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"To us all towns are one, all men our kin.
Life's good comes not from others' gift, nor ill
Man's pains and pains' relief are from within.
Thus have we seen in visions of the wise !."
-
Tamil Poem in Purananuru, circa 500 B.C

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Home > Tamils - a Trans State Nation > Struggle for Tamil Eelam > Indictment against Sri Lanka: Introduction & Index > Indictment against Sri Lanka - the Record Speaks

INDICTMENT AGAINST SRI LANKA
The Charge is Ethnic Cleansing

RIGGING OF JAFFNA DISTRICT DEVELOPMENT
COUNCILS ELECTIONS, 4 JUNE 1981

"The UNP campaign directors posted to Jaffna for the election were Caluwadewage Cyril Mathew, Landed Proprietor, Lionel Gamini Dissanayake, Attorney at law. Mathew is often referred to as the 'Bete Noir' of the Tamils. The question is, was he in Jaffna to win the hearts of the Tamil voters and help the UNP defeat the TULF with his appeal to the people of Jaffna? If so he did not succeed, not even with the assistance of Lionel Gamini and Michael Festus Wenceslaus."

The Tamil Times reported in August 1981...

"The elections for the newly created District Development Councils in the Jaffna District, Sri Lanka were held on 4th June 1981. The massive and extensive officially admitted irregularities and illegalities that characterised the conduct of these elections were unprecedented.

The 'Nation', a weekly newspaper published in Sri Lanka has revealed the details of the attempted rigging of these elections.

A grama sevaka (Village Headman) an office messenger (Peon), several village level cultivation officers, junior clerks and assistant teachers were amongst those who officiated as senior presiding officers and counting officers at the elections to the Jaffna District Development Council held on the 4th of June. These were not officials duly selected by the Commissioner of Elections but were handpicked by the high command of the United National Party. Altogether 150 officials picked by the Commissioner of Elections were replaced by nominees of the ruling party just before the poll.

For the first time in this country the conduct of an election was wrested from the control of the duly constituted authority and exercised by a political party. Thus, has the ruling United National Party celebrated the Golden Jubilee of universal adult suffrage in Sri Lanka.

The 'Nation learns from reliable sources in the administration that the Commissioner of Elections Mr. M.A. Piyasekera, may tender his resignation as a protest against this Government, attempt to rig an election. Commentators observe that the exercise in Jaffna was a test run for similar plans for future elections to Parliament and to the Presidency, plans calculated to destroy the electoral franchise of the entire nation. Even in Districts such as Colombo the principle of secret ballot was violated by senior presiding officers, under UNP political direction, so to place the voting cubicles that they could observe the manner in which voters marked their ballot papers.

In Jaffna, the politically picked senior presiding officers, neither knew the procedure for the conduct of the poll nor were they able to perform their duties as counting officers.

Their very incompetence and the resistance of impartial public officers who could not be removed by Government leaders posted to Jaffna made the UNP assault on the franchise an ignominious failure. The UNP got only 7.37% of 315,999 ballot papers available on the count which took place 12 days after the date of the election. In countless general elections and by-elections in the past fifty years, to the State Council to Parliament, to the National State Assembly to numerous local bodies, not one ballot box has ever been lost or even been out of sight of responsible persons from the beginning of a poll to the end of a count.

The 'Nation' has learned the identities of the UNP nominees who replaced the appointees of the Commissioner of Elections as Senior Presiding officers and counting officers. The names of some of them and the polling stations they were incharge of are given below:

1. Lekamlage Rupasirighe, Grama Sevaka Galamula G.S. Division No. 298, Kurunegala District-Senior Presiding officer and Counting Officer, polling station No. C20, Kankesanturai.

2. S.B.C. Gunaratna Banda, Cultivation Officer, Kurnegala District, Senior Presiding Officer and Counting Officer, Polling Station No. C42, Kankesanturai.

3. M. Piyatissa, Peon. Kurunegala Kachcheri-S P.O. and C.O. Polling Station No. C39, Kankesanturai.

4. Warnakulasuriya George Sunil Tissera, Punch Card-Operator Department of Census and Statistics SPO C.O. Polling Station No. 12. Udupiddy

5. J.M. Abeyratne, Cultivation Offi cer Kuliyapitiya, Kurunegala. DistrictSPO and C.O., Polling Station No. C39 Kankesanturai.

6. A.M. Wimalasara, Clerk, Judicial Service Commission - S.P.O. and C.O. Polling Station No. C37, Manipay.

Several senior Presiding Officers make frank revelations in their statutory reports to the Returning officer, Jaffna District. A. C. Kumarasinghe, S.P.O. Polling Station No. 7, Kankesanturai reports that he could commence the poll at his station only at 11.30 a.m. and that after the closure of the poll, he despatched the ballot box to the Kachcheri without counting the votes as he had no instruction on the procedure. K. Mathiyaparanam, S.P 0. of polling station in Myliddy reports that he could not complete the count at his station as he was not permitted to do so by security personnel. S.B.C. Gunaratne, the Cultivation Officer from Kurunegala also reports that he sent the ballot box from his station to the Kachcheri without conducting the count.

40 of UNP replacements for the appointees of the Commissioner of Elections were got down from Kurunegala on the morning of the election day. It is understandable that they did not know the procedure laid down in the law and in the instructions issued to proper appointees by the Commissioner. They could have known only the instructions they had received from their political instructors.

The first prong of the UNP strategy to gain at least one DC seat in Jaffna District was the direct interference reported above. The second prong was inhuman both in conception and its consequences.

Several hundred men picked for their readiness to do anything were sent from UNP electorates to Jaffna a few days before the poll. According to informed sources they were deliberately dressed in such a manner as to deceive people into believing that UNP mobsters were policemen in plain-clothes. The UNP thus not only ravaged the area, but also sought to throw the blame on the Police. Reports from Jaffna indicate that public have not been deceived.

The UNP campaign directors posted to Jaffna for the election were Caluwadewage Cyril Mathew, Landed Proprietor, Lionel Gamini Dissanayake, Attorney at law. Mathew is often referred to as the 'Bete Noir' of the Tamils. The question is, was he in Jaffna to win the hearts of the Tamil voters and help the UNP defeat the TULF with his appeal to the people of Jaffna? If so he did not succeed, not even with the assistance of Lionel Gamini and Michael Festus Wenceslaus.

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