The fractured North

As a quiet crisis within the TNA deepens, the need for a constitutional power sharing
arrangements to address the root causes of ethnic conflict, meet the aspirations of the
people and empower Tamil moderates grows ever more urgent

Thursday, 8 September 2016

On 23 May 2009, four days after Sri Lankas civil war had come to its brutal and
bloody end, Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon arrived in the
island.

On a quick trip to the embattled Northern Province the UN Chief flew

over the final theatre of battle in Mullaitivu, an area still smouldering from deadly
fighting, where a panel of UN experts would later estimate that tens of thousands of
people had been killed. From his helicopter, Ban gazed down upon a scorched

landscape that was heavily cratered and scattered with debris. To meet with President
Mahinda Rajapaksa whose Government had just defeated the LTTE and claimed
victory in a 26 year armed conflict, the Secretary General had to make a flying visit to
Kandy. With all the travel packed in to the UN Chiefs visit in 2009, he had fit in one
last important meeting at the Bandaranaike International Airport shortly before his
departure. Rajavarothiam Sampanthan, the leader of the largest Tamil party
represented in Parliament was to meet the Secretary General at BIA. Sampanthan
arrived at Katunayake at the appointed time, but was barred from proceeding towards
the meeting area by security personnel. Security officials informed the TNA Leader
that he could not proceed because Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, defence secretary at the time
was of the view that the airport was not a meeting place. Sampanthan reached out to
UN officials stationed in Sri Lanka, including Resident Coordinator Neil Buhne to gain
access, but the effort proved futile and the veteran Tamil politician was compelled to
forgo the meeting.
Seven years later, on his second visit to Sri Lanka, Ban Ki Moon landed in a very
different country.
This time he would fly to the northern capital of Jaffna to meet with Sampanthan and a
delegation of TNA legislators at the historic Jaffna Library on a sweltering afternoon.
Having once lost an opportunity to brief the UN Chief, the 83 year old leader of the
TNA seemed determined to make their meeting count last Friday (2). Sampanthan
who generally reserves his more fiery remarks on the ethnic question for political
speeches delivered in the North and East, surprised observers at the meeting with his
assertiveness.
Tamil frustration
The TNA Leader briefed the UN Secretary General on the continuing problems faced
by his people, including prisoners being held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act
and the delays in returning land owned by private citizens in the North and East. But it
was when the veteran Tamil politician explained the hopes riding on a new

constitution that he gave powerful expression to 60 years of Tamil frustration about

the elusiveness of a permanent solution to Sri Lankas ethnic conflict.
If the Government fails to live up to its promise to deliver on a new constitution that
meets the aspirations of the Tamil people for self-governance, the people of the Tamil
dominated regions of the island would make themselves ungovernable, the TNA
Leader asserted in his meeting with Ban. Sampanthan told the UN Chief that while the
Tamils would never take up arms again and the Tamil political leadership would
dissuade youth in their community from resorting to violence, his people would be
unwilling to submit meekly to the majoritarianism of the Centre. They dont have our
consent to govern us, he told Ban during a 30 minute meeting. The 1972 and 1978
constitutions were drafted without the consent or participation of the Tamil people.
Sampanthan said the consent of the governed was essential to democratic rule.
Ungovernable
The TNA Leaders pledge that his people would become ungovernable has resonance
with a massive civil disobedience campaign in the Northern and Eastern Provinces in
February 1961, sources with insight into the TNA meeting with Ban last Friday told
Daily FT. The campaign was organized by a disillusioned Federal Party led by S.J.V.
Chelvanayakam, after Sirimavo Bandaranaikes 1960 SLFP Government reneged on
pre-poll promises to the Federal Party about the establishment of district councils and
Tamil language provisions that would mitigate injustices of the Sinhala-Only
legislation. The satyagraha campaign crippled the Government administrative
machinery in the North and East for nearly two months until the Government sent the
military in to restore order. During the 50 day satyagraha, the North and East printed
its own postage stamps and even ran a parallel postal service in the region.
Sampanthans strong intervention on the matter of the constitution with the UN Chief
surprised some Tamil MPs participating in the meeting because the TNA Leader is
better known for his measured approach in discussions with international actors. In
his engagement with the international community and the Government, Sampanthan

is far removed from Tamil chauvinist politics and comes across as a moderate
statesman willing to work with other stakeholders. In the process of negotiating peace
and justice in Sri Lanka, the Sampanthan-led TNA adopts rational strategies. Rather
than grandstand and risk losing key opportunities to influence the process, the TNA
regularly opts for quiet diplomacy and discussion with the Government to secure to
secure mechanisms and solutions that best serve the interests of the Tamil people.
Tough positions adopted by the TNA Leader at his meeting with the UN Chief
underscores how critically important the constitution-building process has become for
the Tamil party. For the better part of 60 years, Sampanthan has watched from the
sidelines as Governments and political parties in the South have reneged on promise
after promise to the Tamil political leadership about settling the ethnic question.
Perhaps it was this experience that prompted his refusal to enter into formal
agreements with the common candidate Maithripala Sirisena in exchange for support
at the polls in January 2015. Instead, Sampanthan has chosen to trust Sirisena and his
Prime Minister and to work actively with the new administration to help them to
deliver on their promises of reconciliation and lasting peace. As far as the TNA
leadership is concerned, a new constitution provides the best opportunity to achieve
equality and political autonomy for the Tamil people and finally resolve an ethnic
conflict that has blighted the countrys post-independence history.
Historical scarring
But history has proved so scarring that even Sampanthan, who has shown wholehearted faith in the constitution-building process, is beset by doubts from time to time,
party members say. Both SLFP and UNP politicians broadly support the
decentralization of power. But the TNA fears that when it comes down to the nitty
gritty as with the question of reducing the powers of Provincial Governors, southern
politicians show a tendency to get jittery. As committees deliberate on various aspects
of the constitution and the constitution drafting process gets underway, the TNA
leadership seems to have decided that the UN Secretary Generals visit to Sri Lanka
last week was the right time to press the international community to ensure the

Government stays the course on its promises to meet Tamil aspirations.

But when Sampanthan walked out of the Jaffna Library to address the media following
his meeting with the UN Secretary General last week, demonstrators gathered outside
grew agitated. They screamed Sampanthan kallan accusing the man who had just
delivered a fiery appeal on behalf of his people before the head of the United Nations of
cheating the Tamils and being an insincere partner in the struggle for Tamil rights.
Crowds of people still searching for disappeared loved ones and demanding the return
of their lands were mobilized outside the Library that day by Northern Provincial
Councillor Ananthi Sasitharan and Tamil National Peoples Front President Gajen
Ponnambalam.
Badly received in the North
Sampanthans strategy of engagement is poorly understood in the North, where
nationalist forces are quietly mobilizing support against TNA moderates. Antagonism
towards the partys spokesman and Jaffna District Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran
is growing in Tamil nationalist circles, where he is perceived as a Colombo-bred elitist
politician, disconnected from people on the ground. In part, this perception is being
actively created by the hardline sections of the TNA who are resentful of
Sumanthirans proximity to the party leader and fear his eventual rise within the party
as Sampanthans natural successor. But observers say that growing opposition to the
TNAs alleged elitism has been somewhat mitigated by both Sampanthan and
Sumanthiran travelling more frequently to the North to engage with people on the
ground. Bottom trawling by Indian fishermen continues to rob poor Northern
fishermen of livelihood in the most remote parts of the Northern Province and
Sumanthirans decision to champion legislation to ban the illegal fishing method
within Sri Lankas territorial waters has also won him significant support on the
ground, post-election.
But the more radical sections of the North, including victims who are increasingly
frustrated by the slow pace of investigations and redress continue to perceive

Sampanthans engagement with the Government as attempts to appease the South.

And in an odd twist, recent positions adopted by the TNAs own Northern Chief
Minister C.V. Wigneswaran have compounded these fears. In an interview last week,
the Chief Minister claimed that Sumanthiran and the TNA Leader were soft-peddling
the grievances of Northern Tamils and pandering to the southern constituency in
order to endear themselves to their friends in Colombo.
When Wigneswaran entered the political fray as Sampanthans choice for Chief
Minister of the Northern Province in 2013, he was hailed as a Tamil moderate who had
navigated the Sri Lankan legal system, and an inclusive candidate who could bridge a
widening chasm between the islands north and south. For two years, the Chief
Minister played this role. He regularly sought out Sampanthans counsel and insisted
on Sumanthiran accompanying him to meetings with Government officials and visiting
foreign dignitaries.
But sometime soon after the January 2015 presidential election, Wigneswaran began
to chart his own course, taking positions and making statements that directly
contradicted positions adopted by Sampanthan and the TNA. When the Parliamentary
election was held in August last year, the Chief Minister, who had been elected on the
TNA ticket two years before, declared himself non-partisan and refused to campaign
on behalf of party candidates. He even made a subtle appeal to the Tamil people that
their support should be extended to Ponnambalams TNPF that was contesting the
TNA in the North.
Going rogue
Calls for action against the Chief Minister for breaching party discipline mounted in
the aftermath of the parliamentary poll, but faded eventually after the TNA leadership
held discussions with Wigneswaran to iron out the differences. But even since, the
Chief Minister has continued to make rash statements critical of the TNA and set
himself apart from his party. His bizarre conduct in the past year has given rise to
speculation that the Chief Minister is increasingly under the influence of hardline

Tamil nationalist forces, comprising sections of the Tamil Diaspora, an increasingly

powerful Jaffna civil society grouping and foreign advisors with alleged former links to
the LTTE. Wigneswarans conduct has proven costly, even to himself, to say nothing of
the damage it is doing to the stability of the Tamil National Alliance. International
actors and the diplomatic community based in Colombo, once so eager to meet the
elected Chief Minister of the North, have grown impatient with his inflexible positions.
The resolution in the Northern Provincial Council alleging genocide of the Tamils
during the final stages of the war badly antagonized New Delhi. And when US
Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power paid a call on him in November 2015, she
strongly urged him to acknowledge changes that were taking place on the ground in
spite of his impatience about the pace of reconciliation.
Still, when the UN Secretary General scheduled a visit to the Northern Province, the
Chief Minister was adamant to use the opportunity to secure a separate meeting with
him to discuss issues specific to the ground situation in the North. Ban was only
scheduled meet TNA parliamentarians last Friday, but TNA Leader Sampanthan
telephoned the Chief Minister and invited him to be part of the delegation.
Wigneswaran thanked his party leader and said he would deliberate on whether to join
the TNA meeting. He then set about lobbying UN offices in Colombo for a separate
meeting, and managed to secure a brief time slot with the UN Chief on the eve of Bans
visit to Jaffna. Overnight the Chief Ministers office prepared a sheaf of documentation
to be handed over to the UN Secretary General during the meeting, including lists of
the disappeared, details of land yet to be released by the military in the North and
reported cases of torture since the Sirisena administration took office.
Last minute appeal
But when Ban landed in Jaffna a little behind schedule, jittery UN officials appealed to
the Chief Minister to settle for a quick handshake and photo-op with the Secretary
General after the TNA meeting concluded. The Chief Minister explained in an
interview a few hours later, that he had told the UN staff that he would require only
five or six minutes with the Secretary General. A Colombo-based UN official

intervened at this point to ensure the Chief Minister got his slot.
According to the Chief Minister, he was keen on separate talks with the Secretary
General, since the parliamentarians from the TNA would discuss matters that were
broader in scope, while the Northern Provincial Council was best placed to explain the
problems of governance that plague the provincial council system set up by the 13th
Amendment.
The idea that the Chief Minister should be the one to brief the UN Chief on the nonworkability of the provincial councils is ironic, one TNA MP told Daily FT in Jaffna last
week. The MP who asked not to be named, noted that for the better part of three years,
there has been no real governance by the NPC short of the passage of several
controversial resolutions that have increasingly radicalized the Chief Minister and the
Council in the eyes of the Central Government and the southern polity. Wigneswaran
is neither administrator nor politician. Had he been either, he would have been able to
deal with people and work with the bureaucracy. Instead at the very outset he
antagonized the bureaucrats and he hasnt been able to win them over since, the MP
explained. Other observers say the Chief Minister led NPC is determined above all else
to prove that the provincial council is an unworkable unit of devolution; in other
words, he is explicitly setting the NPC up to fail.
A new Messiah
Unfortunately, despite this ineffectiveness, sections of the Tamil people of the North
are increasingly seeing the Chief Minister as a kind of new messiah in the struggle for
equal rights and dignity, according to seasoned politicians and political watchers in the
North. The Chief Ministers emphasis on accountability and heavy criticism of the
ongoing military presence and Sinhalaisation of the North is endearing him to a
powerful and growing lobby of Tamil nationalists in the North and outside the country.
When he accuses the TNA leadership of trying to barter the prosecution of war crimes
for devolution, the message strikes a chord among a people who have been historically
short-changed by both their own representatives and the Government at the Centre.

So far, the Chief Minister has been unable to translate this support into votes at an
election. In January 2015 and eight months later at the parliamentary poll, the Tamil
people of the North threw their weight unreservedly behind Sampanthans TNA,
returning the party with 16 seats as the third largest party represented in Parliament.
At both elections, the hardliners that have the tacit backing of the Chief Minister were
roundly defeated by the Tamil people of the North and East.
To tap into the well of support coalescing around his rhetoric and agendas,
Wigneswaran will need to strike out on his own against the TNA. He would offer
leadership to many of the Norths political stragglers and Northern provincial
councillors that have alienated themselves from the TNA leadership and given their
allegiance to the Chief Minister, seeing him as an effective counter-balance against the
moderate positions adopted by the party leadership. If the Chief Minister pushes the
TNA leadership to the edge and effects a sacking, or quits the party over the next two
years, opportunity would open up for the creation of a new political force in the North
that could bring together a motley crew of small Tamil political groupings including
Ponnambalams TNPF and smaller constituent parties within the TNA itself that have
grown increasingly impatient with the dominance of the main constituent Illankai
Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) in the alliance of Tamil parties.
EPRLF Leader Suresh Premachandran for instance, who lost the 2015 parliamentary
elections would see the Chief Minister as a path to political resurgence and the ideal
figurehead to lead a counter movement against the TNA. Whether there is space for a
splinter movement in a region ITAK has dominated electorally for decades remains to
be seen. Equally uncertain is the Chief Ministers own plans will he choose to amble
along rebelliously to finish out the two years left in his term or will he make a clean
break with ITAK and the TNA while his popularity remains high?
Greater ambition?

And what if the Chief Ministers true ambition lies elsewhere? Over the past year, Chief
Minister Wigneswaran has deliberately pitted himself against the TNA leadership. He
claims credit for the TNA resuming tough positions on devolution issues recently,
saying it was a result of his own insistence that the party sticks to its election
manifestos which call for a power-sharing arrangement designed on federal lines as a
solution to the long-standing Tamil question. His antagonism is growing towards
Sumanthiran, who he believes is actively seeking to destablise his provincial
administration by inciting a group of NPC members to oppose the Chief Minister at the
Council. The signs certainly appear to indicate that the Chief Minister could be styling
himself as the next leader of the TNA, and one whose leadership influential sections of
the North will gladly embrace.
For some constituent members of the TNA, this is a frightening prospect. Such an
eventuality would be another curse upon the Tamil people, according to the MP who
spoke to Daily FT in confidence. Tamil politicians would be left to deliver chestthumping speeches about Tamil pride and achieve nothing tangible in the struggle for
political autonomy and equal rights, the MP predicted.
Such old hands within the TNA believe the Tamil peoples best hope is to back
Sampanthan and trust his judgment about achieving a final solution. We had the
infantry and the cavalry and still we failed to achieve anything meaningful. So now our
best hope is to go through this process. And Sampanthan is the best man to lead that
process on behalf of the Tamil people, the MP said. If Tamil politicians are seen as
spoilers seeking to derail the constitution making process, it would give the
Government an excuse to shirk the issue again, the Parliamentarian warned.
The most rational sections of the TNA believe that this political moment presents the
best chance for the Tamil people to achieve a lasting solution in a long political
struggle. With both major political parties in the south currently governing by
consensus, there will be fewer attempts to sabotage power sharing proposals in a new

constitution. For its part, the Government has a bounden duty to empower Tamil
moderates by offering power-sharing proposals for the periphery that they can carry
back to the people. If the Government falters in its commitment to offer meaningful
power sharing to the North and East, it will weaken the TNAs standing in the Tamil
community and validate the rhetoric of Tamil hardliners both in the North and
overseas.
Sams legacy?
Sampanthan has a personal stake in finally achieving justice and equality for the Tamil
people. If he delivers, his will be a legacy in the Tamil struggle to rival that of
Chelvanayakam and Amirthalingam. In his political career, Sampanthan has shown
immense skill at playing the long game. The veteran Tamil politician, once denounced
as LTTE proxy and apologist, outlived the Tigers. His survival has ensured a return to
the non-violent, moderate Tamil political leadership in this post-war phase that
reflects the character of the Tamil struggle in the first decades after independence. A
litigator whose prodigious skill is legendary in the Trincomalee District court circuit, in
Sampanthan the Tamil people could not ask for a better advocate. His stature,
experience and negotiating skills are powerful motivators for a Government that owes
its existence in part to Sampanthans decision to support change in January 2015.
It has been said before, but bears repeating. A permanent political solution within
Rajavarothiam Sampanthans lifetime is Sri Lankas last best hope for achieving peace
within this generation. The TNA after Sampanthan will be a fragmented and
disintegrating alliance, whose conflicting interests will make a final solution to an
ethnic conflict that has spanned six decades only ever more elusive.

Posted by Thavam