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Sri Lanka – Ruling party wins Eastern Province election |
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Sri Lanka’s ruling party has won control of the country’s tense Eastern Province following an election that monitors said was marred by voter intimidation and fraud. The Election Commission announced the result on May 11 of the polling held a day earlier. The opposition condemned the results, saying they were the outcome of “an irreparably flawed vote.”
Opposition leaders plan to meet in Colombo to decide whether to file a suit to overturn the election, an opposition leader said. The ruling party ran a coalition with a breakaway rebel faction known as TMVP, which has been accused of campaigning with weapons and threatening voters and opposition candidates.
The election was also intended to give a degree of self-rule to the region-divided among Sinhalese, Muslims and Tamils, and to counter rebel demands for an independent State, even as a civil war with the separatists rages on in the north. The government said the provincial election would mark a fresh start for the region less than a year after the military seized control of the area from the LTTE which ruled the area for 13 years.
Three eastern provinces, Batticaloa, Trincomalee and Ampara, went to the polls on May 10. By participating in the election in large numbers last weekend, the people of the three provinces have also rejected the “myth” of a separate homeland propagated by the LTTE, defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said at a news conference. He said after the Government ejected the LTTE from the east, it realized that military victory alone was not sufficient for the development of the people. “The economic and political desires of the people had to be fulfilled,” he said, adding that it was soon after that the Government decided to hold elections as a stepping stone to development.
Rambukwella also referred to the controversial 13th amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution signed in July 1987 by former President J.R. Jayewardene and former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi as part of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord. The amendment, among other provisions, provided for the devolution of powers in Tamil dominated regions. It was rejected by the LTTE as well as the Sinhalese majority. The Minister said as a consequence of the amendment, polls were held in parts of the country but never in areas where ethnic strife has been raging since the mid-1980s.
Speaking at the Oxford Union on May13, President Mahinda Rajapaksa said his Government was ready for talks with the LTTE, provided the “latter is ready to give up arms and demonstrate genuine intent to evolve a political solution”. In a high-profile reminder to the international community that Sri Lanka continued to face the deadly threat of suicide terrorism, President Rajapaksa said if Colombo continued to be denied global support in its war against the LTTE, the world would have failed in its fight against terrorism.
Separately, the Air Force claimed that it bombed “a key LTTE training facility” in Kollanvillu, Kilinochchi, on Wednesday. Also, the military claimed that at least 11 LTTE cadres were killed and 17 injured along the Forward Defence Lines in the North.
Meanwhile, New Delhi has extended its ban on the LTTE for another two years saying the activities of the outfit continue to pose a threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India.
The leader of the breakaway LTTE faction, Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillayan, has been sworn in as Chief Minister of the newly-constituted Eastern Provincial Council. The militant group turned political party, Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Palukal [TMVP], fought the first-ever election held on May 10 in alliance with the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance [UPFA] securing 20 of the 37 seats.
It is indeed a meteoric rise for the former militant-turned-politician, Pillayan. The revolt against the LTTE in 2004 was led by Col. Karuna, commander of the Tamil Tigers in the East. He continued to lead the party till his leadership was challenged by Pillayan in mid-1997. Karuna had to flee to London using a forged diplomatic passport where he was arrested. Ironically, openly last week Col. Karuna completed his jail sentence and is expected to be deported back to Sri Lanka. There is speculation that Col. Karuna has sought political asylum in the UK. Since Karuna has been away, Pillayan has been maintaining that the TMVP leader has gone abroad for “personal reasons” and he was holding temporary charge.
Suicide bombing kills ten
A suicide bomber on a motorcycle rammed into a bus carrying riot police in Colombo on May 16 killing ten people, including eight policemen and wounding 85. The bomb ripped through the side of the bus, shattering windows and damaging a dozen other vehicles. The blast came hours after Air Force jets bombed a Tamil Tiger rebel base in the northern jungles where 27 guerillas and two government soldiers were killed in heavy fighting.
The blast was the first suicide attack since a bomber killed 14 people, including a Government Minister and a former Olympian at the start of a marathon on April 16. If the attack was carried out by the rebels, it would show they retain the ability to strike deep inside Government territory despite a maze of security checkpoints around the capital and military efforts to crush the group.
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