The Island Politics

by Neville Laduwahetty
The political structure of Sri Lanka is based on the concept of the center sharing power with the regions. This article explores the security implications of regional power due to the geopolitics of the Delhi/Tamil Nadu nexus, and also the relevance of regional power vis-a-vis the divided leadership within the Tamil community. To the LTTE, regional power is irrelevant because of their dedication to the creation of a separate state. If this is not an immediate possibility, regional power today would be of meaning only if it holds the promise of a separate state tomorrow. As far as the Tamil leadership in Colombo is concerned, the concept of regional power is irrelevant because this leadership does not represent a region to which power can be assigned.

As a concept, regional power cannot be considered in isolation. It has to be considered within the geopolitics of the region. For instance, the powers to be assigned to the regions have a direct bearing on the security of Sri Lanka because of the cross border linkages that exist between the Tamils in Sri Lanka and the Tamils in Tamil Nadu. Many have commented that these linkages are not a constraint, and that they arise from a "minority complex" among the Sinhala People despite their numerical majority in Sri Lanka. A recent assurance was that the "...fear that the demand for an "Eelam" or next best alternative is a step in the direction of "Enosis" with Tamilnadu is misplaced" (Ranita Hensman, 10/28/98, Island, "Tamil Homeland Concept").

Whether there will be an "Enosis" with Tamil Nadu or not, the fact that Tamil Nadu has brought considerable pressure on the Indian Central government in Delhi regarding issues that relate to Sri Lanka is well documented. Therefore, a separate state "or next best alternative" would strengthen the linkages with Tamil Nadu, which in turn would threaten the security and hamper the freedoms of the rest of the Sri Lankan nation. "As the people of Tamil Nadu have an ethnic linkage with their brethren across the Palk Straits, Tamil Nadu has become a determining factor in shaping India's relations with Sri Lanka in recent years" (Sivarajah, "Politics of Tamil Nationalism in Sri Lanka", 1996).

The symbiotic relationship that exists between the Tamils in Sri Lanka and those in Tamil Nadu is well known. This relationship has been exploited by both, to the advantage of each and also by Delhi to its own advantage. In "Dynamics of Tamil Nadu Politics in Sri Lanka", Palanithurai & Mohanasundaram (1993) state:

"Meanwhile, the D.M.K. in Tamil Nadu linked its autonomy demand with the struggle of the Sri Lankan Tamils and such attempt indicated the trend that how the domestic problem of one country had its effect on its neighbour".

The bargaining position of Tamil Nadu in the formulation of central government coalitions have enabled them to influence India's Foreign Policy towards Sri Lanka. It was primarily pressure from Tamil Nadu that caused India to violate the sovereignty of Sri Lanka.

Major General Afsir Karim in his book titled "Transnational Terrorism" - The dangers in the South (1993) states:

"It is evident that we have been sitting atop a volcano, without realizing the danger that it is starting to show itself. Our intelligence agencies, as usual, have remained inert. Till the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, they were actually helping the LTTE's subversive activities obviously under the impression that the LTTE has no ambition in India, and that their activities remain confined to Sri Lanka only. This was a costly delusion.... Srikanth's interrogation revealed that the long term strategy of the LTTE was to create a "Pan-Dravida-Nadu" joining Tamil Nadu with the Tamil regions of Sri Lanka".

These linkages with Tamil Nadu are compounded by the North South posturing relating to language and majority/minority rule within India and Sri Lanka. Palanithurai & Mohanasundaram (Ibid) further state:

"While the D.M.K. was fighting against the imposition of Hindi as well as the northern dominance, Sri Lankan Tamils fought against the Sinhala language and the dominance of the Sinhalese in the governance of the island". Further along, they quote from Spratt's book titled (D. M. K. in Power"): "...the D. M. K. party would lead a secession from India and the Federal Party would lead a secession from Ceylon and the two would join to form a united nation and state".

These statements endorse the extent of the cross-border linkages between the Tamils in Sri Lanka and those in Tamil Nadu.

Developments in Canada should be a lesson for Sri Lanka. During the recent campaign "a separatist hard-liner" told a group of students that "the Quebecois strategy was really to use the threat of separation to milk the rest of Canada for all the concessions it could get, and then to go ahead with separation" (The New York Times, December 1, 1998). Most analysts believe that the separation of Quebec would cause the dissolution of the Canadian federation. The territorial integrity of Sri Lanka is equally vulnerable. The cross border linkages with Tamil Nadu make even Provincial Councils a threat to the security of Sri Lanka. In this context any form of division of the country would make the security of Sri Lanka. In this context any form of division of the country would make the security of Sri Lanka fragile and independence, meaningless.

These security threats are being overlooked because of a mistaken reliance on the power of Constitutions. This misconception is based on the belief that Constitutions by themselves can guarantee stability without the backing of security capabilities to enforce the provisions of Constitutions. This is in sharp contrast to the emphasis given to security considerations during the pre-colonial traditions of the Sinhala Kings where security was the responsibility of the heir apparent. These traditions were in keeping with the emphasis given to security in modern stable democracies.

Stable democracies are fully aware that constitutions can endure only as long as there is a security establishment to enforce the provisions in Constitutions. In commenting on the "Conditions for Domestic Peace", Hans Morgenthau states:

"Peace among social groups within the nation reposes upon a dual foundation: the disinclination of the members of society to break the peace and their inability to break the peace if they should be so inclined. Individuals be unable to break the peace if overwhelming power makes an attempt to break it a hopeless undertaking" ("Politics Among Nations", 1995).

Sri Lanka did not recognize the need for "overwhelming power" to maintain domestic peace. Consequently, the insurgencies in the South and the North occurred because the insurgents believed that they could advance their beliefs through violence without too great a risk. However, even with "overwhelming power", Sri Lanka would be constrained in dealing with a Tamil insurgency because of the geopolitical influence of Tamil Nadu.

It was while attempting to subdue a Tamil insurgency that Sri Lanka was forced to accept Provincial Councils through the intervention of the Delhi/Tamil Nadu nexus. This nexus had the power to alter the very Constitutional character of Sri Lanka to be in keeping with that of India. Advantages in regional powers in one country would encourage their "brethren" in the neighbouring country to seek similar advantages. By creating a parallel regional structure in Sri Lanka the opportunity for the nexus to influence the developments in Sri Lanka and vice-versa is greatly increased. The approach instead should be to structure the political arrangements in a manner to minimize the influence of this nexus.

The concept of regional power should also be viewed in the background of the split in the Tamil leadership between the English educated Colombo-based Tamils and the Tamil youth in the North. The Tamil Voice (USA), in its Summer 1995 issue stated:

"Many are slow to realize that power within the Tamil society has now effectively shifted from an English-educated Colombo-based elite to a local group of men and women". Under these circumstances regional power would be enjoyed by a "local group of (Tamil) men and women".

The LTTE are the self proclaimed leaders of these "local men and women". The goal of the LTTE is to ultimately create a separate state. It is only a separate state that would give them legitimacy and also the opportunity to foster their vision for a Utopian state as outlined in the Vaddukoddai resolution. Their hope is either to exhaust the Sri Lankan nation and win a separate state militarily, or negotiate the next best, perhaps, with third party intervention, and use the powers negotiated to further the creation of a separate state. The Colombo-based Tamil leadership would not have any influence in these developments nor would they have any place in the new society.

Regional power was the hope of the Tamil community. However, in view of the divisions within the community, the leadership that could represent regional power is either the LTTE or the Colombo based Tamils. Both readerships cannot coexist at the same time in the same region, and since there is only one region, there can be only one leadership that can exercise the powers assigned to the region. These developments make the concept of regional power to the Tamil community meaningless. To expect the larger Sri Lankan nation to sacrifice their security so that 5 to 6 percent of the population could have the opportunity to engage in social engineering for the purpose of creating their version of a Utopian state as outlined in the Vaddukoddai Resolution is unacceptable.

It is doubtful that the Colombo-based Tamil leadership bargained for these developments. There is no doubt that their strategy has gone awry. Their plan for. regional power was in the hope that they would be the leaders of a separate region/state. The "youth" have usurped their place in history and in doing so the Colombo-based leaders have become irrelevant. Negotiating regional powers with them has no meaning because they do not represent a region to which powers can be assigned as long as the "youth" are around. Since the LTTE is only interested in negotiating terms that would eventually pave the way to a separate state, negotiating with them is equally of no value.

The security concerns of the larger Sri Lankan nation run counter to the political interests of the Sri Lankan Tamils. The greater the degree of regional power for the Sri Lankan Tamils, the greater the insecurity for the Sri Lankan nation. Since these threats are not perceived threats any more, but real, the concept of regional power should be abandoned if Sri Lanka is to avoid the Canadian experience.

Aside from threats of separatist insurrections, the Canadian Government has challenged Quebec's right to unilaterally secede. In August 1998, the Supreme Court of Canada " ... declared that neither the Quebec government nor legislature have a legal right under Canadian constitutional law or under international law to unilaterally secede from Canada". (Quebec Sovereignty and Canadian National Unity" - ITP Nelson Political Science Web Pages). The question that preoccupies Canadians is: what if Quebec does unilaterally secede? Will the rest of Canada resort to force and compel Quebec to remain within the federation or allow the process of dissolution of the federation to start with Quebec. Sri Lanka too will have to find answers to similar questions unless the concept of regional power is abandoned.

Such are the perils of regional power. By pursuing this concept Sri Lanka is inviting an unstable future. In economic terms, this instability would mean that resources that would be used for economic development would be diverted towards maintaining a security establishment in readiness. It is imperative that a radically new approach is sought. The only political structure that would address the security concerns of the Sri Lankan nation and have the potential to address the political interests of the Sri Lankan Tamils as well is a centralized government within which power is shared.

It is only a centralized government that can guarantee the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka and through it render security to the larger Sri Lankan nation. The need of the hour is for the larger Sri Lankan nation to demand that their security should be the primary consideration in the formulation of any political arrangements.

by Dayan Jayatilleke
All of these processes and micro processes took place against the backdrop of a much larger phenomenon, the war between the IPKF and the LTTE, which in turn was the cause and manifestation of the deep crisis of the Accord. The NEPC was thus set up not as the fruit of a Successful Accord but belatedly as part of an attempt to manage the crisis of the Accord and in the Sri Lankan system as a whole. This was another reason for its terminal failure. It was a particularly bitter reminder of the phenomenon of uneven development and dialectical irony: when the minimal conditions had been created on the ground for the setting up of the NEPC, the politico-psychological conditions necessary for its success had come and gone It was the opposite of a premature birth; it was long overdue and when it arrived it was virtually-but not quite-stillborn, kept alive artificially, grotesquely mis-shapen, foredoomed. All that the Premadasa administration really did was to pull the plug and that too when it was hardly given a choice.

The Accord had been plunged into crisis on the political and military fronts and in the Northern and Southern theatres. In short, the crisis was total. The obvious reasons were the fierce resistance of the LTTE and the growing revolt of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). The two were objectively interactive. Had the LTTE resistance either not taken place or been swiftly overcome, then the Sinhala backlash could have been contained by the coalition of pro-Accord forces of Centre-Right and Left. Conversely, had the JVP uprising been capable of suppression as swiftly as it had been in 1971, the IPKF could have been permitted to take longer to fulfil its task, and perhaps more importantly, the devolutionary process could have been speeded up at the Colombo end as the Indians and the Tamil parties wanted. As it happened, the LTTE's resistance and political lobbying in Tamil Nadu had brought the Tamil Nadu factor back into the act in a major way, constituting an interest that Rajiv Gandhi who had to face elections could not ignore. Delhi therefore felt it had to measure its military response in some manner with the quantum of devolution it could have said to be extracting from Colombo. It had to be seen to be getting something for the Tamil people of the North-East. What is more, it had to be seen to strive for a deal that would eventually be acceptable to and encompass the LTTE; and it had to tell the state government in Tamil Nadu with some credibility that it was not fighting to eliminate the LTTE but only to drive it to the negotiating table. This was not only for their benefit but also for those influential Tamils in Jaffna, Colombo and in the West who had access to the Indians from the days of the joint diplomatic/propaganda campaign on human rights waged against the Government of Sri Lanka. The Indian line was no facade. It was the actual policy within which the military operation against the Tigers was carried out. This policy was also fostered by the brilliant deception operation carried out by the Tigers who deployed Kittu (Prabhakaran's former deputy and LTTE's Commander of Jaffna) to convince the RAW of this - which he did with great success probably because he was given to believe it himself. That deception operation consisted of a protracted negotiation over the specific detailed conditions which could bring the Tigers around.

Thus the Indians were fighting a limited war against the LTTE, while Prabhakaran was fighting a total war against them. Furthermore, the Indians were fighting such a limited war exactly at the time that only a total war strategy could have secured a victory swiftly enough, or could have shown sufficiently manifest progress towards victory, to have pacified the Accord's Southern flank. In short, the Sinhalese were being asked at that time not only to swallow the Accord and the large scale military presence of an army of its historic foe, but to swallow this without clear signs of a compensatory trade-off. In other words, it did not look as though the Tigers were being eliminated. It also meant that the IPKF was not making sufficient progress to make their stay an assuredly short one. The initial behaviour of the IPKF in the Eastern Province, which included the shooting of a Buddhist monk in Trincomalee in the context of a demonstration, and standing aside while over 200 Sinhalese were burned to death by the Tigers in Batticaloa after the Pulendran suicide had generated deep hostility towards the IPKF in the Sinhala areas. J R Jayewardene was therefore being put under great pressure by the Indians in making concessions to the Tamils-or, if you prefer, delivering on his promises concerning 'residual matters'-precisely at a time that he could least appear to do so. Similarly and simultaneously, he was asking the Indians for a visibly full-blooded offensive to eliminate the Tigers at a time that the Indians could not be seen among the Tamils to be doing so-and certainly not without the progress on the devolution front, that Jayewardene could not possibly make. It was not just a single 'Catch 22,' but a whole set of them, interlocking with each other. The NEPC 'election,' when it took place in late 1988, was a desperate attempt to cut the Gordian knot; but such a knot could not possibly be cut from within, which is what the setting up of the NEPC was an attempt to do.

The political constraints that Delhi faced, or allowed itself to be enmeshed in, were compounded by a number of errors in the spheres of military strategy and tactics, themselves stemming from a seriously flawed outlook. In other words, the failure of the IPKF to defeat the LTTE in the whole year of fighting that followed the commencement of the war on 10 October 1987, cannot be placed solely at the door of the politicians and officials who imposed political constraints on the armed forces. It was not simply a question of the IPKF being forced to fight with one hand tied behind its back. The political errors or compulsions were compounded by gross errors in military thinking.

Firstly, the Indians were outgunned at the most basic level of light infantry (bearing light arms). It is little short of incredible that the Indian military high command thought that a light infantry armed with archaic self-loading rifles (SLRS) could go up against a light infantry armed with M-16s and AK-47s. Sri Lankan policemen on their beats on the streets of Colombo are and at that time were better armed than the IPKF personnel-except for the elite para-commandos who carried the same weapons as the Sri Lankan Police! It is not that the Indians did not know of the standard weaponry carried by the LTTE fighters: not only was there a surfeit of pictorial evidence in Western and Indian newspapers, a considerable number of the AK-47s were procured, transhipped or given permission for by the RAW itself (though certainly all branches of the Indian apparatus including the RAW greatly underestimated the number of weapons inducted independently and clandestinely to the North-East by the LTTE).

Secondly, the Indians grossly mismanaged their relations with the Sri Lankan military-thereby depriving themselves of much needed intelligence on matters such as the size and composition of the Tiger arsenal. The point is not whether the Indian perception of Brigadier Denzil Kobbekaduwa having given arms and ammunition to the LTTE in Vavuniya-and then repeating the operation when transferred to Trincomalee-was in fact true. (The figure mentioned to me at the time by senior High Commission officials was 75,000 rounds of ammunition. The figure given by General Kalkat, commander of the IPKF was even higher; it included RPGs-and he told me that Brigadier Kobbekaduwa flew in, in his helicopter, to Alampil to oversee the transfer). What is important is that the Indians never stopped to think of what might have motivated the Sri Lanka military's most outstanding combat commander and a longstanding foe of the Tigers to act in such a way. They never cared to consider what they could do, or not do, or undo to neutralise such emotions Instead they contented themselves with attributing it variously to Lalith Athulathmudali's orders or the British-trained Kobbekaduwa's antipathy to the Indian influence in the officer corps spearheaded by the 'good guys' i.e. by definition, those trained in India.

Thirdly, the Indians hardly ever utilised tactical air power in a close support role. It was Moshe Dayan who correctly observed on a visit to South Vietnam in the 1960s that "counter guerrilla warfare is helicopter warfare" and went on to say that this was the one field in which the Israelis had anything to learn from the Americans. The Indians used helicopters only for troop transport purposes. The MI-24s helicopter gunships were hardly ever used. When this writer asked General Kalkat about this at a conference in Lucerne on the Accord 10 years later, his answer was that he did not want to use the MI-24 for fear of causing civilian casualties-which does not explain the use of tanks and heavy artillery in the battle of Jaffna town, which did cause considerable civilian casualties. A year later, in a conversation in Delhi, he confessed that in the entire Indian military there were only five MI-24s, of which he managed to secure two after considerable lobbying. The red tape that enveloped the procurement procedures for the Indian military was such that neither helicopter gunships nor the lowlier AK47s could be purchased for the duration of the IPKF's stay! The irony was that since the RAW was a civilian organisation, far more flexible than a military bureaucracy, it could and did secure enormous quantities of AK47s for its Tamil clients, including the LTTE. General Kalkat ruefully disclosed to this writer that the elite Indian pare-commando units could be equipped with AK47s only if and when they were captured from the LTTE. General Ashok Mehta, commander of the IPKF in the Batticaloa-Ampara sector made an equally rueful admission, namely that his troops had to borrow AK47s from their Tamil allies the EPRLF, which had received the weapons from the RAW!

Not even pro-LTTE propagandists have done justice. to Prabhakaran's achievement in relation to the Indian military machine. It is often mentioned that he frustrated Rajiv Gandhi, J N Dixit and the world's fourth largest standing army, but it is hardly mentioned that he bested General Krishnaswamy Sunderji, Commander-in-Chief of the Indian armed forces. General Sunderji had been glamorised and almost mythicised by the Indian media; but the myth was destroyed in the jungles, paddy fields and narrow dusty roads of the North-East of Sri Lanka by Prabhakaran and Mahattaya (Prabhakaran's Deputy Commander and Vanni District Commander of the LTTE who was also the frontline combat commander of the Battle of Jaffna against the IPKF), leaving General Sunderji, upon retirement, a newspaper columnist who was no more than a poor version of K K Subhramaniyam (India's leading civilian strategic thinker, analyst and commentator). General Sunderji was unable, in the war with the LTTE, to transcend or even clearly discern and counteract, the limitations of the instrument as well as the corporate mindset he was heir to as Commander-in-Chief of the Indian armed forces. This apparatus reflected the weaknesses and strengths of India. Its middle and upper echelons were superbly officered, but the chain of command did not provide for tactical flexibility and rapid innovative response. When tactical flexibility was permitted it was for specific units and later when it became more generalised, it was far too late in the war. At the level of the foot soldier, all the backwardness and brutality of the Indian countryside was manifest-which made for an incredible mismatch between the average Tiger cadre and the average IPKF fighter. Furthermore, the far more sophisticated Tamil populace resented being policed clumsily by these ill-clad and loutish infantrymen. The Indians did not realise the enormous difference between this insurgency and those of their own North Eastern states. Those were ethno-tribal insurgencies, taking place at a far lower level of ethno-national development i.e. sociohistorical evolution, than Sri Lanka's Northern and Eastern Provinces. Those elements of the Indian state and military who did realise this went to the opposite extreme, adopting policies of appeasement and even collusion/collaboration with the LTTE.

There was perhaps only one course of action that could have changed things around, and that was a policy of close co-operation with the Sri Lankan armed forces. It is to the credit that between them Vardharajah Perumal and Gamini Dissanayake hammered out such a proposal for triangular joint action between the Sri Lankan forces, the IPKF and the EPRLF, and this proposal was carried to New Delhi by Gamini Dissanayake sometime in 1988. However it did not fly in Delhi, because the Rajiv Gandhi administration could not afford, politically, to permit the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) to come out of barracks in the North East, still less be seen to co-operate with them. It would have played very badly in Madras and Jaffna. Secondly, the proposal probably hurt the institutional pride of the Indian military establishment. Thirdly, and in all fairness to the Indians, the Southern insurgency was at such a point of intensity that the Sri Lankan troops could probably have not been spared. Finally, the surrealistic character of the Southern systemic crisis of that time is best evidenced by the fact that Lalith Athulathmudali, Minister for National Security, attempted to steal Gamini Dissanayake's thunder on his visit to Delhi, by the bizarre "settlement" he signed with a "representative" of the JVP just at that time - a settlement which of course was soon exposed as a hoax!

The very year which witnessed at its end, the setting up of the NEPC, saw in its beginning months an act which dealt a heavy blow to the Accord on its Southern flank, thereby irreparably weakening the conditions necessary for the success of the NEPC itself. This act was the assassination of Vijaya Kumaratunga, leader of the Sri Lanka Mahajana Party (SLMP) by the JVP. A very popular film actor, he was the husband of Chandrika Bandaranaike, now Sri Lanka's fourth Executive President. Just as the shifting balance between the non-LTTE Eelam organisations and the LTTE (dealt with earlier in this article), decisively shaped, even determined the subsequent evolution of the Sri Lankan crisis the shift in the balance between the JVP (and pro-JVP forces) on the one hand and the anti-JVP groups on the other determined the situation in the South, impacting decisively on the Accord and the fate of the NEPC.

By Nayana
In the Colombo Law Library on the morning after the Wayamba election, a lawyer of presumably PA sympathies was heard to express jubilation at the result. When some less sanguine colleagues expressed reservations about the manner in which the result had been achieved, this lawyer's reply was that in a few months' time people will only remember the victory and not how it was achieved.

This cavalier attitude may perhaps have been valid in the case of a general or presidential election which is a one-off event held every six years or so. However such thinking may not hold good on this occasion where, thanks to last week's Supreme Court judgment, there are five more Provincial Council elections due to be held within the next three months.

Voters in the Western, Sabaragamuwa, Uva, Central and North-Central Provinces must surely be praying that the nightmare of the Wayamba campaign, where even children were not spared, will not be repeated.

The challenge facing activists in the cause of free elections is to devise means by which such large-scale malpractices can be averted. The mere thought of being watched or even photographed by "monitors" has proved to be no deterrent to the perpetrators.

The Government, on the other hand, appears to be searching for ways to get over the public relations debacle that has accompanied their so-called sweeping win in Wayamba.

The reported utterances of prominent government figures at the press conference they held in the aftermath of the election is suggestive of a pre-emptive campaign to discredit both the non-governmental election monitors and those public officers of the Elections Department who reported malpractices at the poll.

The bogey of "foreign funded NGOs" that has once again been raised requires some clarification. On the one hand, receipt of financial assistance from agencies outside Sri Lanka is not confined to NGOs. By that criteria even our Governments have to some extent been "foreign funded". Moreover, this Government's devolution package proposes the creation of foreign-funded Regional Councils with power to raise money directly from overseas. There is thus nothing inherently illegal in receiving financial assistance from foreign sources.

On the other hand, there is no doubt that in some situations an organization's source of funding could affect its credibility. Hence, in the interests of transparency, it would be difficult to argue against a provision for compulsory disclosure of funding sources, but any such requirement should apply not only to NGOs but also to public authorities, political parties and all those individuals who hold or seek high public office.

According to a report in the government-controlled "Daily News" People's Alliance General Secretary and Government Minister D. M. Jayaratne has branded as UNP sympathisers all those officers of the Elections Department who brought to the Commissioner's notice the irregularities that resulted in the nullification of votes from 212 polling stations.

If this report is correct, it is suggestive of an attempt to deter election officials from doing their duty before the next round of elections.

Such officials should be advised, however, that any attempt to discriminate against them on political grounds, for example in the matter of transfers, promotions or compulsory retirement, can be made the subject of a fundamental rights application to the Supreme Court.

The power vested in the Commissioner of Elections to annul the poll in selected polling station areas without a corresponding power or indeed duty to order a re-poll was introduced by the Elections (Special Provisions) Act No. 35 of 1988. This piece of legislation was passed to enable the holding of Provincial Council elections during the period of civil unrest that followed the signing of the Indian Peace Accord, but there was no time limit to its operation and it will remain on the statute book until repealed or amended.

Its effect is to legitimize provincial elections without counting votes from areas where it has not been possible to open the polling station or where a station has had to be closed prematurely, or where it has not been possible to deliver the ballot boxes to the Counting Officer. The Act lays down no limit on the number of polling stations whose vote count can be disregarded in this manner.

Unless a power to annul is accompanied by a duty to conduct a re-poll, it operates as a virtual licence for thuggery, since selected polling stations can be targeted for disruption with a view to affecting the overall result. Both government and opposition parties could attempt this tactic, but the real losers would be the people of the area who are arbitrarily deprived of their fundamental right to vote.

Had anyone been vigilant enough to challenge the Elections (Special Provisions) Act when it was in Bill form, the particular provision under discussion might have been declared unconstitutional.

In any event with the doors to fundamental rights jurisdiction now being thrown open to election cases, the story of the Wayamba poll is not yet over. "FR" jurisdiction tends to be considerably faster than conventional election petition cases since no witnesses need be called and there is no appeal, and it is thus likely to be the preferred remedy wherever possible. The speed with which the Supreme Court has heard and given leave to proceed in the case filed by a UNP organizer from the North-Western Province is an indication that such cases will be given priority.

Meanwhile the ground-breaking judgment in which the Supreme Court paved the way for the holding of elections in the five Provinces where they were due last August will rank as one of the leading constitutional cases in this country, touching on fundamental rights, the powers and duties of the Elections Commissioner, the framing of emergency regulations and the application of Presidential immunity.

Space requires that a detailed consideration of this judgment be reserved for next week's column.

by Zacki Jabbar
The hustle and bustle to the North Western Provincial Council Election is over and the Peoples Alliance has claimed an "emphatic" victory while the Opposition parties and the Election Monitors are crying foul.

In this interview with "The Island" Mr. de Mel says that in addition to court action the UNP will on February 2, launch the biggest mass movement ever seen since independence to agitate for the re-establishment of democracy in this country.

Q: What other steps does the UNP intend taking apart from petitioning the Supreme Court against the conduct of the North Western Provincial Council Elections?

A: We will take the other step of filing an election petition in the normal course of events. An election petition as you know will take a long time to be adjudicated.

But the immediate step would be the commencement of a mass movement for the restoration of democracy in Sri Lanka along with all other freedom loving political parties, movements, organisations, associations and individuals in this country. This mass movement will commence with a massive Sathyagraha and demonstration in Colombo on February 2. It will be followed by similar demonstrations in selected centres in the NWP and all other parts of the country until democracy is restored once more in Sri Lanka.

As you know this government over the last four years has virtually killed democracy in this country and the NWP elections was the last straw.

A: It will be a peaceful and non-violent movement to create a strong public opinion and popular base which is necessary for the restoration of democracy. It will have clear aims and objectives. Free and fair elections will be the most important of these objectives. Without free and fair elections democracy is dead. The UNP will agitate for an Independent Elections Commission to ensure complete freedom and independence for all elections officials. An independent police commission to ensure a police force free from political interference and political control and an independent public service commission which will ensure complete freedom for public servants to do their duty without fear or favour.

The UNP as you know has made well formulated and clear proposals for these bodies to be set up to the Select Committee on Constitutional Reform. I personally proposed these measures to the Select Committee about two years ago. These proposals have been embodied in writing and forwarded to the Select Committee by the Party more than one year ago. The government has not yet responded. The agitation for the creation of these three institutions will be part of our mass movement. Without these institutions there can no longer be free and fair elections in Sri Lanka, without such institutions democracy will be dead in this country.

We will also demand the strengthening of our judiciary, complete freedom of the press and other mass media, strengthening of measures to ensure the independence of journalists and mass media personnel and their freedom from intimidation, undue influence, assault, shooting, death threats. etc.

In addition we will also agitate for certain other measures which will strengthen the democratic process in Sri Lanka. We hope to make this the biggest mass movement ever in the history of this country since independence.

Q: The government says that a comparison of the results of the 1994 General Election, 1997 Local Government Election and the NWPC election proves that Monday's poll was not rigged.

A: I can give a complete answer to this claim of the PA. Let us take Kurunegala district as a whole. When the UNP was at the very height of its unpopularity in 1994 and President Chandrika Kumaratunga was at the very height of her popularity the UNP polled 332,547 votes in the Kurunegala district while the PA polled 366,586. The difference was only 34,000. We had to get approximately 17,000 more votes plus a minimum of half the new votes. As I worked only in the Kurunegala district I am taking only this district for the purposes of a quick comparison.

With the present unpopularity of the Peoples Alliance we expected to get a minimum of 75,000 more votes in Kurunegala. Hiriyala for example is an electorate that the UNP has always won, even in 1956 and 1970. At the height of our unpopularity in the 1994 parliamentary election and even without an MP in Hiriyala. We won that electorate by 2,200 votes. According to our MPs and party workers who worked there we should have won Hiriyala by a minimum of 6,000 votes. But this time after 60 per cent of the polling booths in Hiriyala were invaded and captured by armed gangs of PA thugs led by their MPs and even Deputy Ministers and Ministers brandishing T 56 and other weapons the ballot boxes were completely taken over and stuffed.

Our MPs and party supporters working in the area were chased away by 8.30 a.m. and had to seek refuge in our party office in Kurunegala. The PA therefore had a field day in Hiriyala and a seat which we won even in 1994 by 2200 votes was lost by 11,772 votes. Hiriyala was a sure seat for us if a free and fair election had been held.

The same is true of Polgahawela. We won Polgahawela in 1994 by over 300 votes. According to our reports and my own personal observation we should have won Polgahawela easily by over 5,000 votes. Polgahawela was also invaded by civil armed gangs from as early as 6.30 a.m. A large number of the polling booths which were most favourable to us was captured, the ballot boxes were stuffed and as a result we lost Polgahawela by 6,026 votes. Whereas in a free and fair election we should have won it by over 5,000 votes.

In 1994 we lost Kurunegala itself by only 131 votes. Since then we have won both the Municipality and the Pradeshiya Sabha elections. We therefore expected to win Kurunegala comfortably by over 4,000 votes but after 30 per cent of the polling booths in Kurunegala were captured by armed PA gangs and the poll completely rigged we lost even Kurunegala by 4758 votes.

The same is true of many of the other electorates both in the Kurunegala district and Puttalam districts. A complete analysis electorate by electorate and polling booth by polling booth will reveal the exact situation. The Commissioner of Elections himself admits that his officials have reported that 212 polling stations had been invaded by armed gangs who forcibly stuffed the ballot boxes and that nine ballot boxes were burnt.

Our MPs have reported that 660 polling stations in both districts out of a total of 1160 were invaded by armed gangs. Our polling agents chased out and the ballot boxes stuffed.

I can give you many more such details I have participated in all elections in this country since independence either as a member of the old Ceylon Civil Service conducting elections or for the last 32 years as a Member of Parliament. This was easily the worst election I have ever seen.

A: As I did not work in Puttalam district I cannot truthfully say what happened there but from reports reaching me from the MPs and party supporters who worked there the some thing happened in Puttalam district also. It was a well organised, well orchestrated and well led campaign of invading and capturing polling stations, particularly those favourable to the UNP, chasing away our voters on and stuffing the ballot boxes. Thousands of state and corporation vehicles some of them with no number plates were used for this purpose. I myself saw a gang of more than 500 assembled in Kahatagaha mines in Dodangaslanda electorate which belongs to the Ministry of Industries. I also saw two other such gangs in a community centre and in the hall of a village temple near Kurunegala. This operation started on the day before the election. Even some of our MPs working in Kurunegala were blocked on the roads on the day before by these gangs. Shots were fired and the MPs had to flee for their lives and come to our office in Kurunegala even the day before the election. When even MPs were attacked and virtually chased out how do you expect the ordinary villager to go and vote.

Q: The government has claimed that the poll was conducted in a free and fair manner and the PA's victory is a personal triumph for President Chandrika Kumaratunga.

A: I think what I have said proves that this was anything but a free and fair election. At Wednesday's press conference given by several Cabinet Ministers the General Secretary of the SLFP itself has admitted that some PA supporters were involved in violent incidents and that the PA would be going into complaints against its members and that they would be dealt with later.

Even the propaganda chief of the PA Minister Mangala Samaraweera seems to have admitted according to "The Island" newspaper of January 28 that all PA supporters are not "Saints" and that "there were some who were involved". It would appear that the President herself has given some directions to "take stern action against any members who have allegedly been involved in election related violence" according to the Daily News of January 28, which is the State paper. It appears that their guilty conscience is pricking them. I need not say more.

A: As far as I know a decision has been taken by the elected UNP members to boycott the NWPC as they do not see any point in taking part in the proceedings of a council elected in such a fraudulent election.

by Shan Wijetunga
President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga was hosted to dinner by chief ministerial candidate of the PA before she left for Colombo after addressing the last PA rally for the People's Alliance at Kurunegala last Friday.

All Ministers in charge of polls propaganda at the recent election M/s Mangala Samaraweera, Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, Dharmasiri Senanayake, D. M. Jayaratne, Kingsley Wickremaratne, Anuruddha Ratwatte, Hema Ratnayake and Deputy Ministers Reginald Cooray, Atauda Seneviratne and Lakshman Kiriella were present at the dinner and briefed the President of their progress in their electioneering work.

The President left the dinner party full of confidence stating that she was certain the PA would win the polls but to be vigilant about possible violence from their opponents and to ensure that their party supporters voted.

The media came in for much criticism at the dinner especially a week-end national newspaper whose editor was said to have forgotten his beginnings attacking the People's Alliance indiscriminately.

The ministers criticised several private TV channels specially the TNL alleging that the channels went all out to discredit the People's Alliance. The President agreed.

The President instructed her ministers to contact her in case of any urgent necessity and then left the party at 11 p.m.

Ranil
After the final UNP election propaganda rally at Kuliyapitiya Ranil Wickremasinghe returned to the residence of Rohitha Bogollagama at Kurunegala where he stayed during electioneering in Kurunegala.

Ranil met General Secretary Gamini Athukorale, Chief Ministerial contestant Gamini Jayawickrama Perera and some other party MPs at Bogollagama's residence discussed the situation in the North Western Province and while expressing confidence of winning the election was worried about the rumour undesireable elements may provoke violence during the last two days of the election to frighten UNP supporters from polling.

Ranil

He also feared that if the polling agents were threatened they would keep away from the booths. To ensure the attendance he urged the UNP MPs of the area and the cluster organisers to encourage their supporters and safeguard their polling agents.

In the meantime as it was believed that the voters were aware that the PA would do everything possible to win the election. The whole of last Saturday Ranil was with Ronnnie de Mel, A. C. S. Hameed, Gamini Athukorale and Karu Jayasuriya discussing ways and means to counteract any possible threats on the election day.

At about 7.00 p.m. that day the U.N.P. leader left for Colombo to attend a marriage ceremony of a party stalwart.

Meanwhile a top secret discussion was held by a stalwart at the residence of a businessman at Kurunegala allegedly to discuss ways of chasing out supporters of other political parties who had come from outside areas and to ensure a definite PA victory.

Election Day
On that fateful day the President and Mr. Ranil Wickramasinghe were constantly being informed by their supporters at the election site of the escalating political violence in the North Western Province.

Ranil immediately summoned Karu Jayasuriya to his residence where Attorneys Daya Pelpola, Milinde Moragoda, Bodhi Ranasinghe and a large gathering of party supporters were already at Cambridge Place.

A questionnaire was prepared to be sent out to all MPs of the party in the area to furnish details of election violence, An office was set up at the office of the leader of opposition at Marcus Fernando Mawatha to process action on election violence.

Action had also been taken to call for a press conference to enlighten the media on election violence in the north western province.

Meanwhile the President perturbed over election violence immediately contacted the returning officers of the respective district and received confirmation from them regarding the violence.

Thereafter she discussed the situation with her officials, contacted the ministers in charge of the north western province and asked for their views.

After discussions the President again contacted the Returning Officers of the respective district and requested for their comments on the cancellation of elections at polling station where election irregularities were said so have taken place. She also contacted the Commissioner of Election on the situation.

The President subsequently instructed Director of Information, Ariya Rubesinghe to issue a news release that elections in polling stations where election irregularities have taken place would be declared null and void.

UNP MPs meet
Leader of the UNP, Ranil Wickramasinghe summoned a sudden meeting of party MPs. As only MPs already in Colombo could attend this meeting the number of MPs present was close upon thirty.

Ranil Wickramasinghe said: ''We were not defeated but we withdrew in the face of armed threats. The people are yet with us. They have not left us. They went to the polling booths but were threatened and assaulted''.

Lakshman Yapa Abaywardena stated that due to the present bad situation the party should boycott the Provincial Council and compensate their supporters who lost their houses.

Seconding the motion Jayawickrama Perera proposed an account be opened and contributions by the party MPs should first be credited.

Susil Munasinghe stated that the election was a defeat for the government as it had usurped the fundamental rights of the people by obstructing them from exercising their vote. The party should therefore consider this issue and take suitable action.

Commissioner of Elections
Heated discussions ensued when the Commissioner of Elections declared that 47,000 votes from 212 polling stations would be cancelled.

The Commissioner of Elections had summoned a meeting of the General Secretaries of political parties contesting the north western provincial council elections.

Clear evidence
The Commissioner informed the participants that where there were clear evidence that election irregularities had occurred he had decided to cancel certain votes considered irregular from such polling stations. Accordingly 47,000 votes from 212 polling stations would be declared null and void.

He sought the consent of those at all agreed except the meeting for such action before declaration of the results. D. M. Jayaratne and the Liberal Party representative.

The other representatives requested the commissioner to declare the elections null and void.

But the commissioner maintained his decision informing those that disagreed to go before the law.

Prime Minister, Sirimavo Bandaranaike who listened to the other ministers regarding the election violence expressed regret over the happenings at the north western provincial council elections.

She replied angrily ''We should have won this election. We all knew that we would win this election. But those people destroyed everything. I will never allow such nefarious activities in the future. All those responsible will be duly punished. No pardon whatsoever. If a repetition of these happenings occur in the future I will definitely get out of propaganda work. Let anybody do anything. All this happened because of certain persons who at the last moment would get credit. But I am definitely going to investigate the incidents''.

Thereafter the President in a calmer tone informed the ministers that all promises made at Kurunegala and Puttalam should definitely be fulfilled.

She further informed the ministers that a propaganda unit would be formed in every ministry which would function under her direction.

"All ministers hereafter attending press conferences should inform the propaganda unit and collect required information before leaving for such press conferences" ordered the President.

by Dr. Stanley Kalpage
William Jefferson Clinton is one of the most investigated of American presidents. Accusations of wrongdoing date form his days as governor of Arkansas. From the start of his presidency in 1993, his political enemies have scrutinised his every move including his private life. Republicans have felt he had usurped the presidency when he beat George Bush, acclaimed for having routed Saddam Hussein in Desert Storm in 1991.

The Whitewater transactions, 'travelgate', the death of Vincent Foster, affair with Jennifer Flowers and several other scandals were raised as topics for investigation. Finally, Attorney General Janet Reno, a Clinton nominee herself, using the mechanism laid out for investigation of presidents - the Office of the Independent Counsel - appointed former judge Kenneth W. Starr with a budget of $ 50 million to investigate the alleged misdeeds of the President and to report to Congress.

Despite the most comprehensive and meticulous investigations, there was hardly anything to pin down the resourceful Clinton until the president's liaison with a 21 - year old White House internee, Monica Lewinsky, caught Starr's attention. Starr was quick to follow the trail for eight months before presenting his report - the Starr Report - on 9 September 1998 to the House of Representatives and, simultaneously through Internet, to millions of avid readers around the world.

The Starr report, accompanied by 18 boxes of written evidence and other material, accused president Clinton of betraying his constitutional duty by lying about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. The voluminous report was an immediate best-seller.

Monica Lewinsky
Monica Lewinsky had arrived to work at the Office of the White House Chief of Staff in early July 1995, Clinton met her for the first time on 15 November when, according to the Starr Report, they had their first intimate sexual encounter in or near the Oval Office. President and intern met several times and exchanged gifts until about May 1997 when Clinton wanted the affair ended.

Meanwhile in April 1996, Lewinsky had been transferred out of her job in the White House to a public affairs position in the Pentagon because some of her superiors felt that she was spending too much time with the president.

In May 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously denied Clinton's claim that he should be exempted from civil lawsuits. That allowed the sexual harassment case instituted by Paula Jones against the President to proceed.

One of the many persons to whom Lewinsky spoke about her intimacy with the President was Linda Tripp, a Pentagon colleague who started recording her conversations with Lewinsky from late September 1997.

When her attempts to get back to the White House failed, Lewinsky drew up a "wish list" of jobs she would like to secure and sought the assistance of the president who in turn gave the assignment of finding a job for Lewinsky to his long-time friend, Vernon E. Jordan.

By the end of 1997, Linda Tripp was subpoenaed in the Jones case and listed as a potential witness by Jones' attorneys. Kenneth Starr served notice on Clinton to produce records of his communications with Monica Lewinsky.

The Starr report then sets out in detail what it calls attempts by Clinton to tamper with possible witnesses in the Paula Jones affair. Among those whom Clinton is said to have influenced to conceal his activities were presidential secretary, Betty Currie, Monica Lewinsky and Vernon Jordan.

Clinton made his first fatal mistake during his depositon in the Paula Jones case. He denied a "sexual relationship" with Monica Lewinsky and that he had ever urged her to lie.

By mid - 1998, Starr's investigations gathered momentum. Lewinsky was granted immunity in exchange for a complete confession and a Federal grand jury, subpoenaed Clinton.

On 17 August 1998, Clinton testified before the grand jury. Once again he was evasive and not completely truthful when he acknowledged "inappropriate intimate contact" with Lewinsky, but insisted that his January deposition in Jones lawsuit had been accurate. He refused to answer questions about the nature of his physical contact with Lewinsky.

Appearing on national television soon after his grand jury testimony Clinton admitted that he had misled the American public and that he had an "inappropriate relationship" with his former employee.

On 9 September, Starr delivered his report to Congress, citing III possible impeachable offences.

Impeachment
Impeachment is the constitutional mechanism that allows the U.S. Congress to remove public officials from office for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanours". The power to impeach lies with the House of Representatives, but it is the Senate that tries the accused official.

The basic format for impeachment proceedings is set out in the Constitution. The House must take a majority vote to impeach, or formally accuse the official in question. Their accusations are then taken to the Senate, where the impeached official must stand trial. A two-thirds majority (67 votes) are required to convict the accused.

Sixteen federal officials have been impeached so far, but only seven were convicted and removed from office. No president has yet been removed from office. The only president to be impeached before Clinton was Andrew Johnson, who avoided conviction by a one-vote margin in 1868. Richard Nixon, after the Watergate cover-up in 1974, resigned rather than face the ordeal of a public Senate trial.

The charges
In Clionton's case, a divided House Judiciary Committee approved the first of four articles of impeachment on a split vote of 21 to 16 along party lines. This article alleged that Clinton committed perjury before the grand jury in August. The other articles accused the president of perjury in the Paula Jones case, obstruction of justice and abuse of presidential power. A Democratic proposal to censure rather than impeach Clinton was defeated in the House.

Eventually, the House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment in which Clinton was charged with lying under oath to a federal grand jury and with obstructing justice.

"State of the Union" address
On 19 January, the very morning that the Senate trial began, the President seized the initiative and further strengthened his rating in the public opinion polls with a spirited State of the Union address to both Houses of Congress.

Clinton ignored his impending impeachment and announced that the US economy was better than ever before: "Tonight, I stand before you to report that America has created the longest peacetime economic expansion in our history....For the first time in three decades, the budget is balanced. From a deficit of $ 290 billion in 1992, we had a surplus of $ 70 billion last year. And now, we are on course for budget surpluses for the next 25 years."

Senate trial
The Senate acting as "jury and judge" was presided over by the Chief Justice of the United States, William H Rehnquist.. The House's case was presented by thirteen 'managers' - designated members of the House - led by the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Henry Hyde, who presented the articles of impeachment.

There was no official limit on the trial's length, but the Senate agreed on a bi-partisan compromise plan on how it should proceed. The House managers and the White House defence team were each given up to 24 hours over three days to make their cases. The deeply divisive issue of whether and whom to call as witnesses was postponed until after the House presentation and the White House defence.

White House counsel Charles Ruff and the president's personal attorney David Kendall, assisted by a team of very articulate lawyers, presented a strong defence on behalf of the president. The case for conviction presented by Henry Hyde and his team of House 'managers' began to look somewhat inadequate to remove from office a twice elected popular president who, his defence argued skilfully, had 'done nothing to imperil the state or to affect his ability to conduct its affairs."

Future scenarios
There are several possible scenarios for the outcome of the Senate trial from outright conviction of the President and his removal from office to the closer of the trial without calling witnesses and the president emerging triumphant to serve out the remaining two years of his term of office.

As the second week of the impeachment trial drew to a close, the current consensus is that his opponents do not have the two-thirds majority necessary to remove Clinton from office. Aware of that, the senators, who are in any case less zealous than their House colleagues, will find a way to end the process before it brings the machinery of government to a halt. The way out, would have to satisfy the Clinton's apparent determination to remain in office at almost any cost; and the resolve of Republicans (and some Democrats) to make him pay the maximum possible penalty for his wrongdoing.

In the longer term, the spirit of bipartisanship crucial to the functioning of the American system of government has been destroyed, political life has been paralysed by the modern taste for personal inquisition. The trust on which political discourse is based has been shattered by the president's mendacity.