The more things change, the more they stay the same goes the old adage. How true those words ring in Trincomalee these days. It is almost as if the district has entered into a time warp in the past decade. A forgotten Siberia where life goes on for most of its people with hardly any progress to speak of.
Trinco in 1988 was a powder keg waiting to explode. By 1990 the much anticipated explosion occurred. The general consensus here is that it s only a matter of time before it happens all over again. “We are sitting on a volcano,” says Rev. Zoysa, head of a Catholic NGO in town.
Such was the case when Periyapodi Sooriyamoorthy, chairman of the Urban Council tried to open a new market in town recently. He had planned to hold a religious ceremony at the new market on September 14 when the police requested him to postpone the ceremony because they had received information of a picketing and fasting campaign close to the new complex. Sooriyamoorthy went ahead with the planned religious ceremony on the 13th night. The following day, 50 to 60 mostly Sinhalese vendors from the existing market banded together and arrived at the new market. They closed down the old market and came there, says Sooriyamoorthy. The U.C. owns the old market. How can they close down the place without informing us?
Sooriyamoorthy alleges that the police brought the demonstrators to the new market. An allegation that the police deny.
The political vacuum in Trinco is most certainly contributing to the continuation of ethnic disharmony in the area, and the sense that nobody is interested in the plight of its residents. Gamini Fonseka, the governor of the North East Province has only visited Trinco twice in the past 10 months. One of those visits was to open the governor’s official residence which was built out of provincial council funds to the tune of almost a million rupees.
Talking of political vacuums, the Tamil political parties seem to remain a nonentity in these parts, unable to garner popular support, or in some places, even respect. At one time they were known as thugs with guns. Now they seem to be making a concerted effort to change that image. Still, as a senior member of one of these parties admitted people just use us when they need us, but they don t support us. Not yet anyway.
EPDP, PLOTE, and TELO are all here, albeit as a token presence. The EPDP seems to be the most involved with the town folk. But not all its involvement is geared toward pushing the government bureaucracy.
But there is co-operation too, albeit limited, between these parties and the military in Trinco.
The Government Agent in Trinco, S.D. Chandradasa, is a tired man. He sits in a small air conditioned office, his shoulders drooping and sheer exhaustion written all over his face. His department is severely understaffed, and funds are hard to come by. Sources say that 23 positions are currently unmanned. They are presently functioning without an accountant, a bookkeeper and a project director for rehabilitation and reconstruction work in the district. This is not duty, it is social service, one official says. Each one is doing the job of several employees at a time.
One noticeable change in the district these days is with respect to refugees. For one, the numbers have reduced dramatically in the past decade. Where there were 47 camps and 22,029 families in 1990 there are now 18 official camps housing 1309 families. However, the plight of the refugees who remain is largely the same. Rations don’t come regularly for any of them, roofs are leaking in some camps and the supply of water is irregular at others.
Even if nothing else has changed much, it is universally agreed here that one thing has improved: the behaviour of the security forces. The notorious white vans sans number plates that used to take people away and never bring them back are no more. Rapes and murders at the hands of the forces are considerably less acknowledges a western aid worker. A decade ago, when I arrived in Muttur across the bay from Trinco town almost 150 women lined up to tell me horror stories of how they had been raped or their husbands and sons abducted by soldiers. This time around, most of the complaints are about harassment at checkpoints.
Despite an obvious shortage in manpower as a result of the ongoing operation in the Wanni and upcoming elections in Jaffna the security forces are attempting to maintain a high level of vigilance in town. The surrounding area is less guarded.
The army has been forced to close down a few camps around Trinco in the past year, and places which housed brigades are held by battalions now. All this means that the military is barely able to hold the roads and towns around Trinco, and even then only during the day. LTTE cadre move freely at night almost everywhere except in town itself.
The opposition is considering options in how best to question the government’s recent award of a multi-million rupee railway locomotive tender to a French firm over-ruling the recommendation of senior officials.
As government this week publicly accused the officials of negligence, the opposition is accusing the President and the four member Cabinet Sub Committee comprising Ratnasiri Wickramanayake, Lakshman Jayakody, Lakshman Kadirgamar and Kingsley Wickremaratne of negligence.
The government defended its decision to award the locomotive tender to GEC Alsthom of France. An official government communique earlier this week added fuel to the raging controversy by publicly accusing government appointed officials of negligence.
Taking note of various media reports and questions raised in Parliament during the Budget debate regarding a government decision on the purchase of 10 new locomotives for Sri Lankan Railways, the communique said that the Cabinet of ministers wishes to state that these media reports have been based on incorrect and false information.
The communique further states the government has decided to inform the public of the facts of this matter in pursuance of its policy of transparency and keeping the public informed, even though it says, the Cabinet has every authority not to do so.
The communique has strongly criticized certain recommendations made by the Cabinet Appointed Tender Board (CATB) and the Technical Evaluation Committee (TEC) stating that they are absurd and unusual. The CATB was chaired by B.C. Perera, Secretary to the Finance Ministry, while TEC was chaired by S.D.M. Mahindaratne, Chief Mechanical Engineer, Sri Lanka Railways.
The government maintains that the general rule in tender procedure is that the CATB should not deviate from the major specifications unless there were no tenders which did not conform to the major specifications.
A senior government official who wished to remain anonymous told The Sunday Times that the wheel base specification of 10ft 6in which the government said was crucial, is not a major specification. The fact that both General Motors of Canada and Samsung of Korea did not meet this specification he said, is not a critical deviation.
In fact the government in November this year accepted four new locomotives from India with a wheel base specification of 12ft. 6in as against the 10ft 6in specification required in the present locomotive tender.
These four locomotives from India, were accepted under a bilateral aid program which did not need to meet tender specifications.
The requirement is the ability to negotiate the minimum radius of curvature of 100 metres. The General Motor locomotive already in service in Sri Lanka railways for the last 40 years is able to meet this specification by the minimum radius of 50 metres, he said, proving beyond doubt that the train engine will meet safety requirements.
The Ruston 12 RK 215 engine which is to be purchased by the government has never been used in any part of the world at all in a locomotive application. This has been confirmed by C.B. Foulkes, Sales Director GEC Alsthom in Colombo in writing and handbook of World Railways published by Jane’s Data Division which catalogues locomotives used by each and every railway in the world.
This now conforms that there is direct violation of clauses in the tender specifications. It is interesting to note that TEC, CATB and the Cabinet Sub Committee have either deliberately overlooked these matters or not been allowed to bring these shortfalls to light.
Both TEC and the CATB seem to have deviated from standard tender procedure in calling for two locomotive types of 1200 BHP and 1800 BHP. A member of TEC said this was done in order to accommodate engines for long and short haul. A 1800 BHP would be used for upcountry while a 1200 BHP for low country. He said when such a requirement is made it is easier to decide on what would be most advantageous.
The CATB also chose to ignore a letter from Donald Rosa, Engineering Consultant of Daimler Benz Company, who on September 17 this year wrote that the French Ruston 12 RK 215 engine recommended as being the most conforming to tender specifications has not been in service as a locomotive power unit, but rather been mainly used to power ships.
The government communique says it is absurd that the TEC should even suggest that an assurance should be obtained from General Motors that the excess wheel base will have no adverse effect on the rail track after the tenderer had admitted that the increased wheel base will cause rail wear.
What General Motors states in their submission to TEC is that the bogie’s longer wheel base would slightly benefit rail stress and bridge loadings. However when dealing with the issue where the locomotive is required to apply breaks whilst negotiating curves of 43.8 metres there would only be slightly increased wheel wear and rail gauge face wear in curves.
The communiqué further states that having written a final TEC report, TEC writes another two, completely in violation of tender procedures. A member of TEC said there was only one TEC report. However, after further technical submission by the bidders to clarify new technological developments supplementaries were produced. This was done, he said, to lend assurance of their product in terms of workability and suitability for Sri Lankan Railways.
The government has also criticized the CATB for writing two reports which is unusual to say the least, it asserts, adding that the recommendations of the CATB are irregular.
The first report, a senior government official states, was changed due to the President calling the CATB and TEC to Temple Trees on October 10, 1997 and castigating them, clearly indicating her displeasure for the first recommendation.
This led to the CATB trying to present a more acceptable report. The second report was criticized in Cabinet by the President even before it was circulated to the Cabinet of Ministers, he said.
The government asserts that when the irregularities were brought to the notice of President Kumaratunga, she examined the relevant documents, and also ascertained the veracity of the allegations of irregularities in the recommendations of the CATB reports and presented the facts to the Cabinet.
Neither the CATB nor TEC was called to clarify these irregularities, nor was General Motors or Samsung called to present their case. The government communiqué does not make it clear as to who brought such irregularities to the notice of the President. It is also not clear who ascertained the veracity of these allegations.
The GEC Alsthom offer does not conform to three tender specifications. The first, clause 1.4.1. where it is required the tenderers should furnish documentary evidence to establish the long usage and acceptability of the above components in rail traction.
Second, Clause 4.1.1. whereby the design of the locomotives and the components used shall be of well tried out designs used in Railway services in tropical conditions for reliability and maintenance.
Third, Clause 4.2.9. the engine shall be one that facilitates maintenance and should achieve at least 24,000 operating hours or equivalent in kilometres before major overhaul. With regard to this clause if the engine has never been used in locomotives the above clause by default, cannot be satisfied, a railway engineer said.
A member of CATB meanwhile states that if the Cabinet of Ministers were of the view that both CATB and TEC had acted irregularly it could have called for an explanation or taken disciplinary action instead of publicly accusing its own officials of negligence.
The Opposition maintains that the Cabinet should have called for fresh bids rather than take political decisions on technical matters.
The EPDP is the only Tamil party that did not run away from the people of the north and is confident of winning the local polls, party leader Douglas Devananda said.
In a telephone interview from Jaffna soon after nominations closed, he said, “Can you hear the noise. It’s the voice of the people. They are seeking relief and peace.
Mr. Devananda lashed out at the TULF saying it would be totally defeated while he dismissed his rebel MPs, the Ramalingam brothers as being only of some nuisance value.
Excerpts:
Q: TULF Vice President V. Ananadasangari has said in an interview that the rejecton of the TULF list for the Jaffna MC was a blessing in disguise. How do you see it?
A: Whose blessing is he asking for and what blessing is he bragging about? The real problem is that the people of Jaffna have little faith in the TULF because it ran away from after making promises such as a separate state.
The TULF sees the rejection of the list as a blessing probably because it is better than being totally rejected by the people at the polls. Indeed the people did not expect the TULF to come at all. That was probably why the TULF tried everything possible to postpone the elections.
We were first on the scene and whether the situation was bad or good we stayed with the people of Jaffna to help them.
Q: How is the security situation?
A: How can the government give security to over thousand candidates. There are 234 seats and 400 polling booths. The best way to ensure security is for each party to look after its own candidates.
Q: Is the LTTE trying to intimidate the people?
A: Of course. It is best on disrupting the elections and is trying to intimidate voters and even candidates.
Q: What about the Ramalingam brothers whom you expelled from the party? They are contesting as independents.
A: I am not bothered at all about them. They are scraping the barrel for candidates.
We are confident because the EPDP has been working full time for the people of the north. We have not come now, only to participate in the local elections as most other Parties have done.
Sarojini Yogeswaran, widow of assassinated Vettivelu Yogeswaran who was elected by Jaffna town by a massive majority on July 13th, 1989, would have been the first woman mayor of the Jaffna Municipality contesting the present local elections as a candidate from the TULF.
The rejection of the TULF nomination list put an end to Sarojini’s hopes.
It has been talked about that the TULF perhaps contrived to be rejected since the TULF had asked for a postponement of the local government elections.
Sarojini, a London graduate in Ethics History and Tamil while being loyal to her party, did admit after much prodding whether she thought the TULF did not back her, saying ‘yes I think so’.
“But I must say the TULF has a sound base in Jaffna contrary to what rival political parties may say. They could have been a force but for the lack of security.”
The TULF from what we could gather acted like a temperamental prima dona, not having armed security of its own and at the same time refusing forcefully any government security.
“Many candidates feared for their lives and so withdrew including the eight women candidates. Had the TULF contested mindful of security I am confident that the TULF would have swept the polls.
“My party candidates did not have protection and so they were frightened.
“I have lived in Jaffna for 40 years, and I am a familiar figure in Jaffna, my husband’s voters and my pupils (I have been a teacher) would have looked after me.
“People are supporting the TULF but not openly because they are afraid since the TULF cannot give them armed security.”
Sarojini looked at the garlanded photograph of her dead husband and said my contesting the elections was to be a tryst with destiny for his sake. It is what he would expect of me.
I have no children and so I could devotedly work to implement my husband’s policies.
Sarojini smiled as she recalled her first encounter with LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran. “He visited our home in Point Pedro wearing bell bottom and looking spruced up and smart.
The second time it was dark and so I did not see him clearly as he spoke to my husband. His wife is very pretty. I knew when she was a student.”
Continue to the News/Comment page 3 * Don’t go to Galle Face * We are left out, say Jaffna Muslims * Car licence turns turtle * Servicemen hit in politico’s land rumpus in Panadura * JVP still awaits President’s reply * Order unreasonable, say Kamal’s lawyers
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