President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his government have taken a significant step forward in their project of finding a political solution to Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict by going in for Provincial Council elections in the Eastern Province in May. This will be the first democratic exercise of its kind in nearly two decades.

The ground was prepared by the peaceful conduct of local body elections in March in Batticaloa district. In briefings to diplomats and journalists, For eign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama characterised these local body elections as a first step, proceeding from the proposals of the All Party Representative Committee (APRC), in “a continuing process for greater devolution of power, with the objective of achieving a final and durable political settlement.” The devolution exercise was within the framework of fully implementing, for the benefit of “the areas it was most intended to serve,” the 13th Amendment that was enacted in 1987 following the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement. Predictably, this move has both incensed and unnerved the militarily beleaguered Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the parties of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) that dance to its Pol Potist tune.

Fighting for survival in the one-and-a-half northern districts under its control against a relentless onslaught by the Sri Lankan armed forces, the LTTE seems paranoid over the fact that the elections to the nine Batticaloa district local bodies were free from untoward incidents and irregularities; that the breakaway Karuna group, the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (TMVP), now led by Pillian, won eight of these local bodies; and that the government, having thoroughly exposed the LTTE’s pretence to be the sole representative of the Tamils of the North-East, has unveiled a credible idea of the shape of things to come in the region of conflict.

What is also clear is that the LTTE is training its propaganda guns at India once again. First, it issued an unusually sharp statement against official Indian policy for allegedly encouraging “the military approach of the Sinhala state” and for its “anti-Tamil” moves, in particular the recent hosting of a visit by Army chief Lt. Gen. G.S.C. Fonseka, whose itinerary included a trip to Jammu & Kashmir.

Secondly, the Tigers have tasked some key TNA Members of Parliament to lobby pro-LTTE political leaders in Tamil Nadu to make a noise against the conduct of Provincial Council elections in the eastern province. Ironically, this stand is based on the argument that such an exercise in the East, as distinct from the North-East, would violate the provisions of the 1987 India-Sri Lanka Agreement. Nobody of political consequence in Sri Lanka other than the LTTE regards the ‘merger’ of the North and East as a live issue for the conceivable future.

The 2004 Karuna revolt, and the military support given to the breakaway group by successive Sri Lankan governments, put paid to the political claim of an indivisible Tamil homeland comprising the Eastern and Northern provinces. In October 2006, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka dealt a constitutional blow when it ruled the temporary merger of the two provinces, which came as part of the Indo-Lanka Agreement, to be null and void. Although the judgment was on technical grounds, it is instructive to remember that the main contention of the petitioners was that the fundamental rights of citizens in the Eastern province stood violated by the absence of an elected Provincial Council.

Through this successful first step, the government has proved a point: V. Prabakaran’s Tigers have indeed been tamed in the East. The TMVP’s triumph may have come in a one-horse race, following the decision of the TNA as well as the United National Party and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna not to contest. For the Provincial Council election, which will cover the three districts of Batticaloa, Trincomallee, and Amparai, the government’s hand has been strengthened by the sound decision of all the mainstream political parties, including the UNP and JVP, to contest. India has endorsed the APRC recommendations, including elections to the Eastern Provincial Council, as a “welcome first step” and the LTTE’s strategem of getting the TNA to lobby pro-LTTE fringe political groups in Tamil Nadu to pressure New Delhi to prevail on Colombo to halt the May Provincial Council contest is unlikely to cut any ice.

 The third step envisaged by the Sri Lankan government is the establishment of an interim set-up in the North, as recommended by the APRC. In practical terms, this will mean the presidential appointment of a Governor for the North, to be assisted subsequently by an advisory council. The ground realities in the North and East are quite different. The LTTE, although militarily weakened and demoralised, must still be reckoned a resourceful fighting force in the mainland North. The Army is the main distributor of basic necessities in a substantial part of the province and a lot of hard work and time will be needed before normality can be restored here. There can be no military solution to Sri Lanka’s principal national question but without effective military operations against the Tigers, the political process could not have made the progress it has in the East.

The LTTE has no faith in any devolution of power solution within one Sri Lanka; it stands committed to Tamil Eelam through armed struggle and has shot down even constitutional proposals that mooted some kind of federal solution. But there is no excuse for the political constituents of the TNA, in the company of chauvinist elements in Tamil Nadu, to come in the way of democratic arrangements that should bring relief and representation to the hard-pressed people in the region. There should be no question of India falling again for LTTE strategems and tactics.

(Courtesy : The Hindu)