By Amantha Perera
On the eve of the March 10 local
government elections, the TMVP appeared
utterly at ease in Batticaloa.
Young supporters thronged its Meenagam
office, and a row of private buses that had
seen better days were parked outside it to
transport the supporters.
The atmosphere was filled with a sense of
waiting for the inevitable, only it was a
case of sure shot victory.
In fact when it came, two nights later,
the TMVP celebration was a no-show — the odd
fire cracker was the only sign of it;
comparatively the Ottamavaddi Muslims
celebrated far more extravagantly.
Seated inside a relatively peaceful
office down Lake Drive, the party
spokesperson, the ever smiling Azad Moulana
was taking it easy.
"You see, we have been betrayed right
along," he said. He was not talking of the
oft spoken grievances of the Tamil minority.
His focus was much more local, he was
speaking of the eastern Tamils, whom the
TMVP represented.
"Everyone — (Douglas) Devananda, the TNA
and even Pirapaharan, all of them are from
the north and they will always look after
the interests of the north first before the
east. That is why the east needs an eastern
Tamil."
Stepping stone
It was the same grouse that forced Karuna
to break ranks with Velupillai Pirapaharan,
at least officially in 2004. The TMVP has
big ideas for itself in the east, not only
for Batticaloa.
Moulana saw the March 10 elections as a
mere stepping stone for larger victories.
"We can do more at the provincial council,"
he said.
It was with this ‘high’ of sweeping the
nine councils that it entered the provincial
council fray. The script did not run to plan
since the members from the nine councils
took oaths on March 20, before President
Mahinda Rajapakse.
Sivasuntharai Chandrakanthan, better
known by his norm de guerre Pillayan
did not secure the chief ministerial
candidate slot, instead he now has to share
the limelight with the latest somersaulter
M. L. A. M. Hizbullah. They were rivals a
month back in the Batticaloa elections and
now have to show camaraderie.
Chief Ministerial candidate
The TMVP says no matter what the official
UPFA line is, Pillayan would be campaigning
as the party’s chief ministerial candidate.
The TMVP cannot hope to enjoy the same
kind of clout it has in Batticaloa in the
rest of the province. To do so would be very
foolish.
For starters it has invested heavily in
manpower and resources to keep the hold on
Batti. It did spread out opening offices in
all three districts. When Pillayan first
challenged Karuna, a shortlived compromise
was that he controls the Trincomalee cadres
while Karuna oversees the Batticaloa setup.
Pillayan did in fact move to Trincomalee for
a while last year.
Once the Pillayan-instigated putsch
settled the matter of who holds the reins in
the group once and for all, five of its
Trincomalee offices were closed down and one
kept open in the district. The cadres were
brought to Batticaloa.
Rooting out Karuna supporters
By October 2007, there was only one
office in Trincomalee. Pillayan loyalists
were focused on rooting out the remaining
Karuna supporters like V. Theelipan, the
former TMVP Batticaloa political head. He
took cyanide when the Pillayan takeover was
imminent. He survived the suicide attempt
and received medical treatment, that much is
known and officially acknowledged, but his
whereabouts have remained a secret.
On top of its own internal organisational
dynamics the TMVP would have to deal with a
newer phenomenon — the ethnic diversity of
the province. While Batticaloa is
predominantly Tamil, there are sizable
populations of Muslims and Sinhalese in the
other two districts.
Already after its high handed tactics on
the Sainthamaruthu beach in Kalmunai on
April 1 night when some of its members
threatened to burn down the village, the
TMVP stock has hit a low ebb on the Muslim
dominated Kalmunai beach.
Three thousand angry Muslims took to the
streets in Kalmunai the next day and have
vowed not to allow the TMVP to act with
impunity in their areas.
The TMVP however cannot be written off.
It has already usurped the position of the
main armed group backed by the state in the
east, unseating the likes of the EPDP and
EPRLF factions.
It is still armed. Moulana last week said
that armed cadres were present in their
jungle camps and ‘one or two armed members’
remained in the offices in populated areas,
for the safety of the members.
Armed cadres
There are more than one or two armed
members in the main offices, but they have
by and large remained indoors. Their armed
cadre strength has been more speculation
than anything else, but could number between
400 to 700 at least and could have been
bolstered with new recruits after interior
areas like Vaharai came under the control of
the military.
It is also unlikely the TMVP would disarm
anytime soon no matter what the UNP, the
SLMC and the JVP say in Colombo. "We will
give up arms when we enter the democratic
mainstream," Pillayan said soon after
casting his vote last month. The pledge
lacked conviction and the road to the
mainstream by all indications appears to be
stretched far and wide.
The group says that it needs arms to
protect itself from the Tigers, given the
bad blood between the two and the body count
on either side; that fear cannot be shooed
away carelessly.
The problem for many in Batticaloa in
general has been that the armed strength of
the TMVP has been used beyond protection
against the Tigers.
Now once again it’s decision time for
Pillayan. It would be a decision on how much
power he and the TMVP want. Whether they are
willing to take on the powers that run the
show from Colombo by staking a claim for the
whole Eastern Province, or whether they are
willing to settle for a smaller fiefdom, the
Batticaloa District.
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The last PC elections in the east
By Dilrukshi Handunnetti
As the east prepares to hold
provincial elections after a spell of 14
years, one visible difference between
then and now is that the May 10 election
has reintroduced the gun culture and
justified the carrying of arms by
candidates as opposed to the 1993 polls.
Clearing the east had the same
political connotations in 1992 and
President Ranasinghe Premadasa
considered it vitally necessary that the
east be stabilised. In pursuit of his
directives, military operations were
conducted to ‘stabilise the eastern
region’ and to banish the LTTE from the
multi-ethnic province.
According to former Army Chief of
Staff, Major General (Retd.) Janaka
Perera, operations commenced on April
22, 1992 to systematically clear the
Eastern Province. Operations began in
the Batticaloa District and were
subsequently extended to the other two
districts, Digamadulla and Trincomalee.
At that time, Perera functioned as
the Special Operations Commander as well
as the Special Forces Brigade Commander.
"In 1993, we conduced operations in
the east to stabilise the region and to
get rid of the LTTE from the area. In
order to achieve that, I had the Special
Forces Brigade. I commanded the
Commandos and the Special Forces (SF). I
also had one Gajaba Regiment, four Sinha
Regiments and five Wijayaba Infantry
Regiments battling it out.
Many camps
We established camps in a range of
areas in Kokkadicholai and Aithamalai.
We had a camp in Periyaporativu and on
the other side, we had a camp in
Thoppigala, in the jungle track. We had
a camp in Napathavillu, north of
Thoppigala and south of Thoppigala in
Tharavikulam," explains Perera.
According to him, the army
established camps in the south of
Thoppigala as there was an abundance of
water. Camps were also set up in
Kayankerni, Kadjuwatte and the bridge
causeway in Panichchankerni, Vaharai,
Kadiraveli and right across Verugal at
the Verugal Kovil area. Subsequently,
under Major Manoj Peiris, another camp
was established in Angudavillu.
"We managed to reduce the LTTE’s
strength from 2000 to about 50. Leaders
including Karuna, Paduman and Pillayan
who were not confronted and destroyed
fled to the Wanni. The political process
shortly crowned the military’s gains.
That’s when local government elections
were called," he notes. According to
him, some 81% people cast their vote.
He recalls the fact that it was
possible to hold elections in the east
as by September 1993, the entirety of
the Eastern Province was stabilised with
the coastal areas being manned by the
STF.
"In October, we held the elections in
the whole of the Eastern Province
without any problems and sans weapons.
Only the armed forces and the police
carried weapons. This was followed by
the general election on August 16, 1994
and a presidential poll on November 9,
1994.
Strategy to systematically destroy
Commenting on strategy, he noted that
the strategy was to systematically
destroy LTTE camps without large-scale
operations, for large scale meant,
massive causalities and heavy resistance
that proved very costly, both in terms
of human resources and finance.
As for security, there were special
networks of police, the army and STF
working in specific areas. Special units
operated in the deep jungles and special
operations were carried out in
Trincomalee and Digamadulla districts.
"The stability was such that single
vehicles could move from Polonnaruwa to
Batticaloa without any security fears."
As for the candidates’ security, the
war veteran adds that there was no
special security for candidates despite
the areas being newly cleared. "Only key
candidates had such security detail."
"To maintain law and order, the joint
forces ensured that till the day after
the poll, ‘ambushes’ were continued
‘just to ensure that nothing went
wrong.’ The army and the police were
placed on alert."
Significantly, at the 1993-1994
elections there wasn’t a single armed
group like the TMVP in the east. "The
east was cleared of the LTTE and this
made it not necessary for others to
carry weapons," he notes.
"Contestants had to enter the fray
sans weapons. They did not feel
insecure. We provided the security and
took responsibility for their safety,"
Perera said.
Over 30,000 IDPs wait to vote
By Mandana Ismail Abeywickrema
The Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)
in the east have been a forgotten lot
till the announcement of the Eastern
Provincial Council polls. This community
has been so forgotten that the proper
number of eligible voters among those
displaced has not been recorded.
The IDP figures in the province are
not as high as what it was an year back.
There were around 32,000 IDPs in the
three districts by the third week of
March according to the UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The largest numbers were scattered in
Koralai Patthu and Eravur, west of the
Batticaloa lagoon while Muttur (3,400)
in the Trincomalee District and
Tirukkovil ( 3300) in the Ampara
District also recorded high figures,
according to OCHA figures as at end
March.
While access is generally not a
problem in the province, three areas,
Thoppigala (Batticaloa), another area
west of Tirukkovil (Ampara) and Sampur (Trincomalee)
are still listed as areas where there is
no access by OCHA.
Lesser number of
registration forms
The Elections Commissioner’s
Department in Colombo has so far
received only less than 800 registration
forms from IDPs to exercise their
franchise at the eastern elections.
The Resettlement Ministry has on
record the number of displaced families
and persons in each district. According
to statistics as at end February, a
total number of 6,896 families in the
Batticaloa District and 2,293 families
in the Trincomalee District were
reported to be displaced. No IDP
families have been recorded from the
Digamadulla District.
Resettlement Minister Rishard
Badiudeen told The Sunday Leader
that the IDPs who wished to exercise
their franchise were given the chance to
do so by registering themselves.
"No once can force them to vote and
if they want to, they can register
themselves," he said.
He also said that some of the IDPs
might not have wanted to fill the
temporary forms since the government’s
resettlement programme was in progress
and they might therefore have the
possibility of casting their votes from
their hometown.
When asked about the number of
eligible voters, Badiudeen said that he
was not aware of the exact number of
eligible voters among the displaced in
the east.
Contradict official records
He also said that the IDP issue only
affected the districts of Trincomalee
and Batticaloa as there were no IDPs in
the Digamadulla District.
However, residents in the area have
contradicted the official records by
saying that there were still several
families who languished in IDP camps.
A resident in Kalmunai told The
Sunday Leader that some of the IDPs
in the district were those displaced in
the 2004 tsunami.
"Some of the people are yet to
receive land. Since the government came
up with a buffer zone in the aftermath
of the tsunami, some of the families are
yet to receive land in the area beyond
the marked zone," a resident said.
However, with the announcement of the
eastern provincial polls, the Elections
Department in Colombo granted a period
for the IDPs in the east to register
themselves in order to exercise their
franchise at the May 10 election.
Facility to vote
The forms were distributed among the
respective divisional secretariats and
handed over to the IDPs eligible to
vote. Once filled, the forms are posted
to the Elections Office in Colombo to be
processed.
If approved those eligible to vote
would be provided the facility of
casting their votes at the polling booth
nearest to the IDP camp.
However, facilities are also to be
provided for the IDPs who wish to cast
their votes at their original place of
registration.
It is learnt that the number of
applications received by the Elections
Commissioner’s Department is less than
what was initially expected.
The period granted for the IDPs to
fill the form to prove their eligibility
to cast their votes at the forthcoming
provincial council election ended on
April 3. The first batch of such forms
was received by the Elections Department
in Colombo last Monday (7).
According to sources from the
Elections Department, a total number of
700 forms have been received in the
first batch. In the second batch, the
department had received only 25-30
forms.
"The first batch was received last
Monday, a few days after the deadline
and we are processing them now," an
official at the Elections Department in
Colombo said.
Change in geographic location
A key issue faced by the IDPs is the
change in their original geographic
location since being displaced.
Around 8000 IDPs from the Trincomalee
District were currently in temporary
locations in the Batticaloa District.
This geographic change would have an
impact on the voting as well. Hence, a
resident from the Trincomalee District
might have to cast his/her vote for a
candidate from the Batticaloa District
instead of casting it for a candidate
from their hometown.
However, according to the Elections
Commissioner’s Department, the displaced
from the Trincomalee District who are
currently in the Batticaloa District
would be provided with facilities to
cast their votes from Batticaloa.
"They will cast their votes from the
Batticaloa District, but they will be
given the ballot paper from the
Trincomalee District. They will
therefore vote for the people from their
hometown," an official from the
Elections Department said. |
