Northern LG elections: An eye-opener

"The solution may be the 13th Amendment, 13A+, 13A -, or ‘home-grown’. Whatever it may be, the need of the hour is to see that some package is on the ground here and now. It may not be the perfect answer but it will be positive evidence of the sincerity of the will to seek a solution."
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By Somapala Gunadheera
Courtesy: The Island

(August 12,Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The results of the Northern local government elections appear to be an eye-opener. It was the general impression before the elections that the TNA was defunct with the end of the war. They were supposed to be the proxies of the LTTE to which they owed their power and survival. The supposition was apparently true. But how does one account for the resurgence of the TNA at the election?

To my mind the supposition is only a half-truth. They may have been the creature of the monster that was the LTTE. But the monster itself was a creature of a deeply seated sense of frustration of the Tamils. That frustration arose from the insensitive and short-sighted policies of the post-independence Sinhala leadership. It is that deep sense of frustration that is sustaining the TNA even after their mentor is no more.

The writing on the wall

Thus the first lesson to be learnt from the election is that the proclaimed annihilation of the LTTE has not achieved the main objective of the government, the building of a united Sri Lanka. The sacrifices made by the armed forces and the commitment and efficiency of their leaders have set the stage for the government to embark on the massive task of nation building. What the election results indicate is that the task, if any, has not been felt by the Tamils despite massive state propaganda. The government would be wise to take note of this stark fact without hiding its head in the sands of sycophancy.

I have many Tamil friends, perhaps more friends among the Tamils than among the Sinhalese, that being the result of my several assignments in the North and the East. In their absolute trust in me, most of my Tamil friends have candidly confided in me their sense of despair, frustration and disillusionment at the way the government is handling the task of unification, after the end of the war. They believe that there is nothing more than lip-service and make-believe, an effort to hoodwink the interested parties here and abroad. They are tired of procrastination and prevarication. According to them the government is taking a communally partisan stance scared of the rabble-rousers.

I have recorded these impressions not as a researched criticism of the government but as an effort to throw some light on the current mood of the Tamils. I believe that it is this mood that is reflected through the elections, particularly in Jaffna where the turnover has been less than 20%. Those who voted were presumably organized by Minister Devananda but why did he fail to persuade a vast majority to cast their votes? In fact the Minister himself has expressed his dissatisfaction with the turnover.

To my mind the Jaffna man, the shrewd pragmatist and cynic that he is, has given an indication to the government in his deafening silence. That silence is a resounding signal to the way he would vote at the forthcoming Presidential Election. If nothing positive is done in the meantime, he is bound to vote for whoever is opposed to the nominee of the government, not because he loves him more but because he loves the government less. In the present scenario it does not need a crystal gazer to predict that the dice would be heavily laden in favour of the government at that election, with or without the Tamils.

But the breakdown of the votes will have a castigating impact on the person who would be finally elected. If Jaffna transforms its current silence to a negative vote en masse at that election, which appears to be on the cards as it is, the person elected would be automatically exposed as an ethnic supremo as opposed to a national leader, a title that would sit uneasily on him in the democratic world. The message of the election is that an honest and effective campaign has to be started here and now if the government is keen to avoid such denunciation.

Resettlement of IDPs

The first step in that campaign would be to settle the IDPs with transparency and expedition. Admittedly it is not an easy task, particularly in the context of the security concerns that are looming large. Already thousands are reported to have got away stealthily from the camps with the assistance of unscrupulous security personnel. Presumably most of those who have got away are the very security risks that the authorities are trying to restrain. In the meantime there is already talk of suicide bombers in Colombo. The security concerns of the government have to be appreciated and accommodated in the circumstances.

That said, the authorities should not tackle the IDP problem blindly as an amorphous and nebulous proposition. It should be managed with proper planning and execution. I have already drawn attention to the absence of a forward plan to settle the IDPs within a time frame. The much touted ‘180 days’ is a wish, not a plan. It goes without saying that the announcement of a definitive plan would immediately allay much of the dismay and distrust in the camps. Accommodating and feeding a concentration of over 250,000 IDPs is not child’s play despite what the armchair critics say. But the bigger challenge is not to make the inmates more comfortable but to send them home at the earliest.

The delay in clearing the innocents from the camps appears to stem from the way they are cleared for release. The approach appears to be to fish out the culprits from among the innocents. That means that the innocents have to wait until all the culprits are segregated. The more scientific way of clearance would appear to be to separate the innocents first. That way they would be ready to go home as soon as their villages are de-mined and those left over would be the wanted.

The faltering political package

It does not call for much imagination to realize that the Tamil mood at the last election largely reflects their disappointment at the way the political package is being handled. The APRC, fixing and re-fixing dates for the handing over of their report, has become a colossal joke that reflects poorly on the integrity and independence of the learned professionals in charge of the Penelope’s web.

The solution may be the 13th Amendment, 13A+, 13A -, or ‘home-grown’. Whatever it may be, the need of the hour is to see that some package is on the ground here and now. It may not be the perfect answer but it will be positive evidence of the sincerity of the will to seek a solution. The nucleus offered may be cut and polished, amended and improved by consensus as we go along. The very announcement of the package is sure to take the wind off the distrust and disappointment that the Northern elections reveal. Dilly dallying and prevarication could be the root cause that would reinfect the communal ulcer.

There was a recent announcement that the solution would be announced after the next Presidential Election. The President has come to power by promising to find a solution to the communal conflict. He has accomplished a good part of that assignment by putting an end to the war. This is the psychological moment for him to utilize the huge fund of popularity created by that achievement to also put an end to the causes that led to the war. He cannot afford to waver like Arjuna in the battlefields of Kurukshetra now, unable to gather the courage to shoot. It is unlikely that Krishna would appear again to tell him, "Strive after action. Never mind the result".

In any case the promise to find a solution after the next election is in clear breach of the promise made at the last election. Although the President’s advisers may not have the courage to point that out, it is well to remember that the performance is before a near hundred percent literate electorate that is supposed to be one of the most intelligent in the region. A loss of faith on their part may not show immediate results but it is bound to tarnish the image of the President in the long run.

The nation stands now at a point of history similar to where it stood at the advent of independence. The slate is wiped clean and we have been given another chance to charter the course of national unification. If we fail to do so forthwith, the death and destruction we suffered for thirty years due to the failures of our predecessors are sure to visit on our successors.

-Sri Lanka Guardian