts and the administration. The constitution had the blessing of the Temple of the Tooth invoked before its promulgation, though this blessing did not have legal validity.
Prior to the promulgation of the 1972 Constitution, Sri Lanka met yet another conflict when Sinhala youth, led by Rohana Wijeweera of the Jathika Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), revolted against the government in early 1971. It was the first massive armed revolt in the country and the government was shaken. A state of emergency was declared and the army deployed. No Tamils or Muslims were involved in this insurrection. It was an exclusively Sinhalese revolt by the under-privileged youth rallied from the peasantry and the petit-bourgeois sections, the product of the frustration caused by the SWRD Bandaranaike’s – Sinhala--Only policy of 1956. The insurrection was ruthlessly crushed with a heavy hand and an estimated 10,000 Sinhala youth were brutally killed by the military, some of their bodies were tied together and found floating in rivers. The government banned the JVP in April 1971, so it went underground. The JVP, however, participated in local government elections in 1978 after reaching a political deal with the mainstream political parties. It participated in the District Development Council elections of 1981 and the presidential elections of 1982. However, JVP’s Wijeweera was not happy with the election results and decided to fight the government that had banned them. The insurgency lasted for two years, from 1987 to 1989, and ended with the killing of its leader and his deputy. The JVP then joined the mainstream again and managed to secure a considerable number of seats. It is now one of the leading coalition partners of President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government.
With Sri Lanka’s cunning politician, J.R. Jayawadena, adopting a new Constitution in July 1978, the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka was ushered in. Jayawardena became the first president with immense executive powers. The Tamil language was given the place of a national language, although without a clear definition of its usage and scope. He proscribed the LTTE as an illegal organization and led the parliament to enact the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act. A state of emergency was declared in Tamil areas and the military was given a mandate to kill Tamil youth. In 1979, 1981 and in 1983 some sections of the Sinhala polity unleashed mob violence against the Tamils, resulting in hundreds of deaths. Two hundred thousand Tamils are said to have fled to India and Northeastern Sri Lanka and 40,000 became refugees. Nearly 100 Hindu temples were destroyed with the active involvement of Sinhalese politicians. The police radio network was used to spread false rumors further escalating violence. The policy of keeping Tamils out of the police and army recruitment made it hostile towards Tamils. All these added fuel to the already burning minority issues. By this time, minorities began to realize that the Sri Lankan government would never protect them.
If you weed out the minority’s culture, language and religion, you will effectively wipe out the race. This was the concept behind Jayawadena’s efforts to wipe out the traditions of Tamils. He engineered and executed the burning of one of the best libraries of south Asia, destroying tens of thousands of books and thousands of years of old manuscripts stored there. Three of Jayawardena’s Cabinet Ministers were in Jaffna supervising the library burn. The Jaffna locals screamed as their sacred cultural place was reduced to ashes.
Throughout all this, the governments in Colombo always maintained friendly relations with the opponents of the LTTE. When the Indian and Sri Lankan governments handled Sri Lankan Tamil issues, their senior bureaucrats and intelligence corps advised them to collaborate with the Tamil or Muslim paramilitaries in order to defeat the LTTE. When India helped prepare Tamil militants to fight against the Sri Lankan government, India knew that these Tamil militants would fight against their Tamil brothers in Sri Lanka. For three years (1987 – 1990), the Indian army sent by the central government in New Delhi battled the LTTE. In return, the Indian government offered these militants political powers in the Northeast Provincial Council. This Council was established by the Indo-Lanka accord to end the national question of Tamils, despite the LTTE’s claims that these Tamil militants supported the Indian armed forces against the LTTE. In the council elections of 1988, locals were threatened with death if they failed to cast their votes for these militant groups. The Indian army actually escorted the civilians to the voting stations to cast their votes. Only the pro-government media outlets were allowed to cover the stories. Many people voted without knowing why they were voting, but all of them knew who to vote for because these militant groups and the IPKF instructed them whom to vote for.
Several elections were held in the Northeast, but paramilitaries like the EPDP had the upper hand in those elections, as well, the only exception being the elections held in April 2004. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) with the support of the LTTE managed to sweep all but a few seats in 2004. The Tamils were finally able to vote for their desired candidates based on their mandates after nearly two decades.
The most recent election for nine local councils, including Batticaloa urban council in Batticaloa district after 14 years, was held on March 10, 2008. Sri Lanka’s ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) contested jointly with the paramilitary, Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP or Karuna group), led by breakaway LTTE eastern commander, Karuna Amman, and Pillaiyan. The TMVP group secured 11 seats with 14,158 votes. The coalition of remaining paramilitary groups won 6 seats. The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) and the Eelavar Democratic Front (EDF) both secured one seat each. Voter turnout was 53 percent in Batticaloa city. The mainstream opposition parties, such as Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the United National Party (UNP), did not contest the local elections claiming that the election would not be fruitful because the government was collaborating with the paramilitary. Human rights organizations around the world accused these paramilitaries, including TMVP, of abducting, torturing, killing, and recruiting underage children.
The founder of the TMVP sits in a British jail for allegedly using a fake diplomatic passport provided by the Sri Lankan government to get into Britain in November 2007. With his jail sentence coming to an end this summer, Amnesty International and other rights organizations are exerting pressure upon the British government to punish Karuna for his rights abuses and war crimes. Interpol is busy collecting evidence to present to the courts regarding his crimes in Sri Lanka. Tamils around the world are eagerly waiting to see what punishment the British judicial system will dish out because they know that, if he is deported back to Sri Lanka, his ally, the present government led by Mahinda Rajapaksa, will free him and provide him VIP security.
The 2007 Country Reports of Human Rights Practices in Sri Lanka released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor of the U.S. State Department has angered the Sri Lankan government because the report slammed the government for rights abuses and charged the TMVP with recruiting children in contrast to the LTTE who has stopped recruiting children. The report further said that the TMVP should be held responsible for the mass murders, disappearances, tortures, etc. The report said: “Witnesses and potential victims identified the perpetrators of abductions as Tamil-speaking armed men using white vans without license plates. The government generally failed to investigate allegations of abductions by armed men in white vans on the grounds that white vans are too common for these incidents to be effectively investigated.” The report further said: “In the conflict-affected north and east, military intelligence and other security personnel, sometimes working with armed paramilitaries, carried out documented and undocumented detentions of civilians suspected of LTTE connections. The detentions were followed by severe interrogations, frequently including torture. When the interrogations failed to produce evidence, detainees were often released with a warning not to reveal information about their arrests and threatened with re-arrest or with death if they divulged information about their detention. Some were killed by masked gunmen on motorcycles immediately after leaving these military facilities on foot.” Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister, Rohitha Bogollagama, called on the US Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Robert O Blake, to register Sri Lanka’s serious concerns on the report. However, Blake told them that the U.S. government firmly stood behind the report.
While Sri Lankans and foreign diplomats in Colombo were engaged in a scuffle, Sri Lanka’s Election Commissioner, Dayananda Dissanayaka, has said that the government intends to hold the Eastern Provincial Council election in May 2008. In 1987, India and Sri Lanka agreed to unite the North and East as one province, and held elections under the banner of the “Northeastern Provincial Council”, but, for this election, the northern and eastern parts were separated. Tamil leadership claims that the north and east are the traditional homeland of Tamils and should not be separated at the risk of fragmenting the Tamil population. Dissanayaka further said that the provincial council election for the east will be called for March 27 and will be sealed on April 3. As recently demonstrated by the local council election in Batticaloa, the ruling government party will contest the Eastern Provincial Council election. The separation of the northeast will not help Mahinda’s government or solve the Tamil national question.
Rajapaksa stated recently that he would hold the election in the North after defeating the LTTE as he had done in the East. He said that the people in Killinochchi and Mullaitheevu would soon be able to enjoy democracy just like those in the East who had been recently liberated from the clutches of terrorism. He went on to say that the East no longer needs to be identified with the North and that it was not necessary to refer to the two provinces as the ‘North-East’. “The Eastern masses do not have to be under the Vanni terrorists any more. We will never ever permit the Vanni terrorists to dominate the people in the East,” he said. Speaking on the recently concluded local council polls in Batticaloa, he said, “The freedom enjoyed by the civil society here to exercise their franchise was amply demonstrated and that fact was of much importance more than of the results and the victor. We bestowed to them freedom and their democratic rights, replacing the gun culture which prevailed there.” Very irresponsibly divisive for a national leader whose goal is to bring unity to a state.
Tamil political observers in Colombo and Kilinochchi argue that Mahinda is cultivating arms culture throughout the country by encouraging paramilitaries and failing to address the grievances of Tamils. The observers further say that the people in LTTE-controlled areas live free from kidnappings, rapes, murders, etc. However, people in the Northeast, including those living in the LTTE-held areas, live in fear of aerial attacks and shelling. Rajapaksa, further added, “Some profess that a fair and free election could not be held in that region and mislead the global community. However by now it has been proved to the world beyond any doubt that this region has been liberated, and a successful election held sans any significant incidents of violence as is the norm in elections elsewhere in the country.” He accused the human rights organizations of being puppets of the LTTE.
TNA parliamentarian from Batticaloa, S. Jeyananthamurthy, told an Australian-based Tamil radio station that 13 TNA parliamentarians were stopped by armed forces at a Mathavachchi checkpoint. The armed forces refused to hear their plea that they were members of parliament and travelling with the permission of the Sri Lankan defense ministry. Instead, soldiers insisted that they were actually checking on the instruction of defense ministry. The MPs underwent heavy background and physical checks when they returned to Colombo from Kilinochchi on March 11 after attending the funeral of slain TNA parliamentarian, K. Sivanesan, who along with his driver, Periyannan Maheshwararajah, was killed following a claymore attack in the Vanni on March 6, 2008.
Jeyananthamurthy said that the Sri Lanka military’s action clearly showed that the government does not respect the Tamil MPs. He questioned, “How could the innocent Tamil civilians live freely when even the elected parliamentarians face such heavy security checking?” He further said that the Sri Lankan government’s actions clearly show that the government is indirectly recognizing the Tamils as foreigners and their areas as separate from the Sinhala homeland. He denounced the recent local polls in Batticaloa district, saying that the TMVP and the Sri Lankan armed forces worked together by threatening the locals to cast their votes. He claimed to have evidence that the armed groups grabbed the IDs of the locals and voted themselves without the presence of the civilians. Jeyananthamurthy asked, “Why does the Sri Lankan government still maintain over 100 mini camps in addition to other larger complexes in the East if the East is already liberated from the LTTE?” The armed forces, along with the paramilitaries, wander through the streets in the East. Jayananthamurthy’s statement is heartbreaking. What could happen to him for exposing all these details? Perhaps the same fate as K. Sivanesan, T. Maheswaran, Joseph Pararajasingham and Nadarajah Raviraj who were outspoken Tamil members of the Sri Lankan parliament?.
Clearly, the question of the dubious democracy in Sri Lanka is open for debate. Important aspects of democracy have not been met in Sri Lanka since the island-nation gained independence from Britain in 1948. The two major political parties, UNP and SLFP, which have since controlled the Sri Lankan destiny, have contributed to the fragmentation among the ethnic groups, and adopted laws denying the rights of minorities. Killing parliamentarians, and journalists like Sivaram, and kidnapping scholars like Eastern University Vice Chancellor, Prof. Sivasubramaniam Raveendranath, are incidents that prove that Sri Lanka is, in actuality, an authoritarian state not democracy.
(The author can be reached at e-mail: satheessan_kumaaran@yahoo.com)
- Sri Lanka Guardian
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