End of History for the NE Tamils or, A Fresh Beginning?

The Two Elections in 2010:

End of History for the NE Tamils or, A Fresh Beginning?....By Jolly Somasundram
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world."

W B Yeats "The Second Coming."



THE PROBLEM- THE END OF HISTORY


"War does not determine who is right: it just determines who is left," wrote Bertram Russel. The NE Tamils (who include those from this region living elsewhere in the island), never had it so bad. Toronto and London had replaced Jaffna as the two largest population centres of the NE Tamils. For twenty years, the NE had undergone de-development, becoming the most backward part of Sri Lanka (worse than Uva) under any criterion of development- poverty, educational achievement, health, infrastructure etc. The position of first minority, in numbers, has been ceded to the Muslims. For over two decades, the NE Tamils were unable to exercise their free franchise, a position to which they had fallen, after supporting the disenfranchisement of the Plantation Tamils. They had been helpless- except to bleat- when 300,000 of their civilians were incarcerated in fetid military prison camps in the Wanni (jokingly called humanitarian centres by the government) without even their elected representatives having access to them, not to mention the media or the UNHCR. (The army would not dare have such massive camps in the South, after the end of the two southern uprisings.) These camps, with more than half its population composed of women and young girls, were under the iron control of the army (with possibilities invitingly open for misuse of power against these defenceless girls), with no external access, accountability or judicial review. Anecdotal evidence of what transpired within is not for delicate ears. In the South, full of animated discussions of ill-governance and the desirability of applying Dasa Raja Dhamma forms of Governance, there wasn’t a comment: getting the 17th amendment implemented was of greater priority.

NE Tamils have no friends in S. Asia. Asia’s arch enemies- India and Pakistan- banded together to assist Colombo and, later, Tamil Nadu Tamils acquiesced with the Wanni incarceration. A NE Tamil’s passport is viewed with the same intense suspicion in India as Muslim’s is in the United States. It will not be long before the diaspora- which is onto their second generation- drops the NE Tamils. The once empowered NE Tamils, who engaged themselves vigorously in the politics of entitlement, are now a bereft, depowered people, stranded on the centre island of a busy highway, participating shamefacedly in the politics of supplication, aka as the begging bowl. For the NE Tamils, history seems to have ended.


STRATEGIC THINKING

But there is upside. It is only when there are no options that difficult decisions could be taken. The stitch, whose time has come, should enable the NE Tamils to abandon emotional orthodoxies and vainglorious ideas of their past (no one cares a damn for them) and take a hard, inward, pragmatic look at themselves. If they decide that they have an identity which deserves preserving, then, based on a SWOT analysis, they need to take strategic long, medium and short-term steps to preserve this identity. Instead of hard or soft power approaches they should adopt smart power methods. Lessons could be learnt from Thondaman, of how he pulled his despised Plantation Tamils in from the cold, to make them a proud part of the Sri Lankan polity, enabling them to become an important segment in her governance, even of making and sustaining governments. And Thondaman (snr) did not have a diaspora!


PRESIDENTIAL AND

PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS:

AN OPPORTUNITY

The forthcoming Presidential and Parliamentary elections are not video games played in virtual space but chess games played in real time, with the NE Tamils as human stakes, normally wooed only at election time and then dumped. These two elections offer the despairing NE Tamils a live opportunity to reverse the situation, by taking the initial concrete steps towards a strategic readjustment that would ensure an eventual rebirth of their history.



PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION- TWO CHOICES.

The real Presidential choice (2010) is between an incumbent President—with 40 years of political experience—and a challenging General with 40 days of it. To use a gynaecological term, the General is an ectopic Presidential candidate. In gynaecology, it is possible for the fertilised germ cell, prevented from reaching the womb for the foetus to grow because the fallopian tubes were blocked to grow on its linings. So has the General! Not having political experience, he has now decided to attach himself to political linings and grow political skills with on-the-job-training.

Both main candidates appeal to the same core Southern constituency and will be elected by the South. In respect of the NE Tamils, a Collective of Tamil Professionals- inexperienced in the hurly-burly of actual electioneering and, therefore, unfamiliar on how voters make their decisions- has said that "the voter needs to know the positions of various candidates so as to assess their suitability and credibility on several critical issues and, collectively, seek to make a difference to the outcome." Spoken like professionals! This Collective, no doubt, thinks that each voter will draw up a table, give weightages for each critical issue, produce a variety of equations and use the differential calculus to mathematically optimise who would be the best candidate. The two main candidates have now issued their sound bites- called manifestos. What now then? Professionals are a political unintelligentsia! This neat Weberian rationality is not how the political world works; no such model is operational anywhere in the world. Politics works on dysfunction and is extremely untidy. Tony Blair, lied unashamedly about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and declared war. Even after his mendacity was proved, he won the next election. In the recent Health Care vote in the US Senate, Obama purchased the critical 60th vote of Senator Nelson by bribing his State of Nebraska with a $100 million investment. This is called ‘pork’ in the United States. Even if it were called Organic Vegetable Tikka, the taint of bribery will not be buffed. In Sri Lanka, the practice is to buy over, recalcitrant legislators with Cabinet portfolios much to the chagrin of professionals. But, this is part of the downside of democracy: it comes with the territory of an electoral process, based on proportion that gives the advantage to smaller parties. Jumbo cabinets would not exist if proportion were abolished. Bismarck equated politics with sausage making, where rejects and offal are bundled within a sausage skin. In the governance skin all manner of divergencies have to be accommodated. If not, the current UNP and JVP common candidate is inexplicable. Virtue, principle or gourmet taste do not apply to sausage or Cabinet making.


CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING THE TWO CHOICES.

The main candidates should be judged, not on what they promise but how harshly they ruled the NE Tamils when exercising power. A daughter is not given in marriage on assurances of future good behaviour by the bridegroom, but only after a critical scan of what he has done in the past. Promises, undertakings and manifestos are not worth the paper they are written on; they are not justiciable, just bedazzling lover’s promises, to be abandoned once the objective is gained. Just to give an example. One of the main candidate’s promises is to increase the salary of public servants by Rs 10.000 a month. This is plain impossible! There are 1.2 million public servants. This payment would cost Rs 140 billion a year; that is three times the total education budget. At present, the salary, pension and the interest on the public debt is more than the revenue. To meet them, it is necessary to print money. This salary promise has been cynically made, knowing full well that it can never be implemented. So, also the promises to abolish the Executive Presidency, implement the 17th amendment, abolishing Jumbo cabinets. None of these can be implemented for structural, processual, systemic and financial reasons.

The valuelessness of political promises was shown by Chandrika Kumaratunga. In the 1994 Presidential election, she gave a written undertaking to the JVP that she would abolish the Executive Presidency within three months (fixing a date) of her assumption of duties. Based on this promise, the JVP withdrew its candidate. Obtuseness has not left the JVP. It imagines that their present presidential candidate- a General who commanded an army would relinquish the Presidency if he were to win it, and then revert as a mere citizen like Cincinnatus. A study of history by the JVP may not go amiss and, indeed, that of sausage making.

Politics is about power, its acquisition and retention. Its grammar is deal-making, accommodation and the cashing of IOUs, to backbiting, clashing stakeholders, conducted with nuance filled equivocation. It certainly is not a spiritual quest. The Elephant- the symbol of the UNP backing the General, does not seem to have shared its reputed long memory with that Party. Only recently, this Party supported a group at the Colombo Municipal elections, in the vain hope that it would abdicate power to the UNP, once victory were gained. The group did win the elections but the UNP is waiting longingly for the abdication. Suckers are not born every minute but voters are!


ISSUES FOR THE SOUTH:

ISSUES FOR THE NE TAMILS

1. Issues for the South.

Two separate constituencies would be contributing to the election of the President. The decisive choice will be by the South, for whom good governance, size of Cabinet, corruption, integrity, nepotism, implementation of the 17th amendment, media freedom, dynasty, law and order are hot issues. The South would be electing, whom it considers the better of the two lead candidates.

2 Issues for the NE Tamils

For the NE Tamils, these issues of the South are luxuries. The down-to-earth concerns for the NE Tamils are mundane. They are,

1 The immediate return of the Wanni Tamils to their homes,

2 The treatment of the insurgent war-wounded on the same basis as that of the Ranaviru, as the United States did after the end of her secessionist war (1894). (Insurgent war wounded are, after all, human beings who also suffer the effects of the war very much the same as the Ranaviru). The costs of both need not be met by taxing the South. Earmarked funds are available on grant or near grant basis from bilateral and multi-lateral sources. In addition, there is a tidy sum available under the frozen funds of the LTTE and inert LTTE assets. NE Tamils inherit these funds since they were contributed by the NE Diaspora or extracted by the LTTE by ‘taxation’ of the NE Tamils. (The LTTE has 14 ocean going ships as against nil by the Government, though it has a well funded Shipping Corporation.) These frozen funds or liquifiable assets should not be treated as war reparations and used by the Government to finance budget deficits. The pipe line flow of these funds to meet NE Tamil development requirements should be under the close supervision of the Government, to which accounts will have to be rendered.

3. The removal of all Pass laws. Pass laws under which the NE Tamils lived were reminiscent of the pass laws of S. African apartheid (This writer, who lived over 60 years in Colombo and held high posts in government, was expected to register himself at the Police Station purely because he bore a Tamil name!)

4. The establishment of an Anti-Harassment Committee, preferably under the Chairmanship of a senior Southern politician. (Such a committee existed in 1999 and did excellent work.)

It should be mentioned, in the straitened conditions that the NE Tamils find themselves in, hoping for the implementation of the 13th amendment, the re-merger of the North and the East, providing equitable employment for the NE Tamils in the public service and the implementation of the language laws (all desirable and valid demands), are just pie in the sky. Politics, like comedy, is all about timing. The weak NE Tamils are hardly in a position now to make these demands which, for some atavistic reason, arouse primal opposition from the South. Starting with the two 2010 elections, the NE Tamils should patiently build power value, in some future date, to make and obtain these demands.


ELECTION APPROACHES FOR

THE NE TAMILS.

1. Boycott: The Pornography of Politics.

Boycott is an aphrodisiac for the NE Tamils. While, in other countries, citizens are fighting and dying to obtain the vote, these boycotters wish to deny it to themselves. They imagine that the world revolves round them, a view not shared by outsiders. One of their MPs, a Presidential candidate to boot, was recently summarily deported from India despite having a diplomatic passport and a valid visa). Boycotters wish to draw attention to themselves, even momentarily by organising these disruptive withdrawals, irrespective of their repercussions. Immediately after universal franchise was introduced in 1932, they boycotted the first elections. The impact was nil on the national scale but led indirectly to the formation of the Pan-Sinhala ministry. In 1994, they boycotted the Presidential Elections, which led to the Mullaitivu debacle and the reduction of the NE Tamils to the margins. Some canvassing is now taking place for a 2010 Presidential Election boycott. Boycott advocating NE Tamils, resolute about irresolution, decisive about indecision, committed to non-commitment, are waiting for God only knows what. If the NE Tamils respond to the cry of boycott, it must be suffering from a severe case of death wish.

2. Quislingam.

Sivajilingam, contesting the Presidential Election as an NE Tamil candidate, is the manifestation of this death wish, in another form. It is unlikely that he would consider himself an Obama, breaking through prejudice to win the Presidency. His political party, the TNA, does not support his candidacy nor does it wish to field a candidate. His candidacy is either due to ego, immaturity or pure mischief. But the effect on the NE Tamils would be severe. In a closely contested Presidential election, as is this case, every vote matters. On an earlier occasion, Kumar Ponnambalam irresponsibly contested the Presidency, making no impact on Governance. It will be remembered that mature Thondaman (Snr) never thought of contesting the Presidency though he was revered by the Plantation Tamils. The NE Tamils have the sorry option of rejecting the worse of the two Presidential candidates. Since the election is tight, the NE Tamils, if they vote strategically, could determine the President who would be better for them. Sivajilingam’s insurgency candidature, of a small man caught in an undertow much too strong for him, could help elect the wrong candidate. This would place the NE Tamils on a downward death spiral, perhaps never to recover.



PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS

THE NATURE OF PARLIAMENT.

Much false glamour and power has been vested on the President. It is claimed that he can do anything except making a man a woman or vice-versa. Bosh! A President is powerful only so long as he/she controls Parliament. The all-powerful President Premadasa was shaken to his roots when the impeachment motion was presented. President Chandrika Kumaratunge had to smell the roses when Ranil Wickremasinghe was the Prime Minister with control over a Parliamentary majority. The Constitution states, "The President shall be responsible to Parliament for the due exercise, performance and the discharge of his power, duties and functions…" A President who has lost control of Parliament is neither man or woman, just a neuter. What the NE Tamils should concentrate on is maximising their strength in the 2010 Parliament and, thereby, tie up or make beholden to them, a President, whose actions or policies could be deleterious to the interest of the Tamils.

Under the present electoral system of proportional representation, no single Party can gain a two-thirds majority and, as most likely, even a simple majority. Either of the two main parties of the South will have to strike coalition arrangements with many minor parties—something that leads to jumbo cabinets. The future of NE Tamils would lie, as Thondaman (Snr) did, in coming into coalition agreements with the appropriate majority South Party.


OPPORTUNITY AVAILABLE FOR NE TAMIL PARTIES (NETAP)

Since 1977, Thondaman has been a member of all governments formed by either the UNP or the SLFP. He was able to lever his political and economic advantages (heading the Trade Union that could cripple the plantation sector) and maximise advantages for his community. NETAP does not have the economic advantages Thondaman enjoyed, but, it could, if it plays the electoral game with finesse, manage about thirty seats (including those in the Western Province, National List slots etc). NETAP should remember that in the next round of elections, the seats available for it will reduce drastically, since there will be a delimitation based on the 2011 Census.

The NE Tamils, while voting to elect a President should make the necessary inner electoral contest arrangements to optimise their clout in the next Parliament.


CONCLUSION.

There have been two inflection points in the electoral history of Sri Lanka, where a specific election changed paradigms. The first was 1956, which changed the cultural paradigm. Sinhala culture, which includes the Sinhala language and Theravada Buddhism, replaced Western culture as Sri Lanka’s dominant form. The second election was in 1977, which changed the economic paradigm into a decisive open market model. The third could be 2010, when the issue at hand is whether the form of Governance should continue to be a democratic one or whether it should be some other form of Governance. Some of these other forms are monarchy e.g. Thailand, theocracy e.g. Iran, one party e.g. China, military e.g. Myanmar. It would be in the best interest of the NE Tamils to plump for continuing the democratic form, though turbulent and chaotic—Sri Lanka is the talk shop of the world—despite many woes it causes to them. This dual approach of voting for the Presidential candidate who would support their aspirations and, simultaneously building power value through the Parliamentary process, would enable them to painfully start on an arduous journey to regain what they have lost.

(The writher is a former member of the Ceylon Civil Service)



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