Politics Of Dispossession
By Ahilan Kadirgamar -September 4, 2013
Ahilan Kadirgamar
Four years after the end of the devastating war in northern Sri Lanka, much delayed elections are to be held shortly for the first civil administration of the Northern Province. There are many debates on the viability of such a Provincial Council, including the kind of powers it will enjoy and the possibility of it becoming the starting point for a political solution that has plagued the country since the late colonial period and pummelled the North and East of the country with a civil war in recent decades. The delays on the part of the Government to hold elections, the continuing militarisation, the watering down of Provincial powers in recent years and the pressure by India and other international actors to hold elections have been widely reported. However, less attention has been paid to the economic context of the post-war years and the everyday challenges facing the war-torn people as they approach the polls.
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Government’s United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) which includes the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) are the two major coalitions contesting the Provincial Council elections in Northern Province which includes the Jaffna, Vavuniya, Mannar, Killinochi and Mullaitivu Districts. Much of the vast area in the latter four districts south of the Jaffna Peninsula is called the Vanni. During the last decade of the war, Jaffna was not directly hit by the fighting but the land route to it was blocked even as Killinochi and Mullaitivu were razed to the ground during the last two years of the war. Just one twentieth of Sri Lanka’s population amounting to 1 million people reside in the Northern Province, of which 580 thousand people reside in the Jaffna District. As to what changes and relief can be brought about through either coalition to this war ravaged population, there is only scepticism among ordinary people in the North. This article sketches the social and economic challenges increasingly articulated on the ground in the North despite the silence of the candidates and public election debates.
