[lg policy] In Sri Lankan polls, Tamils affirm desire for self-rule

[Harold Schiffman]

In Sri Lankan polls, Tamils affirm desire for self-rule

In the first election in 11 years Saturday, a pro-rebel party won the
most local-council seats in Vavuniya and came in second in Jaffna.

By Mian Ridge | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

New Delhi

A pro-rebel political party won a key council in Sri Lanka's elections
this weekend – an indication, should it be needed, that Tamils are
still eager for self rule.
The polls, held Saturday, were the first in the island's north in 11
years. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who had fought for
an independent homeland for the island's Tamil minority since 1983,
ran most of northern Sri Lanka as a de facto state until May, when the
government recaptured it and ended the war.

The polls elected representatives to two councils on the edge of the
area formerly controlled by the Tigers. The pro-rebel Tamil National
Alliance won Vavuniya, taking 5 of 11 seats. In Jaffna, the
government's United People's Freedom Alliance won 13 of 23 seats,
though the Tamil National Alliance came in a close second. The
government's party was expected to do well in the north largely
because it had promised to bring big development projects to the
battle-scarred area. President Mahinda Rajapakse, an overt Sinhalese
nationalist, has promised to empower the island's minority Tamils
through democracy. Saturday's votes were the first test of that.

"The vote in the north was very clearly for Tamil rights and
autonomy," says Jehan Perera, executive director of the National Peace
Council of Sri Lanka, a nonpartisan advocacy group. "It's a good
indication of the challenges that there are to be faced."  Though the
Tamil Tigers terrorized the mostly Tamil inhabitants of the north,
their ostensible goal – a Tamil homeland – is supported by many Tamils
who have suffered decades of discrimination by the Sinhalese majority.
Most observers agree that some measure of Tamil autonomy is now
necessary for stability in Sri Lanka.

In south, Sinhalese endorse government

Elections were also held in Uva Province in the south of the island,
where the government's party triumphed, indicating that Sinhalese
majority cheer the war and its successes. The recent arrest of the
Tiger's new leader will have further bolstered Mr. Rajapakse's
popularity, say analysts.

Selvarasa Pathmanathan was arrested Wednesday in Southeast Asia and
flown to Sri Lanka for questioning by the government. He had been
working to rebuild the LTTE from overseas after its chief, Velupillai
Prabhakaran, was killed in fighting in May.



Too soon to vote?

In voting in the north, turnout was low, around 50 percent in Vavuniya
and 20 percent in Jaffna, according to election officials. In Jaffna,
however, only half of all polling cards could be delivered, because so
many residents had left the area or died, meaning closer to 40 percent
voted. Some analysts say the elections were held too soon after the
end of the war for people to vote and for democracy to be tested.
Certainly, normalcy in the battle-scarred north is a long way off:
Nearly 300,000 Tamil civilians are being forcibly held by the
government in camps near Jaffna and Vavuniya. Both towns are still
surrounded by government checkpoints, and are largely inaccessible to
nonresidents. Even residents can't leave without permission.

Foreign – and many Sri Lankan – journalists were not allowed to cover
the elections. Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said that the
decision to bar the media "dashes any hope of a transparent election."
But election observers, according to Perera and others, said there
were no reports of election violence or vote rigging. This suggests,
he says, that the government "behaved well" and that Tamil political
parties understood that the northern Tamils had had enough of
violence.


from the August 09, 2009 edition -
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0809/p06s04-wosc.html
--
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

-------------------------------------------------

_______________________________________________
This message came to you by way of the lgpolicy-list mailing list
lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu
To manage your subscription unsubscribe, or arrange digest format: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/lgpolicy-list