Tamil Representation in the North and East and Fearmongering by organizations like the SPUR
By Kath Noble
Having lived through so many years of conflict, you’d have thought everybody in Sri Lanka would be extra careful about suggesting policies Tamils might consider discriminatory. After all, that’s how it started.
Even the few individuals who persist in justifying measures like the standardisation of university admissions as having been necessary to correct the imbalances that were created during the colonial era accept that these were what the LTTE and other groups used to rally support for the armed struggle. You’d have thought they would see the danger.
But apparently this is not the case. Indeed, some people appear to have no idea whatsoever.
This occurred to me the other day on reading a press release issued by SPUR, an association of expatriate Sri Lankans based in Australia. They want the Government to undertake an immediate census of the North and East, with a view to cutting the number of representatives from those districts in Parliament.
It’s not that this is completely mad. Population figures for the areas that were under the control of the LTTE are known to be wrong. Surveys have been conducted every ten years since 1871, but officials couldn’t enter many parts of the North and East in 2001 and work had to be abandoned altogether in 1991.
It is data from 1981 that is currently being used for most of the districts in the North and East. Given that the areas in question have been devastated by war in the intervening three decades, it’s commonly accepted that the number of people living there has dropped. They have either moved away or been killed.
This issue was first brought up after the elections for the Jaffna Municipal Council in August last year. Many observers expressed concern at the low turnout, which came in at about 22%. This, they said, indicated that Tamils had no confidence in Sri Lankan democracy and weren’t interested in choosing between the parties standing.
It may have been true, but there was rather more to the story.
One commentator pointed out that while some 100,000 polling cards had been issued, only 54,000 had been delivered. The other registered voters weren’t to be found at the addresses given on the electoral register. This meant that a rather better estimate of the turnout would have been around 41%, which is hardly bad for a local poll.
Similar concerns were expressed after the presidential election. The Election Commissioner made a statement on the issue, stressing that voter registration details needed to be updated.
SPUR claimed that their actions were inspired by and in fact the logical consequence of Dayananda Dissanayake’s remarks.
They included plenty of their own rhetoric, of course. SPUR said that the disproportionately large number of MPs from the North and East gave Tamil groups like the TNA undeserved power in Parliament and allowed them to force mainstream parties to accommodate their separatist aspirations, adding that this posed a serious threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the nation.
If I had a rupee for every time such a wild claim was made, I’d be laughing.
It’s hard to see how anybody could take these assertions seriously. There hasn’t been much progress towards Eelam in the last six years, despite the TNA having 22 MPs. Indeed, the most important organisation with separatist aspirations has been crushed. There has been no accommodation whatsoever. To suggest otherwise is quite ridiculous.
The TNA owes any undeserved power it has enjoyed to the guns of the LTTE. Voters were simply the intermediaries.
SPUR is pretty good at fear mongering, it would seem.
But this foolish rhetoric aside, people should look carefully at the call being made by SPUR. It is only through addressing their logic and building support for a more sensible line that the country will really prosper.
Dayananda Dissanayake was correct. The electoral register should be as accurate as possible, and that means efforts need to be made to gather fresh information in the North and East. It is not only a matter of calculating the turnout. Voters who have moved elsewhere in the country may be disenfranchised as a result of the flaws. With so many IDPs, this should be a clear priority for the Government. Dayananda Dissanayake was right to point this out.
What troubles me is the corollary to the Election Commissioner’s statement that was casually inserted by SPUR, that the number of MPs from those areas should then be cut accordingly.
Of course it is right that seats in Parliament should be allocated on the basis of population. That is democracy. If 100,000 people suddenly upped and left the Galle district, for example, they ought to lose a representative. Nobody could fight against it and expect to win.
But this is hardly the time for rash action.
As mentioned earlier, the reason the population of the North and East is thought to have plummeted in the last three decades is that those areas have been in the grip of a very bloody war. That much is obvious.
What should also be clear is that the situation there is a long way from normal. Infrastructure is being rebuilt, but work is only just beginning. Some parts of the districts in question are still being demined. Weapons are being found all the time. It isn’t exactly encouraging. People who fled their homes only recently may go back with relative ease, for lack of a better option really, but those who left the conflict zone a few years ago or more will hesitate. There are disputes over land to be resolved. They will also need time to become confident that there are schools for their children, healthcare facilities and jobs to sustain themselves. At the moment this isn’t at all clear. It will be a while before the economy in the North and East gets going again.
However, they will certainly return. We are talking about their homes, if not their homeland.
Rushing in to calculate how many people need to be represented and therefore how many seats the North and East are due in Parliament isn’t going to be viewed with anything like understanding. It will be seen as taking advantage of a crisis to get one over on Tamils.
I suppose it is fortunate that the parliamentary election is coming too soon for anybody to decide to act on the suggestion by SPUR this time. The process is already well underway.
But a census is due in 2011. The data will then be available, and there will be plenty of time to move for a cut in the number of MPs in the North and East before the next round of voting. When that comes five years later, a lot more people will have gone back to their homes in the former conflict zone. They will have fewer representatives in Parliament.
That will be unfair.
SPUR ought to be against it, given that their name implies they are a Society interested in Peace, Unity and Rights, none of which would be advanced by such a hasty and indeed stupid move. Perhaps these concepts are a little difficult to make out from all the way over there in Australia. The consequences of ill-conceived policies certainly won’t be felt so keenly.
It’s easy to see why the Government might be tempted to try its luck on this issue if it is returned to office as expected. Its support amongst Tamils is pretty low and isn’t likely to increase. They have long preferred the UNP and, unless the new administration undergoes a fairly significant transformation in outlook and direction, they aren’t going to change their minds. Indeed, the situation can only get worse for the SLFP. The rest of the country will have forgotten the war victory by 2016. People will be far more concerned about the economy and the idea of a change will be even more appealing than it is today. The Opposition will find itself in an excellent position, which is a prospect that is hardly going to be viewed without concern. The chance to get rid of a few seats the Government couldn’t win anyway may prove to be rather beguiling.
In the circumstances, this should be a serious worry. Nobody is going to start another war quite yet, given the suffering they endured in the one that the LTTE has just lost, but there would be no harm in trying to avoid giving Tamils any more reasons to feel hard done by. They have enough already. If Sri Lankans had known what measures like the standardisation of university admissions were going to bring, the vast majority of people would have been inclined to think again. Let them do so now. COURTESY:THE ISLAND
9 Comments
I agree with the author that to conduct a census prior to the election would be ‘rubbing salt into the wounds’. Either way as the author acknowledges it is now an impossible task due to the parlous state of the region. GOSL should now follow the normal course of events and conduct an island wide census in 2011 and only then make adjustments to parliamentary representation.
However I disagree with the author’s optimism that the northern Tamils will return. While some who have had homes in the region will eventually return. Those who have gone abroad (conservative estimates suggest eight hundred thousand to a million) will never return as they, for nearly the past thirty years have made Canada, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand their new homes and their children and grand children have now been fully integrated into these societies. Even those Tamils who have migrated south and are gainfully employed in the south of the country will not return as prospects are currently poor in their former home region. Moreover more than 55 percent of the Tamils live in harmony with the majority Sri Lankans in the south hence to these Tamils the south will ‘home from home’.
Thanks also to the insane policies of the LTTE that murdered the Tamil intellectuals and professionals in their midst, there is a dearth of professional human capital in the North and already these areas of employment are being filled in by southerners. It will be interesting to evaluate the demography of the region in about five years time or once the current infrastructure build has been completed.
Whatever the election results of the North the anti GOSL elements will equate it as a TNA victory for the region. The fact is that the northern Tamils are too busy building their shattered lives to worry about elections currently. The TNA for its part has not pronounced anything new in its manifesto and is harking back to its age old mantra of federalism as a solace to its aspirations of Eleam that it followed with disastrous consequences under the aegis of its proxy the LTTE.
Beware Kath Noble for now the thinly disguised SPUR will hunt and sully your name on their website as NGO scum or some other wild conspiracy theory.
I have seen this group at work,dodgy buggers who say outright things within private circles but play the harmony and peace card while trying to assert the true Sri Lankan identity of a Sinhala Buddhist state.
Some say hey have links to the JHU and are funded by them,truth be told I don't know but they are not pleasant people,and their acronym for their name is exactly what it is.
p.S-there are no tamils or muslims with this organisation.
Firstly standardisation equally affects Sinhalese students from so called developed districts such as Colombo, Gampaha, Matara etc. The university admission marks of those districts are markedly higher than Moslem and Tamil dominated Eastern districts and up country Tamil dominated districts. No one seems to be interested in the discrimination Sinhalese students face at university entrance examinations. Additionally, Northern and Eastern universities have virtually become no go zones for Sinhalese students while students from minority communities seems to enjoy full access to rest of the university network around the country. This bogus minority dominated focus and agenda must be reversed if an equal opportunity based society is to be built.
Secondly, a proper sensus of North & East population is a must for the state to design it's developmental policies and resource allocations in an equitable and a targeted basis as per the specific needs of the respective populations. While a rush to change electoral representation is not advocated, it may require review if post sensus per capita representation of N/E population show a drastic difference against rest of the country.
Ares Ceylon
Just for your information. There are Tamils & non Buddhists in SPUR.
To begin with SPUR is a political organsation. Although they commenced work with an Apolitical approach down the line for want of favours by the hire archy of SPUR specially when they visit Sri lanka and to go behind Govt politicians and to seek favours for themsleves not for the general membership detoured to support the Government leaving behind the members. It has no membership now and qucikly depleted numbers only. They are bootlickers. No voice any more and do not carry general view of the diaspora but only of the bootlicking Office bearers. DOWN with SPUR. They even paid and advertised in Sri Lankan News papers supporting the incumbent president which clearly violates its mandate. We are now organising an apolitical front to support the Sri lankan people but not a Govt who rob peoples wealth, freedom of speech, expression and movement in the name of democracy and terrorism.
In one paragrahp the writer says SPUR is advocating a census in the north and the east with "view" to reduce the number of representatives to parliament from the north and the east,it is not clear how the writer came know about this "view",in the next paragraph writer concedes that a census indeed is a must as the stastice now in use for those areas were done way back in 1981. If what SPUR has suggested is right for what ever the reason. why try to make veiled accusations through unexplained assumptions.Then again thriter concedes that if population has moved elsewhere the number of representatives from the original areas should be reduced and added to the areas where they have settled in. So whart is the issue here? some grudge against SPUR? what we have to be careful is from people who laugh for rupees!
How many Tamils and Muslims are given admission to National Schools? How many gain University admission? How many are in Government Service? Please conduct a census in these areas. The results will indicate the trend.
Any efforts by Lankans within or without to help bring peace and unity to the Island deserves to be applauded. SPUR had a great deal of opportunity to do its bit for the motherland - since the Rights issue has been pretty incendiary in the past few years. This is far more important than trying to reduce the number of MPs in the NEP on the false believe there is a disproportionate number of MPs there. To say TNA owes a debt to LTTE for the 22 seats is misplaced because the TULF (by far the largest formation within the TNA) swept the polls in the NEP in 1977 and thereafter. Kath Noble is a recent arrival here and should change her perception "they (Tamils) have long preferred the UNP" In 1982 they voted overwhelmingly for Kobbekaduwa against JRJ - and many feel July 83 pogrom was inflicted on the Tamils "to teach them a lesson" In 1994 Tamils in the NEP openly preferred CBK to the UNP. The January 2010 poll where they preferred Sarath Fonseka to President Rajapakse is not a UNP vote but more a protest vote against Rajapakse breaking all pledges and for continuing to ignore the Tamil plight. Recent development programs and opening the North to the South appears to have its own repurcussions that might find favour with the President in the GenElections due April 08. Tamils are not for the UNP against the SLFP or vice versa. They simply want their areas developed to reach the levels of the more favoured districts in the South.
Driving to Jaffna via Kurunegala one gets the impression while Kurunegala District is in the 21st century the NEP is still 3 centuries behind. Ms Noble should concentrate more on counselling the administration to be mindful of this forgotten aspect of local politics that is almost a make-or-break issue both for the Govt and the country's future.
ISS
I respect many of Senguttuvan's blogs, evn though I rarely agree with him. He belongs to the older generation of Tamils who looked for EXCLUSIVE Tamil homelands and intellectually supported a political program where the Tamils lost the advantages they had, the children of the next generation etc., and indeed killed of its best people, using the funds of embittered expatriates.
This argument that the 1977 election justfied what went afterwards is WRONG> Almost all the leaders of the 1977 election were assassinated by the LTTE which usurped power. Hence the LTTE, and its proxy TNA are NOT heirs to the 1977 vote. if Mr. Amirthalingam, Canagaratnam and others had lived, they would have surely come to a modes operandai with J.R.Jaywardena, and even the 1983 pogrom could have been avoided. The two generations of kids who were sacrified to the war by the LTTE could have been saved, and there would have been many more Tamils in Sri lanka. Today, we need a Tamil leadership which recognizes the stark demographic realties of the Tamils in crafting a policy. Instead we have the TNA, and even ISS, going back to 1977 or to Vaddukkodai.
This kind of thinking would be like some Euroean Inlectuals harping back to the treaty of Versaille and wondering what happened to the rights of the Haspberg peoples who had been there for centuries on, before world war I. Similarly, kath Nobel is worried that the Sinhalese should be sensitive to Tamil sensitivities, when we have NEVER been very sensitive to Sinhala sensitivities. Go to Dehiwela and you can see that we tamils have put up Tamilzed name boards like "Dehiwelai" etc., bu the sinhalese have not yet thrown stones at them, although, everyday when I go past them, i wonder if this is NOT provocation.