News Update - 20051109
*** Topics: Brief summary of names and acronyms, History of the past 10 years, Presidential election campaigning ***
This post will be extra long since it is the background to the frenzied developments happening currently.
The first thing that should be addressed are the names, acronyms, and dates for Sinhala politicians. Thereafter, there shall be a quick explanation of the election strategies of the candidates for the upcoming election.
** Brief summary of names and acronyms:
Sri Lankan Freedom Party (SFLP) - started by S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, who is Chandrika Kumaratunga's father. It won the first real election in 1956 by promising benefits to the Sinhalese community and inciting Sinhalese nationalism right before the polls. The majoritarian approach gave his party a majority of votes, and his first act was to establish the 'Sinhala Only' law. After his death, his wife Sirimavo took over the party and was Prime Minister later on. Similarly, their daughter Chandrika entered politics after her parents and husband died, and is now the leader of the party.
United National Party (UNP) - started by D.S. Senanayake, the country's first Prime Minister. The UNP had a stretch of authoritative power under the Prime Ministership of Julius (J.R.) Jeyawardene in the 1970's and 1980's. It was under Jeyawardene that some of the most oppressive actions leading up to the war, during the July 1983 pogrom, and after were instituted. His nephew, Ranil, is now the party leader.
Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) - this is a supposed Communist party. There have been many communist and leftitst parties in SL's history. They were stronger in the 1950s, but their importance waned as Sinhalese nationalism proved more captivating than revolutionary communism. (Communism was also popular in India in the same era and lasted until India's liberal economic policies of the 1980s and onwards.) The JVP believed in the idea of overthrowing the state as the means to establish communist rule, and thus launched a large scale armed insurrection in 1971, with 10,000 people overnight taking over control in the south of Sri Lanka. The governement responded by deploying its troops to slaughter all of the JVP members and crush the rebellion, and after a lot of fighting and bloodshed, did so. The JVP has since resurrected itself via its political party in the last 5 years by picking up extreme Sinhala nationalism and gaining a significant number of votes to the be the 3rd largest party, and quite influential, too.
People's Alliance (PA) - coalition consisting primarily of the SFLP, historically. Due to the JVP's Sinhalese nationalism cutting into the SFLP's nationalist vote bank, the SFLP has signed a pact with the JVP a year ago and are the two main components of the PA now.
United National Front (UNF) - the coalition primarily consisting of the UNP. The UNP is seen as liberal economically (pro-business) and socially, so it includes small parties representing Muslims, sharecropper Tamil parties from the mountains, and other small parties.
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) - coalition of 4 Tamil parties to represent Tamil demands. Coalition started only in 2001, as Tamil parties had been in disarray for 25 years prior. TNA in recent times has come to work with the LTTE to support Tamil aspirations.
Chandrika Kumaratunga Bandaranaike (CBK) - president of SL and leader of the SFLP. Driven to maintain power, very duplicitous, and has overseen the bloodiest period in the war. Her second (and thus, final) term as president ends after these upcoming elections.
Ranil Wickremasinghe (I will call him "Ranil") - leader of UNP. Previously the Prime Minister from 2001 - 2004. Appeals to the modern educated elite. Seen as wanting to please everyone, but not authoritative and somewhat weak in character. His approach is subtle; he also does not really care to implement what he says unless it helps big business, but people might overlook it due to his perceived weakness in character. Also, the presidential candidate for the UNP.
Mahinda Rajapakse - member of SFLP, and current Prime Minister, as well as presidential candidate for SFLP. Seen as a common man, or 'man of the people', as they say. Also seen as not very smart, but yet an honest man and appeals to the masses as a Sinhaelse and strong Buddhist. (Reminiscent of George W. Bush from the 2000 and 2004 elections.)
** Short history of the last 10 or so years:
In 1994, CBK ran for President on the platform of strong pro-peace, as well as abolishing the executive presidency (for having it's unbridled, undemocratic powers). She won, pushed ahead by the Tamil vote for her pro-peace platform. She started negotiations with the LTTE as a decoy while she built up the army. In 1995, after 9 months of halfhearted negotiations, she immediately launched an offensive that marched to the north and took Jaffna. The period of 1995-2001 has been the bloodiest period of the war, part of which contained the "War for Peace" campaign to get funds from Western countries in the promise of defeating the LTTE once and for all. Instead, the LTTE has scored it's biggest successes during this period. Economic, political, and military devastation followed from the 2001 airport and airbase bombing. This happened during a time when the parliament elected in 2000 had been suspended. She dissolved parliament and called for elections in December.
Ranil's UNP campaigned on a pro-peace platform, while CBK maintained a militaristic platform. The LTTE indirectly put its support behind Ranil, especially given their bitter experience with CBK. Ranil wins and agrees to the Ceasefire Agreement of Feb. 2002 as his first major action. Peace talks happened from September 2002 to March 2003, but broke off after Ranil's encouragement of the international community's involvement began to tip the balance to the government over the LTTE in the LTTE's eyes. CBK's party, as the party in opposition, opposed anything related to the peace process since the process would win too much voter support for the UNP if it succeeded. CBK took over important ministries in Nov. 2003, thereby crippling the government. Dissolution of parliament was anticipiated by all, but she used the time to work out a pact with the JVP to run in the elections that would have to take place from the dissolution. The pact was signed, and the PA caolition was now a combine of the SFLP and JVP as the central parties. Parliament was dissolved and elections were held in April 2004. The elections showed that the entire island had polarized. The Sinhala rhetoric of the JVP and SFLP won, while the Tamils overwhelmingly supported the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and its campaign platform of supporting the LTTE and its interim administration proposals.
Around this time, a revolt led by a very senior commander (and probably engineered by the government and other countries) within the LTTE happened, but was quickly and deftly handled by the LTTE with very minimal loss of life. This, however, was the start of a period of low-intensity covert attacks on intelligence targets. This continues today as a covert "shadow war".
The tsunami happened in Dec. 2004, and after much political intrigue in the aftermath on top of the humanitarian crisis, the LTTE proved itself as a force dedicated to its people and hindered by the government. The P-TOMS agreement signed 6 months later in the summer of 2005 to disburse tsunami funds was taken to the Supreme Court by the JVP and effectively nullified within a month after it was signed. In Aug. 2005, the Foreign Minister of SL, who is also the one who engineered the propaganda for the "War for Peace", was assassinated. The assassination was blamed on the LTTE, but no conclusive proof has been found. A month later, the European Union (EU) countries, which had been receptive to the LTTE's peace initiatives, placed a ban on LTTE delegations from visiting EU countries. And here we are today.
** Presidential election campaigning:
Rajapakshe is looking to take over the SFLP's recent past as the vanguard of Sinhala nationalism. While CBK wants to somehow continue her family's dominance in politics, she has seemingly resigned to accepting Rajapakse, her own party member, as her party's candidate. Rajapakse signed election pacts with the JVP and even more extremist JHU to cancel the P-TOMS officially, cancel the ceasefire, and deny any possibility of agreeing to the LTTE's negotiating demands. His appeal to the masses on economic issues, supported by the JVP's grassroots network of supporters and trade unions, make up the foundation for his support.
Ranil has played the pro-peace, pro-minority card until two days ago. Among Singhalese, voters are usually split 50-50 between the SFLP and UNP. In the UNF coalition, the UNP typically relies on Tamil parties and Muslim parties to make it competitive with the PA coalition. Ranil is seen as pro-business, pro-privitization, pro-elite, and pro-Western countries. He is also seen as pro-peace, while his detractors call him a sell-out to the LTTE. In the past 2 days, reports say that the UNP is now going on a strong anti-LTTE campaign.
http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=16275
http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=16282
In the Dec. 2001 and Apr. 2004 elections, the LTTE clearly expressed its favored parties and policies prior to the elections. In Dec. 2001, the SL Army prevented voters from LTTE held areas from voting due to "security reasons". In Apr. 2004, accusations of election fraud in the northeast was used in attempts to discredit the overwhelming victory of the TNA. This time around, the LTTE's approach to the situation is different. Instead of stating a favorite, they have expressed their disenchantment with both candidates: Ranil, for allowing the peace process to fail due to lack of sincere effort, and Rajapakse for his stated stances. While the LTTE refuses to state its stance one way or the other, its leanings would be towards a boycott of the elections as the expression of disillusionment with both candidates. During this election period, the LTTE has made statements that express its lack of regard for the elections and its intentions to continue its control separately from the government regardless of the election outcome. Statements from the LTTE and the Tamil side have stated that if Rajapakse wins, the conditions will be set for an imminent war. It was thought that if Ranil would win, he too would be insincere about peace, but it would be a while before conditions for war reach the breaking point. However, his party members' recent anti-LTTE statements make such a cynical sentiment all the more justified. The flip-flopping of pro-peace and pro-war stances from the ruling Sinhala parites, as it relates to elections, majority / opposition politics, political arrangements and peace pacts, is a common theme of Sri Lankan politics, as we shall see later.