As things began to wind down for the holiday season, two issues dominated the political scene – the Eastern Province elections and the GSP+ issue. Each party concentrated on what concerned it most. The government concentrated on GSP+ while the UNP concentrated on the eastern poll. For the government, the GSP+ scheme which enabled the duty free exports of garments to the countries of the European Union is crucial and some of its leaders were preoccupied with getting that extended for another three years.

Last week, the government issued a statement accusing a certain NGO of trying to prevent the extension of the GSP+ facility by quoting legalistic arguments. They also alleged that the leader of the opposition had also echoed the views of the NGO. There are moves by the officials who control the European Commission to shut Sri Lanka out of GSP+ privileges citing human rights violations. Some people have come out very strongly against this move, one of them being the European Parliament member Niranjan Deva Aditya (Nirj Deva) who last week launched a scathing attack on what he described as the arbitrary decisions being made by officials of the European Commission, without consulting the European Parliament. He described the European Commission as the world’s most powerful non-elected administrative body.

Ranil to do an SWRD?

Another point stressed by Dev Aditya was that the enabling legislation relating to the full implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in Sri Lanka was a highly abstruse legal matter and that this should not be used to penalize those who depended on the garment industry for a livelihood. Even though the withdrawal of the GSP+ scheme may result in a set back for the garment industry which the UNP inaugurated in this country, the UNP as a party did not seem worried that this may result in an industry going to ruin. On the one hand, the ruination of the garment industry will give the opposition another stick to flog the government with while on the other, these privileges which are withdrawn, the UNP feels, can always be restored when they are back in power.

The UNP feels that with the clout they wield in international circles, getting the GSP+ scheme back would be a cinch. The party does not seem to be worrying about the consequences for the country if production facilities are moved overseas to other locations, in between the time of a possible withdrawing of the GSP+ facility and the formation of a UNP government. Garment manufacturers in Sri Lanka can easily find lower cost locations within Asia for their production facilities..

The destruction of the Sri Lankan tea industry began after 1956, when S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike came into power promising to nationalize the foreign owned estates. This threat was not implemented until almost twenty years later when his widow took the country to the extremes promised in 1956. But the foreign estate owners took SWRD’s words seriously in the 1950s and they began selling up and moving out. Many took their capital and expertise to Kenya and set up a brand new tea industry in that country. Today, Kenya is the main supplier of tea to the British market the way Ceylon used to be in the days gone by. It was Doric de Souza, the LSSP intellectual who observed wryly, that the people of Kenya should make a golden statue of S.W.R.D. Bandarnaike and worship it for all that he did for their country.

Today, when we are in danger of losing another industry to foreign competitors, the UNP seems unconcerned. Last Thursday, the government released a ‘sequence of events’ which seeks to establish a link between the NGO sector, the LTTE and the UNP in what is described as a common effort to deprive Sri Lanka of the GSP+ facility. According to this sequence of events the initiator of this process was a certain NGO which had published an article stating that the GSP+ scheme could not be extended in Sri Lanka’s case because the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was not fully operational here. This article had been quoted at length in a letter written by a person said to be close to the LTTE to several members of the British House of Lords, urging them to use their influence to see that the GSP+ concession was withdrawn.

Following upon this, the government alleges that the UNP had written to the Commissioner for External Relations of the European Commission about this legal technicality which the local NGO had brought to public notice. This letter had been forwarded to the European Commission by the UNP just days before a government minister was to hold a meeting with the European Commission – almost as if the main opposition party wanted to make sure that the point would not be missed by the EC officials.

The UNP had also stated in that letter that an amendment to the constitution was necessary to make the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights fully applicable in Sri Lanka – a point which the Supreme Court has since rejected. Furthermore, the government points out that on the day the government was meeting the Trade Commissioner of the EC in Brussels, the UNP issued a strident denunciation of the human rights situation in Sri Lanka and the statement was faxed to Brussels just hours before the said meeting took place. It has been the constant refrain of the government that the UNP was attempting to bring about an ‘international encirclement’ of the government by carrying tales and false representations to the international community. Today, the results of the UNP’s labour seem closer to fruition than ever before. But despite this partial victory, the UNP does not seem to be celebrating. They seem preoccupied with more pressing issues at hand.

1994 SPC election revisited?

The extension or the cancellation of GSP+ would come only at the end of this year. The Eastern Province elections are due next month. If the UNP loses this election, there is the strong possibility that the government would first go for other provincial council elections as well on a staggered basis ensuring that it holds elections in provinces that it can win easily. That will in turn have a domino effect even in the provinces that the UNP and its allies may otherwise be able to win. Given the winning streak of the government, potential allies will be afraid to join the UNP. We saw the same phenomenon at the budget vote last December. This effect can both help the UNP immensely and irreparably harm it.

Already there are straws in the wind. It is not really the UNP that has influence in the East, but the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress even though the coalition of these two parties will be contesting under the elephant symbol. The UNP has some presence in the Amparai district but none in the Trincomalee and Batticaloa. M.H.M. Hisbulla was the person whom the SLMC had selected to lead their campaign in the east and also to be their chief ministerial candidate. With his defection to the government, the entire SLMC campaign in the East has been placed in jeopardy. This elections is a ‘gala uda satana’ not just for the UNP but for the SLMC as well.

Last December, Rauff Hakeem crossed over after the second reading of the budget in the hope that the JVP would vote against the budget at the third reading as they had done during the second reading. But the JVP abstained and that left the SLMC high and dry.

The present parliament has not been an auspicious one for the SLMC. They contested the 2004 April parliamentary election in alliance with the UNP and lost. After a while, they sidled up to President Kumaratunga and got portfolios ‘to work for their people’. Then came the 2005 presidential election. Once again they contested with the UNP and lost and after kicking their heels in the opposition for a while, they accepted office under president Rajapakse. Then last year, they crossed the floor thinking that the UNP was going to topple the government and that too failed. Now they find that they can’t go to a PA president for a third time, in as many years after attempting to defeat the PA.

The alternative left for the SLMC, is to remain in the opposition until the UNP is able to form a government one day. But this is not a feasible proposition for the SLMC which will be overtaken by the many Muslim splinter groups that have broken away from the original SLMC. Already, the SLMC is only a rump because there are at least six SLMC parliamentarians who have stayed back in the PA.. And even this rump splintered again last week with Hisbulla’s crossover.

So now it’s a do or die battle for the SLMC as can be seen in the action taken by the entire SLMC leadership to resign their parliamentary seats in order to contest the Eastern Provincial elections. Such a thing has never happened at a provincial election before. It is true that MPs have resigned from parliament to run for chief minister of a province. Jayawickreme Perera who marked 40 years in politics last week, resigned from parliament to be the UNP’s chief ministerial candidate in Wayamba in 1988 – a post to which he introduced a great deal of dynamism. But Perera was not a party leader. Even Varatharaja Perumal who became the chief minister of the combined northern and eastern provinces in 1988 was not a party leader. It was Padmanabha who led the EPRLF, and he did not contest the provincial council elections. This is the first time that a party leader has resigned from parliament to contest a provincial election and that alone highlights how important this election is for the SLMC.

For the UNP too the forthcoming election is a gala uda satana because if the government wins and follows it up with more provincial elections on a staggered basis, potential allies of the UNP like the CWC, will, to be on the safe side, contest with the government and this will result in the UNP losing even provinces like Uva and the Central Province where they have a chance of winning with the help of the CWC. Defeat one after the other at several provincial elections, will only set a trend which will enable the government to win a parliamentary election before the end of this year. If Wickremesinghe loses that parliamentary election as well, that will be the end of his political career.

All this can occur before the GSP+ scheme is set to expire if at all. So naturally, the last thing that the UNP has in mind right now is GSP+. They may not be around to reap the benefits of the political fallout resulting from the withdrawal of the GSP+ facility.

This is not to say that the government is in a better position position. There are only 35 seats in the EPC. If all three communities participate in the elections, as for example at the 1988 provincial elections, the Muslims and Tamils will get around 14 seats each and the Sinhalese will get around seven seats. With the JVP contesting separately, if even one seat goes to them, the government will be in a dicey position. Moreover, if any of the seven seats goes to the UNP, that too will be a set back for the government. The government is assured of some Tamil votes because of the Pillaiyan faction. But then again it must be remembered that at the last presidential elections, Karuna supported Mahinda Rajapakse, but the Tamil people in the east who were allowed to poll, voted en block for Wickremesinghe and not for Karuna’s candidate.

That election showed that Karuna’s writ actually ran in the east because the LTTE was not able to enforce their ban in the east, but it also showed that the Tamil people may not necessarily vote for the choice of the Karuna faction. In this, the factor working in the government’s favour is the Muslim demand that there should be a Muslim Chief Minister for the east. In the context of the intense rivalry between the Tamils and Muslims in the East, this is a sure fire way of ensuring that the Tamil vote will back the Tamil chief ministerial candidate. In this sense, the SLMC-UNP tie up may be a blessing in disguise for the both the government and the Pillaiyan faction. Despite all this, the government cannot afford to lose the Eastern elections because if they do, the government will lose all forthcoming elections in a reversal of what may happen to the UNP. In this respect the Eastern Province elections will be as decisive as the April 1994, Southern Provincial Council elections which marked the beginning of the end of the 17 Year UNP rule.

Centre for Policy Alternatives under fire

When the JVP politburo met last Tuesday, party leader Somawansa Amarasinghe briefed it about a meeting he had with the British parliamentary delegation and said that the main topic discussed was the human rights situation in Sri Lanka. Parliamentarian Vijitha Herath, who also heads the parliamentary select committee on non-governmental organizations said that the Centre for Policy Alternatives and some other NGOs had written to the European Union saying that human rights were being violated in Sri Lanka, and that it was on this basis that the GSP+ facility under which readymade garments were exported duty free to EU countries was being reviewed. The JVP politburo decided to address a letter to the European Parliament explaining the real situation in Sri Lanka.

On Tuesday, the UNP leader met the British parliamentary delegation comprising of Conservative, Labour and Liberal MPs. Colombo District leader Ravi Karunanyake was associated with the leader at this meeting. Given the preoccupation of the UNP these days, the main topic discussed was how free and fair elections can be held in the Eastern Province. On the same day, the final rounds of talks with the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress was concluded and it was decided that the SLMC would contest under the elephant symbol of the UNP. That same night, the party leader held a special discussion at his Cambridge Place office, with Tissa Attanayake, Ravi Karunanayake, Sajith Premadasa and others as to how the election can be won. The meeting had continued past midnight.

On Wednesday, Tissa Attanayake, Daya Pelpola and Rukman Senanyake were at Cambridge Place office attending to the nominations for the election. From time to time party leaders Rauff Hakeem and Ranil Wickremesinghe had come in to see whether things were going as planned. It had been past nine in the night when the lists were finally prepared. On Wednesday, while the nominations were being finalized the UNP leader met with ambassadors from some western countries including the Ambassadors of Germany, Italy and Australia. The main topic discussed had been the role of the opposition and the government at the coming elections.

Last week, the UNP leader also met the Indian High Commissioner at his Cambridge Place office to discuss the elections. On Thursday, the UNP held its ‘pot smashing’ protest against the government. The protest campaigns which were organized under the leadership of the electoral organizers of the UNP was more successful than the Valentines Day poster campaign that the UNP launched on the February 14. Of the mainline Sri Lankan parties, only the JVP was not facing a do or die battle in the East but it was having its own share of problems with Wimal Weerawansa striking a discordant note. It is still too early to say whether the Weerawansa affair will go over the top as in the case of Nandana Gunatilleke or whether it will be ‘contained’ like the Sunil Handunnetti affair. Interestingly, even the Weerawansa affair blew up because of statements he had made saying the Pillaiyan faction should not be disarmed just yet.

Last week, a cause for concern for the PA in general and the SLFP in particular was the JVP victory in the election of office bearers or the Educational Co-operatives. The president, himself a one time trade unionist, was concerned at this turn of events and at the SLFP convention held last week, had confided to Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle and others that the government had allocated more money for education than ever before and done so much work. Yet the PA was not able to win the educational cooperatives. He said however that they should not get into a confrontation with the JVP over this. If the Educational Cooperatives election is any indication of the government’s popularity among the general public, then that bodes ill for the Eastern Province elections.

The realities re-examined

The British parliamentary delegation, met with the JHU as well last week. The entire high command of the JHU, Champika Ranawaka, Ven Ellawala Medhananda, Udaya Gammampila, Narendra Gunatillke and others had been present at the meeting. One of the Conservative MPs had wanted to know what the JHU’s solution to the ethnic problem was. Ven Medhananda told the visiting British parliamentarians that there was no ethnic conflict as such in Sri Lanka and had launched into a lengthy explanation of the JHU view point. In the course of which the monk had told the British delegation that the British colonialists were responsible for the present state of affairs in Sri Lanka and that they should pay this country compensation for the hardships the country was going through at present. At the end of this lengthy harangue, one British MP had wanted to know when this war was going to end. To this Champika Ranawaka had said that they cannot give a definite timeframe for the elimination of terrorism.

He had pointed out that the government plan in this regard was three fold - demilitarization, democratization and development. One of the MPs had said that Norway was willing to resume its role in Sri Lanka. But Udaya Gammampila and Ven Medhananda had vehemently opposed any participation of Norway in the peace process. At the end of the discussion an English translation of Ven Medhananda’s book outlining the Sinhala Buddhist heritage of the north and east was given to each MP along with more literature on the atrocities and human rights violations committed by the LTTE.

It could be clearly seen from the whole tenor of the three hour discussion held by the British parliamentary delegation that they considered organizations like the JHU to be one of the main obstacles to any solution to the conflict. Indeed when they are given books outlining the Sinhala Buddhist heritage in the North and East, some of the MPs may have thought "Here’s the very fountainhead of the problem". But it is too simplistic to demonize the Sinhala view point as represented by organizations like the JHU.

Late last year, the Methodist church in Sri Lanka organized a seminar on Aceh in collaboration with the Indonesian Embassay in Colombo, whereby they hoped to acquire some insights as to how that conflict was solved amicably. Among the four prominent individuals who chaired the panel discussions was Javed Yusuf a leading Muslim Human Rights Lawyer in Sri Lanka and C.Mahendran a prominent member of the UNP working committee and one time advisor to Ranil Wickremesinghe. From the Acehnese/Indonesian side were such prominent individuals as Hamid Awaluddin the former Indonesian minister of justice and human rights who represented the Indonesian government at the Helsinki talks that clinched the Aceh settlement, and Nurdin Abdul Rahaman one of the Free Aceh Movement negotiators. There were also members of the Aceh Monitoring Mission, and Acehnese academics and peace activists represented at this seminar.

The conclusions of the seminar, contained in an official report signed by the Four chairpersons of the panel discussions and the leaders of the Methodist Church in Sri Lanka, makes interesting reading. The participants observed that the critical starting point for the whole negotiation process was the realization by both the Free Aceh Movement and the government of Indonesia that they could not achieve their goals through military means. This factor is missing in the Sri Lankan scenario and the Ambassadors of the EU countries and the British parliamentarians who visited Sri Lanka should take note – so long as the LTTE knows that they can count on the western countries to force the Sri Lankan government to halt hostilities by withdrawing civilian economic concessions such as the GSP+ and cutting off civilian aid, they will always continue to believe that they will finally be able to prevail over the government. The Indonesia government was not under pressure from any quarter unlike the Sri Lankan government, and thus water was allowed to find its own level – leading to a satisfactory resolution to the conflict.

Among the other points made at the seminar was that the Aceh Monitoring Mission had monitors from Asian countries as well as the EU and that the ASEAN monitors were sensitive to local conditions. The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission in contrast had only European monitors and the participants at the seminar observed that "the Sri Lankan experience with the mission that monitored the GOSL and the LTTE signed CFA, is very unsatisfactory and mainly suffered from lack of confidence from both sides in the neutrality of this mission."

Another point was that the Aceh Monitoring Mission had agreement enforcing powers to disarm and demobilize Free Aceh Movement forces. The SLMM had no such powers. Then again, another observation made at the seminar was that the Free Aceh Movement was focused on the province of Aceh where almost all the Acehnese lived. But in Sri Lanka, the majority of the Tamil people live outside the conflict areas of the North and East which are being claimed as the homeland of the Tamils. Moreover it was pointed out that the Free Aceh Movement had never resorted to suicide bombings of civilian targets and never carried their military struggle to the Indonesian capital.

Moreover the Free Aceh Movement had never sought to have their own air force and navy and its military operations were confined to Aceh. The official report of the seminar on Aceh observes "In contrast, the LTTE has demonstrated a willingness and ability to take the armed struggle into the heart of the capital and other urban areas and has created a climate of fear and aversion by the people, making it difficult to reach a compromise and political accommodation." All this should be food for thought for all those starry eyed do-gooders visiting Sri Lanka.