NPC polls: A clash of hypocrites

June 23, 2013, 8:27 pm 

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has called upon the government to replace Governor of the Northern Province Maj. Gen. (Rtd) G. A. Chandrasiri with a civilian ahead of the provincial council polls scheduled for September. Jaffna District TNA MP S. Shritharan has told The Sunday Island that he doesn’t see any difference between the present governor and a serving army officer as the North has been under ‘military rule’ since the conclusion of the war in 2009.

Confident of bagging the Northern PC, the TNA seems to fear that the Chief Minister (CM) to be elected will have to play second fiddle to the ‘military’ Governor as in the Eastern Province. However, the fact remains that even a ‘civilian governor’ will enjoy the full backing of the military and be at loggerheads with the northern CM. The TNA’s voice needs to be heeded, but it ought to explain why it had no quarrel with the LTTE’s ‘military rule’ and no qualms about accepting that outfit as the sole representative of the Tamil people though Prabhakaran did not have representation even in a local government institution and was responsible for heinous crimes against civilians including violent suppression of political dissent.

The TNA, it may be recalled, owed its presence in Parliament from 2004 to 20010 to the LTTE, which terrorised the North and the East to ensure the election of its proxies. The final report of the EU Monitoring Mission on the 2004 General Election—popularly known as the Cushanan Report—reveals how the LTTE did so. The EU monitors have called the situation that prevailed in the North and the East during that election the very ‘antithesis’ of democracy. Their report gives specific instances where the LTTE used children as young as 10 years of age to ‘vote’ for the TNA while blocking other political parties from even electioneering in those parts of the country. Here is an excerpt from that document: "The LTTE intended that no other rival Tamil party (or Tamil candidate from the mainstream political alliances) to the TNA would be able to claim to represent Tamil interests. A chilling message to this effect was sent early in the campaign when a UNP candidate and an EPDP activist were murdered. Incidents such as this seriously restricted the right of parties other than the TNA to campaign freely in the North and East." But, strangely, the results of that election were deemed valid and 22 TNA members entered Parliament!

Interestingly, the TNA, which has made an issue of a retired major general being the Governor of the North, went full steam ahead in a bid to help elect a retired general President. TNA Leader R. Sampanthan announcing his party’s unanimous decision to support former Army Commander Gen. Sarath Fonseka’s presidential bid, at a press conference in Colombo on Jan. 6, 2010 noted that Gen. Fonseka was not in the army anymore and, therefore, the TNA was not supporting a military officer in the presidential race. The UNP did likewise; it decided against fielding its leader as the presidential candidate and threw in its lot with Gen. Fonseka. Today, both parties have ganged up against the Governor of the North because he is an ex-soldier!

In the run-up to the 2010 Presidential Election, the UPFA government painted a black picture of Gen. Fonseka in the fray and insisted that he should not be trusted with powers to run civilian affairs because of his military background, but today it is defending the appointment of retired military personnel to high posts to handle civil administration.

 The Opposition’s argument that a lot more remains to done for a free and fair PC election to be held in the North is tenable, but as for the question of ex-military personnel handling civilian tasks, its hypocrisy or Pharisaicalness stinks to high heaven; so does the government’s.