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SRILANKA-TAMIL-POLITICS
Tamils reluctant king-makers in Sri Lanka turmoil
COLOMBO, Nov 2, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Sri Lanka’s ethnic Tamil community,
scarred by a devastating civil war, could emerge as kingmakers in a power
struggle between rival prime ministers — but they have reasons to mistrust
both.
President Maithripala Sirisena sacked Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime
minister last Friday and named former strongman president Mahinda Rajapakse
as his replacement.
Wickremesinghe refuses to accept his dismissal and has remained in the
premier’s official residence while both men fight for support in parliament.
The main Tamil party has 16 seats in the 225-member parliament that should
decide between Rajapakse, who unleashed the full force of the military on
Tamil Tiger fighters, their supporters and civilians a decade ago, and
Wickremesinghe, whose foot-dragging on reform has grated.
“We have to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea,” Tamil National
Alliance (TNA) legislator Dharmalingam Sithadthan told AFP of the two men,
both of whom are members of the majority ethnic Sinhalese community.
Wickremesinghe’s party has 104 members in parliament, while Rajapakse and
his allies have 99 — although some members of each camp have switched sides.
The 16 Tamil votes will likely play a crucial deciding role.
The prospect of Rajapakse returning to power worries Tamils concentrated in
the north and east of the country because of the bloody past.
Wickremesinghe is also distrusted because of the slow pace of promised
reconciliation after the war.
His party had promised accountability for war-time atrocities against the
Tamils, but since coming to power he has not prosecuted any of the
perpetrators.
He is also yet to deliver on promises of political reform to grant more
authority to Tamils as well as reparations for war victims.
Sri Lanka’s Tamils generally feel disconnected from national politics, but
the power struggle has shocked them, said Ahilan Kadirgamar, a political
economist from the Tamil stronghold of Jaffna in the country’s north.
“There is anxiety over Mahinda Rajapakse coming back,” he said.
The United Nations estimates that more than 100,000 people were killed in
the country’s brutal 37-year civil war, including 40,000 Tamil civilians who
perished when Rajapakse ordered a brutal final offensive in 2009.
Residents in Tamil areas were under constant surveillance during
Rajapakse’s reign.
Tamils had to get military permission to host outsiders in their homes —
even for a meal. Many feared those tight controls could return with
Rajapakse, Kadirgamar said.
Rajapakse’s decade in power ended in 2015. He blamed his presidential
election defeat on Tamils who voted against him.
– Reprisal fears –
“I get calls from my constituents asking what will happen if Mahinda
becomes PM,” the TNA’s Sithadthan said. “Our people are worried about their
security, their future.”
Sithadthan said his parliamentary bloc could risk retribution if it chose
the losing side in the power struggle.
“If we support one party, the other will target us at some time when they
return to power,” he said. “It is not a happy situation for us to be king-
makers at this time.”
Kadirgamar said Tamils were also fearful that Jaffna would once again be
militarised and the political stability of recent years threatened.
“Under Rajapakse, people always felt they were being watched,” Kadirgamar
said.
– No concessions –
Praveena Raviraj, whose legislator father was gunned down in 2006, said she
feared for her future as she believed her father was killed by Rajapakse’s
forces.
“As the daughter of a murdered member of parliament who has been living in
Sri Lanka, I am glad I just got my seven-year multiple entry visa to Canada,”
she said of the prospect of Rajapakse becoming premier.
Sirisena and Wickremesinghe came to power in 2015 promising ethnic
reconciliation and accountability for wartime excesses under Rajapakse’s
rule, but they have been slow to deliver.
On Wednesday, Sirisena said he was opposed to greater devolution for Tamils
who have been demanding more authority on land and law-and-order matters.
“As long as I am president, there will be no federal state in Sri Lanka,”
Sirisena said.
Tamil analysts said the community could not expect any Sinhalese leader to
grant concessions to the minority group.
BSS/AFP/MRI/1134 hrs