The
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) performed exceptionally well in Sri Lanka’s
parliamentary election on August 17. But as it prepares to negotiate with the
new government on behalf of its Tamil electorate on a political settlement,
accountability and demilitarisation, it is up to the Tamil public, civil
society and the Tamil diaspora to keep tabs to ensure the TNA remains true to
the mandate given by the voters.
Elections
to parliament followed a presidential election on
January 8, which saw the shock defeat of the corrupt and violent presidency of
Mahinda Rajapakse. The new president, Maithripala Sirisena, who came at the
head of a coalition which the TNA helped place in power, pledged to work towards
restoring democracy and good governance through a 100-day programme. Last
week’s parliamentary election was a referendum on the 100-day reform programme.
However,
the focus of parties contesting Tamil-dominated northern and eastern Sri Lanka
was in stark contrast to party interest in the Sinhala-dominated parts of the
country. In the Northern and Eastern provinces, the main campaign debate was
between the TNA and
theTamil
National Peoples’ Front (TNPF). It concentrated on a federal
constitution based on the right to self-determination for a political
settlement, and for accountability for mass atrocities against Tamil civilians
during the civil war that ended in May 2009.
The
contest in the Sinhala south was mainly between Rajapakse’s United Peoples’
Freedom Alliance (UPFA) and the United National Front for Good Governance
(UNFGG), led by Ranil Wickremesinghe. While both the UNFGG and UPFA had many
differences, they categorically rejected the TNA and TNPF’s demands for both a federal
constitution andinternational accountability.
Thus
it was a deeply divided Sri Lankan polity with entrenched prejudices that went
to the polls. Of the 225 parliamentary seats up for grabs, the UNFGG secured 106 (just
short of a simple majority, but expected to form the government), the UPFA 95
and the TNA was third with 16, with other parties taking the residue.
While
Tamils demonstrated their support to the TNA at the election, its failure to
deliver on many needs of the Tamil electorate during the seven months of the
Sirisena government has left its electorate worried. This is visible in at
least three important areas of Tamil life.
First
are the families of the disappeared. Disappearances of Tamil civilians had been
taking place even before large-scale armed combat war began in the 1980s: some
were abducted by unknown people, while others were arrested by the police and
military. None of them were seen by their families again.
But
disappearances following arrest crossed a threshold in May 2009. As hostilities
wound down in the country’s civil war, around 300,000 people crossed from
LTTE-controlled areas into government territory. Some of them were LTTE cadres
others were civilians. They had to all register with the Sri Lanka military
after crossing. In
the weeks and months that followed an unknown number – said to be in the
thousands – disappeared. They were taken by the military ostensibly
for questioning. When they did not return, their families believed they were
being held incommunicado in Sri Lankan prisons. In the following months these
families began a mostly futile search for their loved ones.
Families
searching for their missing loved ones hoped that the Sirisena government that
was placed in office by Tamil votes mobilised by the TNA would help bring their
children back. But they were sorely disappointed. The indifference of the
government to the disappeared is summed up in the words of Wickremesinghe, who
told a New
York Times interviewer, “‘there are people who are missing whose names
are not found anywhere,’ which, he said, means they either “are not among the
living, or they left the country. That’s all.’”
Some
families of the disappeared at least have got the message that the
Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government does not care. But unable to avenge
themselves on the government, they expressed their outrage at the Tamil
parties, including the TNA. On the eve of the election at a protest, they said,
“[t]hat they would not vote for anyone in this election or in any election
until their missing loved ones were returned to them or they received news
about them, the protesters condemned both the previous government and the
present government.”
The
second group of Tamils who have been disappointed with the TNA are those who
believed that despite the TNA helping Sirisena to become president, it had
failed to protect them from continuing human rights abuses. Their expectation
of this from a political party and not the police is understandable because in
the past the police have been a force of oppression of the Tamils, rather than
an agency to enforce law and order.
The
International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP), headed the South African jurist
Yasmin Sooka, details many harrowing cases in its July
2015 report . The report said, “organised abductions, torture and
sexual violence by the security forces have continued long after the change of
government and as recently as July 2015.”
The
third group that entertains disappointment with the TNA is those who demand an
international investigation for what the United Nations terms war crimes and
crimes against humanity. The demand for an international investigation and
trial before an international tribunal seemed possible when the UN Human Rights
Council adopted a resolution in May 2014 for a report one year later. While the
presentation of the report has been now postponed to September, media
organisations highlighted a
leaked document where the UN’s Office in New York pre-empts action in
September and outlines plans to set up a purely domestic inquiry into human
rights violations.
Tamils
– especially the victims – have consistently rejected anything other than a
full-fledged international mechanism for the investigation and trial of the
perpetrators. A survey by the British NGO Sri Lanka Campaign for Truth and
Justice of the survivors that had outlined the merits/demerits of different
models for seeking justice for war crimes concluded that there was “clear
support for an international and clear understanding that this mechanism had to
be established by the United Nations.”
In
the face of this, the TNA manifesto’s ambivalence on supporting an
international mechanism to deliver justice for the victims provoked much
irritation within the Tamil polity. The manifesto asked for “[a]scertainment of
the truth … Truth, justice, reparation and the guarantee of non-recurrence …
being comprehensively addressed so as to ensure permanent and genuine
reconciliation between the different peoples on the basis of justice and
equality.”
The
uproar this statement provoked had the TNA scrambling to reassure the voters
that it stood unreservedly for an international
investigation.
In
the light of these developments, it is now up to the Tamil voters, Tamil civil
society – especially organisations such as the Tamil Civil Society Forum – and
the Tamil diaspora to keep the TNA accountable and not deviate from its policy
statements declared before elections. There are at least two areas where they
should be vigilant.
The
TNA has had a tendency to act in the past as a gatekeeper between the Tamil
people and the world outside – be it with Sri Lanka’s central government
institutions or the international community. As such, it sees its role as
keeping the northern and eastern Sri Lanka stable and quiet, while procuring
for the Tamil public its needs.
For
instance, it is only a few TNA parliamentarians and provincial councillors who
have been personally involved in grassroots-level organisation around issues such
as returning private land occupied by the military in northern Sri Lanka while
other leaders (unless canvassing for votes) remain aloof.
When
it comes to protests on disappearances, the TNA generally leaves civil society
organisations to support the families of missing persons. A
well-documented example of this was British Prime Minister David Cameron’s
visit to Jaffna during the November 2013 Commonwealth Summit. Rather than
take Cameron to the place where families of the disappeared were gathered,
thereby giving the survivors an opportunity to air their grievances to a
powerful actor who could take their message to the international community, the
TNA leadership chose to escort him away – a
move that was later criticised by commentators.
The
Tamil public and civil society have to temper the TNA’s tendency to have a
patron-client relationship with its voters and keep reminding the party that it
derives its power and legitimacy only from the people it represents.
The
Tamil public has to also hold the TNA to the promise of pursuing international
justice for mass atrocities. There are persuasive arguments that have been put
forward that models other than an international investigation will be more
expedient to establish. However, in the face of mounting criticism from its
electorate the TNA pledged before the election to support an international
mechanism and going back on it would be a horrendous betrayal.
What
the Tamils expected from the TNA after May 2009 was unique. While legally it
had to function as a political party within the Sri Lankan system, the Tamils
expected the TNA to also negotiate with the Sri Lanka government as an elected
representative of a people – of a nation if you may. Up to now the TNA has not
played that role well. But with the TNA’s remarkable electoral victory
emasculating other Tamil political parties, it is now left to the Tamil public,
civil society and diaspora to be check on the TNA to compel it to stay on the
straight and narrow.
Photo:
A Sri Lankan man reads a newspaper carrying news on this week’s parliamentry
election. Pic: AP.
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