Are People of the East Interested in an Election for The Provincial Council

April 2nd, 2008

By MSM Ayub

Almost all major political parties in the country are currently making a fuss of the Eastern Provincial Council election scheduled to be held next month. Frantic efforts are on in making, breaking and confusing electoral alliances and winning Chief Ministerial post for certain communities. But how much are the people of the province interested in these alliances, positions and after all in this election itself.

The United National Party which boycotted the Local Government election in Batticaloa district citing the security situation, especially the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (TMVP) or the Pillayan Group, one of the main contestants carrying arms, is now challenging the Mahinda Rajapaksa Government to win the Provincial Council if it can.

And it is said that the TMVP Acting leader Sivanesan Chandrakanthan alias Pillayan is insisting that a Tamil should be the Chief Minister of the province. While the ruling united People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) is contesting in an alliance with the TMVP, the Muslim Ministers of the Government have had talks with the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) to form a Muslim front and win the Chief Minister’s post to a Muslim. Are the people in the province concerned about these things?

People in the North and East do not have pleasant memories of the Provincial Council system in spite of the fact that all Tamil political parties and armed groups except the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) clamoured for it and perhaps genuinely believed that it would solve their problems when it was first introduced. They along with the leftists except the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) aspiringly thought that once the system was implemented and people were benefited by it, even the LTTE would be compelled to accept it once and for all.

But history created an altogether different scenario where the LTTE itself turned to be the main stumbling block for the implementation of the Provincial Council system and it successfully turned not only the Tamil people but also those Tamil parties that sacrificed the lives of their leaders and thousands of members for the system, against it.

The LTTE was so hell bent to sabotage the Provincial Council system and Varadhraja Perumal’s North Eastern Provincial Council that they went back on their own declared demand for maximum devolution and swayed President Premadasa during the peace talks in 1989-1990 to promulgate laws so that the central government would be able to dissolve the Provincial Councils-a power that was not granted to the President either by the 13th Amendment to the constitution or the original Provincial Council Act.

President Premadasa accordingly brought an Amendment to the Provincial Councils Act in August 1990 even after the LTTE broke the ceasefire and waged an all out war in June 1990.

In a practical sense the amendment was a vain exercise since Chief Minister Perumal and his ‘comrades in arms’ had long left for Orissa with the last batch of Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) and the war with the LTTE had broken out.

The Provincial Council system in the North and the East so far had passed a turbulent period that the people might be afraid of the system. The 16 month administration of the first Provincial Council for the merged North East had been bogged down in various controversies and entangled in a struggle of survival- politically and militarily.

People of the two provinces did not taste any sweet fruit of it but in a way they were harassed and humiliated by the goons of the Province’s ruling Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) and the Ealam National Democratic Liberation Front (ENDLF) and their guardians, the IPKF.People living out side the North and the East who supported the concept of devolution of power were also disturbed by events that took place in March 1990 which was taken by most people as Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) by Chief Minister Perumal.

In point of fact, it is a misconception that Varadharaja Perumal declared Tamil Eelam. What he did on March 1, 1990 was to convene a special meeting of the North Eastern Provincial Council and announce an ultimatum to the Premadasa Government for the fulfillment of 19 demands that his party, EPRLF had put forward or face declaration of Eelam on March 1 1991, the following year. It was not UDI, but giving notice to that effect.

By then the Premadasa Government had started peace talks with the LTTE which wanted the Government to dissolve the Provincial Council led by Perumal. And in the meantime they were butchering members of EPRLF and ENDLF while the Government was turning a blind eye. Also by that time withdrawal of IPKF under whose protection Perumal ran his Provincial Council was fast reaching completion with the insistence of President Premadasa pressured by the LTTE.

In addition to this context under which Perumal gave notice for the UDI an important fact that most people ignore is that it was the lion flag that was flying on the council building in Trincomalee when he was making this controversial announcement.

The irony of the scenario was that Perumal himself later on some occasions was under the impression that he had declared independence and not given notice to that effect. When the then Minister of State for Defence Ranjan Wijeratne threatened in his own style to arrest the Chief Minister, Perumal retorted with this writer ‘how can he arrest a ruler of another country?’ and it was carried in the Tamil daily Dinapathi.

Thus the institution of the North Eastern Provincial Council and its short but tumultuous history might be a painful reminder for the people of those two provinces. Furthermore the rulers of the Provincial Council and the members of the ruling party could not win the hearts and minds of the people.

It was said that some teenaged EPRLF members who ran some of the affairs of the Provincial Council sometimes rudely treated the administrative service officers. And the notoriety of the IPKF which was responsible for the security of the provinces added insult to injury. Some question as to whether the LTTE would have gone against the provincial council system or Varadharaja Perumal would have resorted to such a dangerous and controversial endeavour, had the Provincial Council system been fully implemented with powers on police and land granted to the periphery.

This is again being countered with the contention that police and land powers cannot be devolved while secessionist armed groups are in action. This goes on as an endless argument like the one as to whether it is the egg or the hen that came first. The fear that the constitutional powers on the subjects of police and land might strengthen the hands of secessionist forces in the North and East has prevented so far five Presidents- from JR Jayawardene to Mahinda Rajapaksa- from signing the gazette notification on the institution of the provincial police division and the land commission that have been stipulated in the 13th Amendment to the constitution.

Although Chandrika Kumarathunge insisted that the police powers be vested in the Provincial Councils when she was the Chief Minister of the Western Provincial Council in 1993/94, she too did not sign the relevant gazette notification following her ascendance to the Presidency of the country in November 1994.

The JVP has now enlivened the controversy of granting powers to the Provincial Councils while armed secessionist groups are roaming around, objecting not only the Government’s move to implement the 13th Amendment to the constitution in full but also the very concept of devolution. They claim that it will strengthen the objectives of the secessionist LTTE.

But devolved powers and the armed power are going to be married under the very nose of those opposed to granting of police powers to the provincial councils in the event of TMVP coming to power in the Eastern Province. It is sensible for the JVP parliamentary group leader Wimal Weerawansa to argue that disarming of the Pillayan group is tantamount to sacrificing them to the LTTE.

But if Pillayan or one of his comrades becomes the all powerful Chief Minister of the eastern Province he will have at his disposal not a police contingent which comes under the command of the Inspector General of Police (IGP), but an armed force of his own which is legally not bound to take orders from any of the commanders of the three armed forces or the IGP.

Entry Filed under: transCurrents NewsFeatures