Political Column

Twenty-four-year-old Inpanathan Rushikanthan, a mason, his wife and their four-year-old daughter left the once Tiger guerrilla stronghold of Kokkadicholai soon after the December 2004 tsunami. He thought there were greener pastures in the Government-controlled Batticaloa district where recovery work was under way.

He joined his relatives in a newly built housing complex in Ariyampathi in the Kattankudi Police area. It was a fishing hamlet battered by the tsunami. An NGO had built the houses. Finding easy work had changed his life. He and his family were happy.

On Sunday March 30, after dinner they were to retire when there was a knock at the door. "Who are you all?" Rushikanthan asked. A voice responded, "We are from the Police. We want to check your house." The family raised cries but the neighbours were frightened to respond. Power supply in the vicinity had been knocked off from a nearby lamp-post. They refused to open the door.

One of them tried to enter through the roof of the house. "I saw a rifle in his hand," said Nadeswari (22), Rushikanthan's wife. They forced open the door. My daughter was hugging her father. "They forced them apart and dragged him away. I saw them thrusting him into a white van that sped away," she said. The following morning, Nadeswari said, she lodged a complaint at the Kattankudy Police Station. She also made representations to the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP) office in the area.

Nadeswari and her daughter are distraught and await the return of their beloved one, her husband and her daughter's father. "No one will do this except a powerful armed group," she says. However, she does not identify the group. She fears the reason for the abduction of her husband being that his brother was a Tiger guerrilla cadre who was killed in a confrontation.

Then there was Sinniah Eelamaran (29), a father of two from Eruvil near Kalawanchchikudi. In the morning of Monday March 31, he was walking to school, Tikkodi Tamil Maha Vidyalaya. He was shot dead by unknown gunmen. The next day, his wife complained to the local office of the Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF). Eelamaran was a supporter of this group. His wife said she was frightened to go to the Police. Party officials later complained to Kalawanchikudi Police that one of their supporter's had been gunned down.

These are just two from a catalogue of incidents that have triggered off fear and panic in the Batticaloa district, the bowel of the Eastern Province. The Government declared it had seized control of almost the entirety of the East following conduct of successful military operations against the LTTE that ended in July, last year. Last month, local government elections were held in this district and the TMVP, backed by the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration won it. This is in the absence of any formidable opposition political parties contesting the polls.

What was once a district partly dominated by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) but now in the hands of their erstwhile comrades, the TMVP. Paradoxical enough, the group has now gained both political and, in a sense, military control of the area. Anyone suspected of having connections or colluding with Tiger guerrillas faces strong reprisals. Like the Tiger guerrillas in the Wanni, they collect their own 'taxes', and are now the power to be reckoned with.

In other words, the TMVP in Batticaloa is what the LTTE is to the Wanni. The only difference - the Government is waging a war to deny the LTTE that power and influence. At the same time, the same Government is waging a different war to protect and allow the TMVP to continue to do what it is doing, both good and bad, some with vigour and some with impunity. In essence, one-armed group has replaced another though the metamorphosis has taken it through legal and democratic gateways.

And now, a Provincial Council election, set for May 10, will determine whether the new process in the East will take a turn for the worse or call a halt for good. The turn for the worse will be if the ruling United People's Freedom Alliance, its ally the TMVP and now renegade Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) top runger M.L.A.M. Hisbullah, win the mandate of voters in the East - the districts of Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Ampara.

It will be a different story if the alliance between the main opposition United National Party (UNP) and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) have their way. There is no doubt they will provide the UPFA-TMVP formidable opposition and that fact has caused considerable concern at the highest levels of the ruling leadership.

In a climate where everything that moves or speaks is a suspect, how the Opposition alliance came to be born is interesting. They believe both Opposition and UNP leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe as well as SLMC leader, Rauff Hakeem, had a string of meetings with India's High Commissioner Alok Prasad. It was only thereafter that Wickremesinghe had flown to New Delhi to attend a wedding reception of family friends after which he conferred with Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shanker Menon. Thus goes the theory that the new alliance had the 'blessings' of India.

In the light of a 'New Delhi hand behind the bush', the ruling leadership even considered whether the polls should be called off. Such a postponement would have been put on security grounds. However, saner counsel prevailed. And behind the scenes, a string of measures are under way to deny the opposition any opportunity of winning the Eastern Provincial polls. One of the prime movers behind the exercise is Basil Rajapaksa, senior Advisor to the President and the man who is personally spearheading development programmes in the East.

It was Basil Rajapaksa who was able to win over Hisbullah, a one-time Mangala Samaraweera protégé. Ranil Wickremasinghe was one of the first to learn of Hisbullah's cross-over to the Government. On his return from India on Sunday, Wickremesinghe had told Hakeem of the impending move by Hisbullah, who was being considered as a possible Chief Minister by the UNP-SLMC Alliance.

On Tuesday, the UNP and the SLMC leadership huddled for talks. The two sides were negotiating how to set about with a joint campaign. The UNP's Tamil representatives of the Eastern Province were demanding that the party have its own Chief Minister nominee and that if it is to be a Muslim, then it should go to Naushad Majeed of the UNP and no one else.

As the discussions were in progress, news came in that Hisbullah had gone across to the Government. This infuriated the SLMC leadership. They then adjourned and decided to meet at 10.30 that night. The SLMC immediately went into a crisis meeting and they were not ready to meet the UNP that night. It was only the next day that the SLMC emerged with their strategy - for Hakeem, Basheer Cegu Dawood and Hassan Ali - all Members of Parliament - to resign their seats in parliament and contest the Provincial Council elections. It was a strong response from the SLMC aimed at sending, in their way, a stinging message to the Government for having poached their members.

When the SLMC leadership met the UNP, they announced their decision and asked that the trio be permitted to lead the respective Districts, Hakeem (Trincomalee), Cegu Dawood (Batticaloa) and Ali (Ampara) in the Alliance. Wickremesinghe was to ask Hakeem if he was sure of the decision, and the risk involved. The UNP Tamils protested at the demand to make the Muslim Congress trio the District leaders, but Wickremesinghe was able to explain to them the wider interest in allowing this. He said that after-all, the SLMC leaders had sacrificed their parliamentary seats for this.

The UNP-SLMC Alliance then agreed that the two parties will campaign separately, the SLMC in the Muslim villages and the UNP in the Tamil villages. The UNP has also put forward some former MPs Sinnamaru, Sinna Thowfeek, Sunil Shantha Ranaweera etc., to Trincomalee, Galappati and Daya Gamage for Ampara, Arasaratnam Sashidharan to Batticaloa.

Fuelling speculation over the edge (some say it is more than an edge) the opposition alliance has is the belief that the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) would 'unofficially' back them. Officially, the TNA has declared that "it should not compromise on its fundamental political principles and be seen as being a participant in an electoral process, the objective of which is diametrically opposed to such fundamental principles and a reversal of what the Tamil people have stood for, during more than the past half a century."

In a three-page statement the TNA (which goes as Tamil Arasu Kadchchi) said "No other Government since independence has inflicted such immense harm on the Tamil people as this Government has done in the past two years. The Tamil-speaking people should not fall into the dangerous trap that is being laid to bring about their downfall in their areas of historical habitation. This is an election at which through the visible or invisible fire and muscle power of the TMVP and Government armed forces, President Rajapaksa hopes to implement his insidious political agenda."

On Thursday, nominations for the Provincial Council Elections for the East were trouble free in the districts of Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Ampara. In Batticaloa, 14 registered political parties handed over nominations. Four of them rejected were Muslim Liberation Front (MLF), Eelam People's United Front (EPUF), United National Alliance (UNA) and the Tamil United National Front (comprising TULF, PLOTE, EPRLF - Sitharthan Group, the LSSP and the Communist Party. Nineteen independent groups are also contesting.

In the Batticaloa Distrcit 14 political parties handed in nominations. One of them was a purported political wing of the LTTE calling itself Viduthalai Pulikal Makkal Munnani (Liberation Tigers People's Front or LTPF). The LTTE, however, denied it had entered the fray. The Sunday Times learnt that the group that is fronting as LTPF has the backing of an influential section of the Government.

One of the reasons for their move is to create the impression that the LTTE too had embraced the political process and was entering the democratic process through the EP polls. Sixteen independent groups are also contesting. In the Ampara district too, 14 political parties submitted nominations. However, three were rejected. Also contesting are 26 different independent groups.

Down in Kataragama, Opposition Leader Wickremesinghe was breaking coconuts, while in Colombo and elsewhere, his party organisers and followers were breaking pots and pans. The Opposition seems to feel that the Eastern Province elections will be the turning point to the Government's popularity in the country. Something like the Provincial Councils victory of the Southern Province in March 1994 was the turning point for the then almost invincible UNP Government.

UNP-SLMC alliance holds edge in east