Conflict in Sri Lanka: Ground Realities - Tamil Nation & Beyond

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In the last parliamentary elections, Tamils gave a mandate to theTamil National Alliance (TNA) (a coalition of all the Tamil politicalparties of the North-East except two small ones) to represent themin the Sri Lankan parliament on the basis of recognising the LTTEas their sole representatives. This mandate also stipulated thatany negotiations the GoSL wants to conduct regarding the ethnicissue should be with the LTTE only. Only one Tamil memberwas elected to parliament from the North-East outside the TNAin this election. Therefore, the majority of the Tamil people haveaccepted the leader of the LTTE Mr. Velupillai Pirapakaran (VP)as their National leader.Recently concluded presidential electionAttempts by the fourth President of Sri Lanka, ChandrikaKumaratunga, who was at the helm for the last 11 bloody yearsin Sri Lanka, to extend her stay in power by another year failed.As a result, an election to elect a new President was held on17 th of November 2005. Although there were 13 candidatescontesting, it was a two man race between the two majorSinghalese political parties. The contest was between the thenPrime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse of the Sri Lanka FreedomParty (SLFP) and the opposition leader and former Prime MinisterRanil Wickramasinghe of the United National Party (UNP).Although the SLFP nominated Rajapakse as its presidentialcandidate, the leader of the party, President CBK, and a fewother senior members of the party did not support him openly.Aware of this in advance, and knowing that the Tamils would notvote for his party’s candidate, Rajapakse decided to exploit thenationalistic Singhalese votes. To accomplish this, he decidedto depend on the two extremist Singhalese nationalist partiesthe JVP (Peoples’ Liberation Front) and JHU (National HeritageParty), a party represented by 9 militant Buddhist monks inparliament. The JVP was a terrorist organisation that staged twoarmed insurrections in Sri Lanka and latter entered parliamentwithout surrendering their weapons. No Sri Lankan governmentasked them to do so. As these two parties have been opposingnegotiations with LTTE and the Norwegian facilitation from the36
inception of the CFA, they laid out conditions for Rajapakse inreturn for their support. Knowing that, without their support,he could not think of winning, although Rajapakse is a realistwith pragmatic political ideas, he decided to agree to all theseconditions.The most important of these conditions that affect the futureprospect of peace in Sri Lanka are:• Any political solution will be within the unitary type ofconstitution only• The concept of self government or separate homelandfor Tamils is not acceptable• A revision of the CFA• No tsunami aid sharing deal (P-TOMS) with the LTTEwhich has been encouraged by the donors• No major role for Norwegian peace brokers.For the JVP and JHU, preventing Wickramasinghe from becomingthe next president was more important than electing Rajapakseas the next President. The JHU considers Wickramasinghe moreconciliatory towards Tamils and, for the JVP, if Wickramasinghebecomes the president, where to hide will be a worry.The Tamils, who usually do not actively participate in Presidentialelections, (in the Dec. 2000 Presidential elections only 19% ofthe Tamils voted in the Jaffna peninsula), realised the futility ofsupporting one or the other of the candidate vis-à-vis the peaceprocess, due to the experience of the last 4 years. Thus, theydecided to keep away from participating in the voting and let theSinghalese choose their leader. As a result, only 1-2 % voted inthe North and less than half the Tamil people in the governmentcontrolled areas in the east voted. Therefore, Wickramasinghe,who was expected to win comfortably with the support of theTamil votes, was defeated narrowly by Rajapakse, who receivedthe support of the nationalist Singhalese voters.37
Page 7 and 8: ContentsIntroduction ..............
Page 9 and 10: IntroductionThe prospects for peace
Page 17 and 18: that I haven’t voted in the elect
Page 19 and 20: Is Peace Feasible?- Wakeley Paul[Wa
Page 21 and 22: In short, Rajapakse’s conception
Page 23 and 24: their leader should be? Obviously n
Page 25 and 26: The Vaddukodai resolutionIf there i
Page 27 and 28: due to the depopulation of vast are
Page 29 and 30: east because the Muslims reacted to
Page 31 and 32: usually tends to be obfuscated in d
Page 33 and 34: consider federal structures based o
Page 35 and 36: The official languageThe question o
Page 37 and 38: the LTTE-led Tamil National Movemen
Page 39 and 40: the LTTE to deliver humanitarian ai
Page 41 and 42: to power sharing. This behaviour, t
Page 43 and 44: political stand of the overwhelming
Page 45 and 46: Sudan’s Interim Power-sharing and
Page 47: of Norway and with the support of t
Page 51 and 52: determination, many analysts and co
Page 53 and 54: The peace talks were mediated by th
Page 55 and 56: Sri Lanka and Tamil Eelam: The Part
Page 57 and 58: e trusted on a permanent basis. The
Page 59 and 60: their times and climes but their vo
Page 61 and 62: 4. Consequently the feeling of a mi
Page 63 and 64: The Armed StruggleIn the arena of c
Page 65 and 66: aircraft, the world has chosen to l
Page 67 and 68: Former President Bill Clinton, who
Page 69 and 70: epresentative, was “review of the
Page 71 and 72: says: “The governments of India a

Conflict in Sri Lanka: Ground Realities - Tamil Nation & Beyond

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