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| Sunday, 9 October 2005 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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LTTE
has role to ensure... :
Free and fair election by Ranga Jayasuriya Even the Ceasefire Agreement is not a guarantee that history would not repeat in the run up to the Presidential Elections. Previous Presidential Elections, both in 1994 and 1999 experienced the LTTE efforts to eliminate the candidates who would be unfavourable to the Tigers. A Tiger suicide bomber killed the UNP presidential candidate, Gamini Dissanayake in the run up to the presidential polls in 1994 whereby giving a free run to the then People's Alliance presidential hopeful, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, who in her manifesto pledged to negotiate with the Tigers. (Gamini Dissanayake with his involvement in the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord was on the top of the LTTE hit list.) In 1999, suicide bombers targeted final rallies of both the PA and UNP campaign, and nearly missed the prime target President Kumaratunga, who narrowly escaped, but was partially blinded. The Ceasefire Agreement holds on, but there is no guarantee that the Tigers would not go back to their old practice- the Tigers have frequently violated the ceasefire agreement and continue to do so. LTTE claim Though the international community, specially the EU nations, have indicated that they would no longer accept the regular denials of the Tigers in its involvement in killings, still the LTTE leadership could claim innocence in its involvement in political killings, taking refugee in the volatile security situation in the South and North-East. The objectives of the previous LTTE attempts at mainstream presidential candidates are two fold: first, it aims to cause political instability in the South and then to get rid of the Southern political leadership unfavourable to the LTTE. Intelligence reports have already recommended an increased security for the two main contenders, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse and UNP candidate Ranil Wickremesinghe. Intelligence sources have also revealed an increasing threat to the JVPers propaganda Secretary Wimal Weerawansa, Tilvyn Silva and Somawansa Amarasinghe. When the Norwegian Ambassador, Hans Brattskar visited Kilinochchi on Thursday to meet LTTE political commissar S.P. Thamilselvan, one of the main concerns of his visit was to demand from the Tigers to demonstrate its commitment to the ceasefire agreement by word and deed. Ambassador Brattskar reiterated to the LTTE political leadership that the peace facilitators did not expect a repeat of political assassinations which took place in the run up to the previous Presidential Polls. Thamilselvan's reply, which he later repeated to the media, was that the Tigers, though did not believe in the commitment of the two main candidates to a solution to the ethnic question, would play its part to ensure free and fair elections. Albeit, the promises by the LTTE political commissar, the question remains as to whether the Tigers would keep to their promise. Repeating history A woman who was arrested on September 21 by police in Colombo is now identified as a LTTE suicide bomber and has been remanded. (The same woman was arrested earlier by the Dehiwala police and later released) There is no guarantee that the Tigers would not repeat history because there is a clear gap between the LTTE's undertakings and the actual conduct. Understandably, the JVP-JHU alliance with Rajapakse does not sound good for the LTTE. This may lead the Tigers to experiment with their old tactics. Of course, the recent Declarations by the Donor Co-Chairs to the Tokyo Donor Conference and European Union stand to be a deterrent to the LTTE going back to its violent tactics. Both Declarations - with the European Union announcing a travel ban on the Tigers - have pointed out that the international community would no longer accept the LTTE's routine denials of its responsibility in killings. The EU travel ban and specially the veiled threat of a total ban would, hopefully, force the Tigers to a second thought before resorting to violence. But, there are other issues where the international community is not so concerned, which has helped the Tigers to have a free run over the democratic rights of Tamil polity. Of course, in any measurement the reimposition of the North-East Tamils' right to exercise the universal franchise is an achievement. During the previous General Election, over 600,000 voted for the LTTE proxy Tamil National Alliance. But, the conduct of elections in the North-East was deeply flawed. Vote rigging, impersonation, underage voting were prevalent, all done in favour of the TNA with the actual participation of the LTTE activists. A multi-party democracy was non existent. No room was available for the campaigning of the candidates of parties other than the LTTE proxy Tamil National Alliance. This should not be repeated. And the international community has a role to play in this regard. While, ensuring that the LTTE would not send suicide bombers hunting Sinhala (and, of course, moderate Tamil) leadership, the International community should also impress on the Tigers to ensure the democratic rights of the North-East voters. The Tamil voter should not be manipulated in the name of a "liberation
struggle" and the Presidential Election should not be a repeat of the April
4 Parliamentary Election. |
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