[Readers may find this assessment written on December 31, 2009 for SOUTH ASIA SECURITY TRENDS slightly dated as subsequent events have overtaken some of the issues.However it is published here for the purpose of record. The blogs on Sri Lanka published in this site during this month cover subsequent developments.]
Presidential election
With the retired Chief of Defence Staff General Sarath Fonseka emerging as the main challenger to President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s bid to win a second term in the presidential election to be held on January 26, 2010 a no-hold barred, nasty election campaign is underway.
Both the candidates’ trump card is their national popularity, largely dependent upon their contribution to the elimination of Velupillai Prabhakaran and the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). So the election campaign’s focus is now has been shifted by the two candidates to claim of sole responsibility for winning the war, while running down the other candidate.
In warding off the Rajapaksa group’s smear campaign, General Fonseka chose to come out with allegations of corruption, highhandedness and nepotism in the conduct of war against the President and the Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Some of these allegations are petty. But his allegation that the Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, by passing the army commander, had ordered Sri Lanka troops to kill senior LTTE leaders, carrying white flags, coming to surrender in the final stages of war will have serious repercussions. It has already caused severe damage to Sri Lanka’s reputation. It provided substance to the same allegation that had been voiced in international forums.
The impact of war crimes allegation on the voters and the army is not clear. But it clearly sidetracked major national issues like economic woes, unemployment, price rise, Tamil autonomy, and the adverse impact of possible EU withdrawal of tariff concessions extended to Sri Lankan exports.
The General’s election promises are largely similar to those of the opposition United National Party (UNP); however, he had been significantly vague on the question of abolition of executive presidency – a lynchpin of UNP manifesto. Similarly his stand on Tamil issue runs counter to the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)’s stand. However, the General continues to remain a strong opponent as he has attracted dissidents from Rajapaksa’s camp and divided the loyalties of Sinhala right wing votes.
But there are a few grey areas in his support. The impact of war crimes allegations against the army on the sizable support he is believed to enjoy among troops is a question mark. It could also adversely affect JVP which had been assiduously cultivating the troops for sometime now. Fonseka’s election promises have been tall; how he hopes to implement them is still sketchy. Moreover, the ruling coalition is in a position to foreclose some of these promises in the run up to the election; for instance the promise to increase soldiers pay has already been offset by the government granting it.
The President managed to retain the support of the Tamil Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP) led by Chandirakanthan alias Pillaiyan, the chief minister of eastern provincial council after he helped to patch up the feud with the erstwhile LTTE leader and current MP Muralitharan alias Karuna. The Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), the oldest plantation Tamil party and the Upcountry People’s Front (UPF) have also pledged support to support President Rajapaksa.
The weakest link in President’s support chain is winning nearly 300,000 war displaced Tamils’ votes. Although they have been allowed to return to their war ravaged homes in the north, it has come too late and after a lot of humiliation. And many of them are yet to be rehabilitated to be grateful. So they may not heed the call of the Eelam Peoples Democratic Party (EPDP) and the Peoples Liberation Organisation for Taml Eelam (PLOTE) – the two Tamil parties who support the President. The pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance (TNA), which could swing their votes, is a divided house. The candidacy of Sivajilingam, TNA MP and leader of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO) has probably caused a minor upset in its bargain capability.
At best he could dissipate some of the Tamil votes that would have gone to Fonseka, even if it is assumed he would be forgiven for his past ‘sins’ from their point of view. Thus it is clear that decisive Tamil votes continue to elude both the main opponents. In view of this we can expect many abstentions among Tamils. The regime is also in a position to make many of them the displaced voters ineligible to vote as they do not have national identity cards. Given this situation, poll prospect as of now continues to be tilted in favour of Rajapaksa.
International developments
The Obama administration appears to be poised to take fresh initiatives to repair its relations with Sri Lanka. This is evident from the recommendations of the powerful bipartisan U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee headed by John F. Kerry for a rethink of U.S. policy in the light of decisive victory over the LTTE and developments thereafter. The U.S.-Sri Lanka relations were mauled during the course of the war when the U.S. tried to pressurise Sri Lanka on humanitarian and human rights issues during the war. The worst phase was when it tried to intervene with an ill-timed plan to send U.S. Marines to war zone evacuate Prabhakaran and the LTTE leadership during the Sri Lanka army’s winning phase in the war.
The increasing Chinese influence in Sri Lanka and the lingering fear of Iran trying to gain a foothold are also un-stated reasons in the U.S. calculus on Sri Lanka. What Indian new initiatives are underway continues to be foggy. Of course, Indian projects like the 285-kilometre power link, including submarine cables over a stretch of 50 km, are making slow headway. Apparently, India’s lukewarm attitude to Fonseka campaigners’ overtures for support is probably part of the ‘hidden’ Indian agenda. Unless India takes dynamic initiatives specifically to reduce Chinese influence and hold the U.S. responses to manageable proportions, it stands to lose its cosy relations with Sri Lanka.
LTTE leftovers
The continued recovery of hidden LTTE weapons and explosives in North and East shows administration’s relentless clean up of the LTTE leftovers in the country. It proposes to charge sheet selected cadres among 12000 captives and other suspects apprehended for their involvement in acts of terrorism. Apparently the Rajapaksa regime is in no mood to ‘forgive and forget’ the LTTE as some of its old camp followers want. This is probably due to the continued strong but silent support from countries like the U.S., Australia, Canada and Singapore to pursue cases involving LTTE gun runners in their own countries to their logical end.
In this context, Sri Lankan navy’s seizure of a merchant vessel ‘Princess Chrisanta’ (navy called it ‘Princess Christina’) from a remote Southeast Asian island shows the dimensions of international support Sri Lanka enjoys in cleaning up the LTTE act. The 93 metre long ship brought to Colombo. was made reportedly on information provided by Kumaran Pathmanathan (KP), former LTTE international affairs head now in captivity.
Media report indicated this was one of the five ships bought through front companies for the LTTE legitimately and registered with Lloyds. Most of them were of Japanese origin. According to the Navy Commander Vice Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe the vessel was used for LTTE’s gun running and human trafficking. He said the vessel tried to rescue the LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran in the final stages of the battle.
During the course of its operations between May 2003 and October 2007crippling, the navy had destroyed ten LTTE ships (seven of them in 2007) the LTTE’s ‘ghost’ fleet of ships that had provided logistic support for the insurgents. But these are fading into pages of history, as the rise of LTTE once again appears more difficult than ever before despite the political blunders of the government in resolving the Tamil issue even during peace.
Courtesy: www.security-risks.com
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