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The government's decision to conduct the elections has been bitterly contested by key opposition parties, including the United National Party and Tamil National Alliance, which resorted to legal action, and by civil society groups. They have argued that the conditions of violence that prevailed in Batticaloa over the past several months preclude the possibility of free and fair elections.
Even a few weeks ago there were reports of virtual anarchy in the district, with armed groups openly on the prowl. Most of them are allegedly in league with the government, but the LTTE is also capable of infiltrating back into the district from which they were so recently evicted.
However, the announcement of local government elections has been followed by a government effort to crack down, at least temporarily, on the armed Tamil groups. The level of violence has dipped over the past two weeks. The Batticaloa police seemed confident that the armed anti-LTTE groups could be contained inside their camps and not be permitted to interfere with the elections. The fact that shops were open till well past 8:00 p.m. suggested a sense of security that was not evident a few months ago when I last visited the area.
The government's attempt to eliminate the LTTE from the east began in April 2006 when the LTTE blocked an irrigation canal for farmers in the neigboring eastern district of Trincomalee. The success of the military battle to reopen the Mavil Aru irrigation canal emboldened the government to expand the theater of military battle to the entirety of the east, though at the high human cost of displacement of over 200,000 persons. Confronted by the superior firepower and sheer numbers of the government forces, the LTTE withdrew from the east, yielding the territories they had controlled since 1995.
The challenge to the government, however, will be to prevent the LTTE from coming back into the east, as they have repeatedly shown themselves capable of doing over the past three decades. The LTTE has never had to fight a major military battle to take territory in the east. Their strategy has been to wait for the government's military presence in the east to be weakened due to the need for troops elsewhere, in order to infiltrate back and take over territory.
Now again, with major battles looming in the north, and with LTTE terror strikes mounting in the rest of the country, there is pressure on the government to redeploy its troops from the east. This would create a military vacuum that could once again lead to the return of the LTTE, as on previous occasions.
The government's decision to conduct the elections in Batticaloa could be seen as part of its counter-insurgency strategy in which former LTTE members will be legitimized to take over the civil administration of the area without creating the politico-military vacuum into which the LTTE can infiltrate back.
It appears that the government has decided that its partner in the east would be the TMVP, or Karuna group, which is the breakaway LTTE group in the east. The partnership between the ruling national alliance, the United People's Freedom Alliance, and the eastern regional TMVP in jointly contesting the Batticaloa Municipal Council election is a clear manifestation of this governmental intention.
Its unofficial alliance with the TMVP dates back to the breakaway of the Karuna group from the LTTE in March 2004 during the period of ceasefire. The Karuna group, which later formalized itself into the TMVP, has since been providing the government with fighting cadres and intelligence for the war against the LTTE.
All indications are that the main purpose of the forthcoming local government elections is to legitimize the TMVP as the political party that is representative of the Tamil people of the east. This will strengthen the fledgling party's ability to work together with the government to deliver services to the people as well as keep the LTTE from infiltrating back into the east in sufficient numbers to retake territory under its control. TMVP spokespersons in both Batticaloa and Colombo said that they too were in favor of a violence-free election, as this would strengthen their claim to democratic legitimacy.
The claim that the present improved ground situation in Batticaloa would ensure a free and fair election is contestable. Due to the anarchic conditions that prevailed in the area until a few weeks ago the two main opposition parties, the TNA and UNP, have decided not to contest the elections. Having ensured that their main rivals will not participate in the elections, there is an extra incentive now for both the government and TMVP to ensure that the rest of the electoral process for the local government elections is free of violence.
After securing victory at the elections, the TMVP's hope is that they become a legitimate part of local government structures in Batticaloa and that they will have access to central governmental resources and to foreign aid to improve the lives of the people. If they do succeed in this task it will send a message to the LTTE and Tamil people also that cooperation with the government can deliver more to the people than a continuation of confrontation.
On the other hand, if the government continues to fail to devolve power and resources to the local government level, the LTTE's separatist campaign will continue to resonate with the sufferings of the impoverished and neglected people of the east.
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(Dr. Jehan Perera is executive director of the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka, an independent advocacy organization. He studied economics at Harvard College and holds a doctorate in law from Harvard Law School. ©Copyright Jehan Perera.)
