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| Relatives at the recent commemoration event held to remember victims of Chencholai massacre held at Vallipunam, Mullaithivu on August 14, 2024. Pix: Northeastern Monitor |
By Rev Fr. C. G. Jeyakumar
The upcoming Presidential elections on September 21 primarily focus on the economic crisis that unfolded on the island which the Tamils claim is due to the expenditure on war accumulated over the years. The ongoing election campaigns reflect the same as it is the immediate need that is to be addressed therefore the issue of the ethnic Tamils national question comfortably set aside or ignored.
Tamils are not too enthusiastic about the upcoming election compared to previous elections where they voted to effect regime change. Tamils are of the view that mere regime change is not the solution for the ethno-national conflict even though it is often projected to be the case.
The post-2009 political history demonstrated that the regimes that came to power did not express the political will to sincerely engage in discussions with the Tamils in addressing the root cause of the ethno-national conflict. Subsequent governments that occupied the Executive chair maintained the status quo of Sinhala-Buddhist domination (hegemony) over the non-Sinhala Buddhists, especially Tamils, who the majority felt, had lost the parity of esteem.
The narrative of reconciliation is imposed on the victims as a project of victor’s peace; as one can see the commissions being set up without even consulting the victims who should decide what they would like to propose in setting up an accountability mechanism. The subsequent governments in post-2009 have not even acknowledged the genocide of the Tamils perpetrated by the governments as a historical and social process that began in British colonialism and reached its zenith in Mullivaikal in 2009. The victims are forced to live with the perpetrators every day.
The Presidential candidates will never go beyond the 13th amendment to deal with the Tamil national question but for Tamils, the 13th amendment is not even a starting point. Mere electoral promises are part of election gimmicks that people have witnessed in all the past elections in Sri Lanka and there is no accountability on those election promises after the election.
The Sinhala government keeps the North-East under occupation in every sense. Both North-Eastern provinces remain highly militarised land compared to the South. There are still sentry points erected as if there is war going on in the North-East. The demography of the North-East has changed drastically after May 2009 due to the non-armed resistance of the Tamils and Sinhalisation and Buddhisisation of the Tamil homeland is underway employing the state apparatus. Attacks on Hindu temples and rewriting the history of them as Buddhist temples thus reclaiming the North-East as a Buddhist promised land is a hegemonic exercise.
Silencing the armed resistance of the Tamils paved the way for non-state actors to use the geostrategic space as their stage and the economic crisis created and further provided space for interventionist politics in order to contain geopolitical interest in the region. Economic empire building using military might and expansionism further polarises the divide in the island which the majority failed to understand the underpinnings of it.
The rationale of the common candidate for many in the south is not pragmatic but those involved in the process consider it as an opportunity to articulate the political aspirations of the Tamils knowing that there cannot be a Tamil president on the island.
Rev Fr. C. G. Jeyakumar is attached to the Priests and Religious for Justice and Peace, North-East. He is based in Jaffna.
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