ELECTIONS TO LEGITIMISE TMVP TO DEAL WITH LTTE IN EAST

by Dr.Jehan Perera
The run-up to Sri Lanka’s 60th anniversary of independence on February 4 saw the LTTE resort to its time-tested option of terror strikes.
The attacks included yet another bus bombing, this time of pilgrim women in the agricultural market town of Dambulla, a bombing at the National Zoo and a suicide bombing inside the main Railway station in Colombo.
The spate of attacks against civilian targets occurred in a context in which the government’s military forces are threatening the LTTE’s top leadership by both land and air. The difficulties encountered by the LTTE in countering the government forces by conventional and guerilla means within the north, may induce them to resort increasingly to urban terrorism to increase the political costs to the government. Ironically, the eastern town of Batticaloa which has been one of the most dangerous places in the country seemed less dangerous than Colombo in the present period.
With local government elections scheduled for March 10, a team of election monitors from PAFFREL, an independent election monitoring network of civil society groups, went to Batticaloa over the weekend to ascertain the ground situation. Some parts of the Batticaloa district in which elections are to be held were under LTTE control for over a decade, and only came under government control last year.
The government’s decision to conduct the elections has been bitterly contested by key opposition parties, including the UNP and TNA which resorted to legal action, and by civil society groups. They have argued that the conditions of violence that prevailed in Batticaloa over the past several months preclude the possibility of free and fair elections. Even a few weeks ago, there were reports of virtual anarchy in the district, with armed groups openly on the prowl, most of them allegedly in league with the government, but with the LTTE also capable of infiltrating back into the district from which they were so recently evicted.
The split within the main anti-LTTE group, the Karuna group, which had led to its leader fleeing the country, added to the sense of anarchy and lawlessness. The anti LTTE groups were reported to be engaging in the LTTE’s own long time practice of forcible child recruitment and internecine killings of each other, as well as those suspected to be supporting the other side, whoever that might be. Civic groups, especially those from outside Batticaloa, were highly vocal in criticizing the government for conniving with these groups in their human rights abuses as part of its strategy to keep the LTTE at bay.
Those critics within Batticaloa were silenced by the threat of elimination if they dared openly dissent against the armed groups.
GOVERNMENT STRATEGY
The announcement of local government elections has been followed by an effort by the government to crack down, at least temporarily, on the armed Tamil groups. When we visited Batticaloa over the weekend we were informed that the level of violence had dipped over the past two weeks. The Batticaloa police seemed confident that the armed anti-LTTE groups could be contained inside their camps and not be permitted to interfere with the elections.
The fact that shops were open till well past eight at night suggested a sense of security that was not evident a few months ago when I last visited the area.
At that time the group I was traveling with at night with was accosted by a group of armed youth who wished to board our bus, but they hastily disembarked when informed that the group consisted of a team of journalists from Colombo. The government’s attempt to eliminate the LTTE from the east began in April 2006 when the LTTE blocked an irrigation canal for farmers in the neigbouring eastern district of Trincomalee.
The success of the military battle to reopen the Mavil Aru irrigation canal emboldened the government to expand the theatre of military battle to the entirety of the east, though at the high human cost of displacement of over 200,000 persons.
Confronted by the superior fire power and sheer numbers of the government forces, the LTTE withdrew from the east, yielding the territories they had controlled since 1995. The challenge to the government, however, will be to prevent the LTTE from coming back into the east, as they have repeatedly shown themselves capable of doing over the past three decades. The LTTE has never had to fight a major military battle to take territory in the east.
Their strategy has been to wait for the government’s military presence in the east to be weakened due to the need for troops elsewhere, in order to infiltrate back and take over territory. The previous occasion in which this transfer of control took place was in 1994-96. In 1990 the LTTE filled the military vacuum in both the Jaffna peninsula and in the east that was left by the departure of the Indian Peace Keeping Force.
It took until 1994 for the government to wrest back control over the east. But in 1995, the government withdrew troops from the east to send them to fight in the battle to retake Jaffna and for military operations elsewhere in the north.
This provided the LTTE with the opportunity to infiltrate back into the east and take control over its more remote parts. Now again, with major battles looming in the north, and with LTTE terror strikes mounting in the rest of the country, there is pressure on the government to redeploy its troops from the east.
This would create a military vacuum that could once again lead to the return of the LTTE, as on previous occasions. The government’s decision to conduct the elections in Batticaloa could be seen as part of its counter insurgency strategy in which the former LTTE members will be legitimised to take over the civil administration of the area without creating the politico-military vacuum into which the LTTE can infiltrate back.
TMVP AMBITIONS
It appears that the government has decided that its partner in the east would be the TMVP, which is the breakaway LTTE group in the east. The partnership between the ruling national alliance, the UPFA, and the eastern regional TMVP in jointly contesting the Batticaloa Municipal Council election is a clear manifestation of this governmental intention. Although the government did not publicly admit it, its alliance with the TMVP dates back to the break away of the Karuna group from the LTTE in March 2004 during the period of ceasefire.
The Karuna group which later formalized itself into the TMVP has since been providing the government with fighting cadre and intelligence for the war against the LTTE. All indications are that the main purpose of the forthcoming local government elections is to legitimize the TMVP as the political party that is representative of the Tamil people of the east.
This will strengthen the fledgling party’s ability to work together with the government to deliver services to the people as well as keep the LTTE from infiltrating back into the east in sufficient numbers to retake territory under its control.
TMVP spokespersons in both Batticaloa and Colombo said that they too were in favour of a violence-free election, as this would strengthen their claim to democratic legitimacy. The claim that the improved ground situation in Batticaloa that exists at present would ensure a free and fair election is contestable. Due to the anarchic conditions that prevailed in the area until a few weeks ago the two main opposition parties, the TNA and UNP have decided not to contest the elections. They had reason to fear that their candidates would become victims to the violence that prevailed and might have continued to prevail if they had decided to contest.
Having ensured that their main rivals will not participate in the elections, there is an extra incentive now for both the government and TMVP to ensure that the rest of the electoral process for the local government elections is free of violence.
After securing victory at the elections, the TMVP’s hope is that they become a legitimate part of local government structures in Batticaloa and that they will have access to central governmental resources and to foreign aid to improve the lives of the people. If they do succeed in this task it will send a message to the LTTE and Tamil people also that cooperation with the government can deliver more to the people than a continuation of confrontation.
As a much stronger force than the TMVP with a much longer history, the LTTE is better positioned to negotiate the basic structures of governance in a manner that could empower the people of the north and east.
On the other hand, if the campaign will continue to resonate with the sufferings of the impoverished and neglected government continues to fail to devolve power and resources to the local government level, the LTTE’s separatist people of the east.