03-30-2004, 08:53 PM
The Tigers' next move hinges on April 2 polls <b>results
By Tharaki</b>
The killing of Rajan Sathiyamoorthy shows that the LTTE is dealing with the Karuna issue according to a priority list. It is obvious that the LTTE's immediate concern is the outcome of the elections in the Batticaloa and Amparai (Digamadulla) districts.
It is also consolidating in the more populated Tamil urban areas along this part of the east coast. Only after the LTTE makes sure that all the winning TNA candidates and the majority of the Tamil people in the two districts are firmly on its side that it might go for Karuna's jugular.
The election is more important to the Tigers at this conjuncture than the Karuna problem. Why? Their next move, either in the direction of war and of negotiations, hinges on the results of the polls on Friday (April 2).
If the Tamil National Alliance wins all the districts of the north and east, except Amparai, then the LTTE would be in a very strong position politically to bargain the maximum for its Interim Self Governing Authority or, when negotiations drag too long, to set a deadline for pulling out of negotiations and returning to the status quo ante.
With greater Tamil voter turn out this time due to the ceasefire and high polling from LTTE controlled areas, the TNA will win in Jaffna, Vanni, Trincomalee and Batticaloa - in four out of the five electoral districts of the northeast. In Amparai, the fifth district, the LTTE was planning to get more than ninety per cent of the Tamil votes in the electorate for the TNA.
Such results, therefore, were intended to establish an indubitable historical consistency for the demand for the recognition of the Tamil people's right of self-determination. But Karuna threw the spanner in the works a little sooner than the LTTE leadership had anticipated.
The main problem for the Tigers was not his military prowess that was repeatedly being put on show for the foreign and the Sinhala media. Alarm bells rang in Kilinochchi when it became obvious that Karuna was going to use the elections to make his split ideological too.
Visu, the man who Karuna appointed as the political chief of the region after Karikalan decamped and Robert, the renegade commander's deputy, called all the TNA candidates for Batticaloa and Amparai districts two weeks ago for a crucial meeting at the LTTE's district secretariat in Kokkaddicholai. The candidates were instructed to stop all reference to the TNA manifesto in their election campaigns. Speak to the people only about development of the region, they were very strictly told.
Joseph Pararajasingham was the only candidate to protest. He told Robert that he would not go against the principles of the TNA manifesto and that he would continue to stand by Prabhaharan.
At this meeting Rajan Sathiyamoorthy explained to his fellow candidates that arrangements were being made in consultation with senior lawyers in Colombo for all the TNA MPs elected from Batticaloa and Amparai to function in Parliament as an independent group under Karuna's direction.
Several candidates who were in regular communication with the LTTE in Vanni immediately conveyed the matter to Kilinochchi. Karuna's move to completely de-link the MPs of the Batticaloa and Amparai districts from the TNA and its political agenda was considered a greater threat to the LTTE at this juncture than his decision to operate as a separate armed group in the east.
It went against assurances his deputies had earlier given to some mediators in Batticaloa who were trying to resolve the stand-off peacefully. Karuna's men initially promised these mediators that they would remain committed to the Tamil national cause, come what may.
But the mediators' hopes were dashed when Sathiyamoorthy's pronouncement at the Kokkaddicholai meeting came to light. Meanwhile, Karuna's lieutenants were telling their supporters everywhere in the district to cast their first preference vote for Sathiyamoothy. They promoted him as Karuna's specially chosen candidate for the Kalkudah electorate, which comprises most areas north of Batticaloa town.
Their calculation was that it was the electorate where the Tamil vote could be won en bloc easily. Although Tamils are the majority in the Kalkudah electorate they could not return an MP in the general elections of 2000 and 2001. Much to their chagrin, Muslims who are the minority in the electorate won in both elections.
Karuna's decision to exclusively promote Sathiyamoorthy was not appreciated by many Tamils in the Kalkudah electorate mainly because he was perceived as a candidate from the town.
Also, this went against the interests of Senathirajah Jeynandamoorthy, a popular son of the soil, who had already been selected as the chief TNA candidate for the electorate. (Jeyanandamorthy was the TamilNet's chief correspondent for Batticaloa and reporter and photographer for the Tamil dailies, Virakesari and Thinakkural. He also contributed photos for the Sunday Times).
It did not matter to Karuna that Jeynandamoorthy was his classmate and friend; that both are from Kiran. Sathiyamoorthy was more important. Matters came to a head when Robert, Karuna's right hand, instructed other TNA candidates last week to tell their supporters to cast a personal preference vote for Sathiyamoorthy also and warned Joseph to withdraw from the elections.
Last week in an interview with a private TV station the head of the LTTE's political division took the unprecedented step of publicly branding Sathiyamoorthy as a traitor. Who was Sathiyamoorthy? And why was Karuna very eager to get him elected as the main MP for Batticaloa?
Sathiyamoorthy, 62, is a native of Veeramunai an old Tamil village near Sammanthurai in the Amparai district. His father settled in Batticaloa. He studied in the town and became a businessman. Sathiyamoorthy was a member of the United National Party. In 1994, he contested the general elections in Batticaloa as a UNP candidate. During the war the LTTE accused him of having close connections with the military intelligence.
However, as soon as the ceasefire agreement was signed in February 2002, he was in the forefront of the crowds who swarmed to welcome the Tigers to Batticaloa town. Since then was closely associated with all the public activities of the LTTE in Batticaloa. The man was a good organiser and the local Tigers found him very useful. Karuna's associates justified their association with Sathiyamoorthy on the grounds that he had been helping them secretly during hard times in Batticaloa since 1990.
He was the main person behind the Pongu Thamil rallies in Batticaloa in 2002 and 2003. He represented Karuna on many public forums in Colombo and the east. It was evident as soon as Parliament was dissolved that Sathiyamoorthy was going to be Karuna's preffered candidate. LTTE headquarters in Kilinochchi, however, was not happy with his nomination.
And when the split came, Sathiyamoorthy was in the forefront of all the protests against the LTTE leadership in Batticaloa. And he, being a die-hard UNPer, was the only TNA candidate in the east who had no qualms about breaking ranks with the agenda of Tamil nationalist politics although only two lesser known candidates were prepared to half heartedly follow his lead in Batticaloa.
But Karuna and Sathiyamoorthy had to fight a losing battle after Batticaloa GA Ratnam Mounagurusamy and Dr. Thevanayagam Thiruchelvam, the most articulate ideologues of Eastern regionalism, were put out of action by the LTTE. (It is understood that Mounagurusamy gave a lecture on the evils of Jaffna domination in Batticaloa to Karuna's cadres in the Meenaham military base recently).
With the killing of Sathiyamoorthy, cracks have begun to appear in the foundations of Eastern Regionalism on which Karuna was hoping to consolidate his political power in the east. But the fear in Batticaloa is that it might take a brutal form before it withers away as it did eventually whenever it raised its head in the past.
Karuna and the eastern regionalists who are backing him have failed to grasp the basic historical reality that as long as the acute contradictions between the Sri Lankan state and the eastern Tamils remain alive, Batticaloa would continue to produce Tamil nationalists like what he and his colleagues once were.
நன்றி - டெய்லி மிரர்
By Tharaki</b>
The killing of Rajan Sathiyamoorthy shows that the LTTE is dealing with the Karuna issue according to a priority list. It is obvious that the LTTE's immediate concern is the outcome of the elections in the Batticaloa and Amparai (Digamadulla) districts.
It is also consolidating in the more populated Tamil urban areas along this part of the east coast. Only after the LTTE makes sure that all the winning TNA candidates and the majority of the Tamil people in the two districts are firmly on its side that it might go for Karuna's jugular.
The election is more important to the Tigers at this conjuncture than the Karuna problem. Why? Their next move, either in the direction of war and of negotiations, hinges on the results of the polls on Friday (April 2).
If the Tamil National Alliance wins all the districts of the north and east, except Amparai, then the LTTE would be in a very strong position politically to bargain the maximum for its Interim Self Governing Authority or, when negotiations drag too long, to set a deadline for pulling out of negotiations and returning to the status quo ante.
With greater Tamil voter turn out this time due to the ceasefire and high polling from LTTE controlled areas, the TNA will win in Jaffna, Vanni, Trincomalee and Batticaloa - in four out of the five electoral districts of the northeast. In Amparai, the fifth district, the LTTE was planning to get more than ninety per cent of the Tamil votes in the electorate for the TNA.
Such results, therefore, were intended to establish an indubitable historical consistency for the demand for the recognition of the Tamil people's right of self-determination. But Karuna threw the spanner in the works a little sooner than the LTTE leadership had anticipated.
The main problem for the Tigers was not his military prowess that was repeatedly being put on show for the foreign and the Sinhala media. Alarm bells rang in Kilinochchi when it became obvious that Karuna was going to use the elections to make his split ideological too.
Visu, the man who Karuna appointed as the political chief of the region after Karikalan decamped and Robert, the renegade commander's deputy, called all the TNA candidates for Batticaloa and Amparai districts two weeks ago for a crucial meeting at the LTTE's district secretariat in Kokkaddicholai. The candidates were instructed to stop all reference to the TNA manifesto in their election campaigns. Speak to the people only about development of the region, they were very strictly told.
Joseph Pararajasingham was the only candidate to protest. He told Robert that he would not go against the principles of the TNA manifesto and that he would continue to stand by Prabhaharan.
At this meeting Rajan Sathiyamoorthy explained to his fellow candidates that arrangements were being made in consultation with senior lawyers in Colombo for all the TNA MPs elected from Batticaloa and Amparai to function in Parliament as an independent group under Karuna's direction.
Several candidates who were in regular communication with the LTTE in Vanni immediately conveyed the matter to Kilinochchi. Karuna's move to completely de-link the MPs of the Batticaloa and Amparai districts from the TNA and its political agenda was considered a greater threat to the LTTE at this juncture than his decision to operate as a separate armed group in the east.
It went against assurances his deputies had earlier given to some mediators in Batticaloa who were trying to resolve the stand-off peacefully. Karuna's men initially promised these mediators that they would remain committed to the Tamil national cause, come what may.
But the mediators' hopes were dashed when Sathiyamoorthy's pronouncement at the Kokkaddicholai meeting came to light. Meanwhile, Karuna's lieutenants were telling their supporters everywhere in the district to cast their first preference vote for Sathiyamoothy. They promoted him as Karuna's specially chosen candidate for the Kalkudah electorate, which comprises most areas north of Batticaloa town.
Their calculation was that it was the electorate where the Tamil vote could be won en bloc easily. Although Tamils are the majority in the Kalkudah electorate they could not return an MP in the general elections of 2000 and 2001. Much to their chagrin, Muslims who are the minority in the electorate won in both elections.
Karuna's decision to exclusively promote Sathiyamoorthy was not appreciated by many Tamils in the Kalkudah electorate mainly because he was perceived as a candidate from the town.
Also, this went against the interests of Senathirajah Jeynandamoorthy, a popular son of the soil, who had already been selected as the chief TNA candidate for the electorate. (Jeyanandamorthy was the TamilNet's chief correspondent for Batticaloa and reporter and photographer for the Tamil dailies, Virakesari and Thinakkural. He also contributed photos for the Sunday Times).
It did not matter to Karuna that Jeynandamoorthy was his classmate and friend; that both are from Kiran. Sathiyamoorthy was more important. Matters came to a head when Robert, Karuna's right hand, instructed other TNA candidates last week to tell their supporters to cast a personal preference vote for Sathiyamoorthy also and warned Joseph to withdraw from the elections.
Last week in an interview with a private TV station the head of the LTTE's political division took the unprecedented step of publicly branding Sathiyamoorthy as a traitor. Who was Sathiyamoorthy? And why was Karuna very eager to get him elected as the main MP for Batticaloa?
Sathiyamoorthy, 62, is a native of Veeramunai an old Tamil village near Sammanthurai in the Amparai district. His father settled in Batticaloa. He studied in the town and became a businessman. Sathiyamoorthy was a member of the United National Party. In 1994, he contested the general elections in Batticaloa as a UNP candidate. During the war the LTTE accused him of having close connections with the military intelligence.
However, as soon as the ceasefire agreement was signed in February 2002, he was in the forefront of the crowds who swarmed to welcome the Tigers to Batticaloa town. Since then was closely associated with all the public activities of the LTTE in Batticaloa. The man was a good organiser and the local Tigers found him very useful. Karuna's associates justified their association with Sathiyamoorthy on the grounds that he had been helping them secretly during hard times in Batticaloa since 1990.
He was the main person behind the Pongu Thamil rallies in Batticaloa in 2002 and 2003. He represented Karuna on many public forums in Colombo and the east. It was evident as soon as Parliament was dissolved that Sathiyamoorthy was going to be Karuna's preffered candidate. LTTE headquarters in Kilinochchi, however, was not happy with his nomination.
And when the split came, Sathiyamoorthy was in the forefront of all the protests against the LTTE leadership in Batticaloa. And he, being a die-hard UNPer, was the only TNA candidate in the east who had no qualms about breaking ranks with the agenda of Tamil nationalist politics although only two lesser known candidates were prepared to half heartedly follow his lead in Batticaloa.
But Karuna and Sathiyamoorthy had to fight a losing battle after Batticaloa GA Ratnam Mounagurusamy and Dr. Thevanayagam Thiruchelvam, the most articulate ideologues of Eastern regionalism, were put out of action by the LTTE. (It is understood that Mounagurusamy gave a lecture on the evils of Jaffna domination in Batticaloa to Karuna's cadres in the Meenaham military base recently).
With the killing of Sathiyamoorthy, cracks have begun to appear in the foundations of Eastern Regionalism on which Karuna was hoping to consolidate his political power in the east. But the fear in Batticaloa is that it might take a brutal form before it withers away as it did eventually whenever it raised its head in the past.
Karuna and the eastern regionalists who are backing him have failed to grasp the basic historical reality that as long as the acute contradictions between the Sri Lankan state and the eastern Tamils remain alive, Batticaloa would continue to produce Tamil nationalists like what he and his colleagues once were.
நன்றி - டெய்லி மிரர்
<span style='font-size:20pt;line-height:100%'>Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.</span>