Asian
Human Rights Commission
AHRC Publications - Human Rights Solidarity - March 2000 Volume 10 No. 3
AHRC - Human Rights Solidarity - March 2000 Volume 10 No. 3 - Sri Lanka in the Eyes of a 'Young' Foreign Monitor
SRI LANKA
Sri Lanka in the Eyes of a 'Young' Foreign Monitor
Tina Johannesen
(Ed. note: Tina Johannesen is an intern in Asian Human Rights Commission. The article reflects some of her own experience as a first time foreign election monitor during the presidential election in Sri Lanka. Although working under the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) at the time, the reflections and comments made are personal and do not reflect the views of CMEV.)
It was quite hastily decided that I should go to Sri Lanka and become one of the unofficial foreign monitors that the Election Commissioner of Sri Lanka had finally approved the arrival of foreign election monitors only a few weeks before the election day on the 21 of November 1999. In the letter approving the foreign monitors it was written very clearly that the monitoring was only to be within the restricted area of - and not inside - the polling station.
Knowing I was going to monitor a presidential election in a democratic nation, it did leave me with some suspicion as to why the monitors were not permitted to enter polling stations - was there something that had better be kept secret? In my opinion a democratic government should favour election monitoring and not try to obstruct it. Why would they want to obstruct unless of course my suspicion was right?
The restrictions also made the work of the monitoring groups difficult and created a lot of frustration when trying to monitor the election. As it turned out, on the election day, I was easily given access to enter the polling stations and can assure that without such access I would have had difficulties noticing the systematic rigging which took place in large scale on election day.
Of course I was excited about the proposal of going to Sri Lanka and accepted it without hesitation. One of the reasons why I found the coming trip especially appealing was because of the work I am involved with as an intern of the Asian Human Rights Commission. Part of my work is to study the conflict in Sri Lanka and the possibility of bringing peace to this troubled nation. Seen in this light it was an extraordinary opportunity for me to get an exposure to the country I had only read and heard about.
Even though it was night when I arrived in Sri Lanka I was very pleased with the little of the countryside I could manage to see through the windows. It was green and the houses low, which is, coming from Hong Kong and being a Dane, is a very nice view leaving you with a pleasant feeling.
In the course of the next few days I was lucky enough to have free time to see more of the countryside and to meet some of the people of Sri Lanka. My impression was good. The land looked very green and fertile. The people I met were kind, helpful and the smiles I was greeted with had a contagious effect leaving me smiling for quite a while after.
In general I was stunned by the beauty of the people in a country once so prosperous and now so devastated by a two-decade long conflict. Despite the hardship and trauma that safely to say almost every family has undergone in the cause of the conflict, the people seem to have such a strong will for life. They want a peaceful way of life, want to look forward, forget the past and create a prosperous life for every citizen of Sri Lanka being Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim or Burgher in a united country.
A few days before the election day I left for Kandy, a town within the Central Province also called the hill country because of the many high hills and mountains. I was to monitor in this area and work from the monitoring group’s local office in Kandy. Once again I was met by helpful and kind people, who were very dedicated to the position as a local monitor despite the threats and intimidation they were subjected to. One of the reason behind sending me, a ‘young’ foreign monitor to the Central Province, which was considered to be one of the most violent areas of Sri Lanka in regard to election violence, was the necessity of a shield for the local monitors on election day. We expected the threats and intimidation to increase and become even more brutal especially on Election Day. And with it being a well-known fact that foreigners are not targets of the violence it seemed reasonable to place us in where the situation was most intense.
Two days before the election day I accompanied one of the local monitors who had been covering a fairly large area south of Kandy for the last month taking down statements of any incidents of violence related to the election. It was quite clear that the local monitor was happy for the company of a foreigner. He had in the course of last month experienced threats and intimidation so strongly that he was not sure how his life would be after the election. He obviously felt safer in the company of a foreigner.
Among the many places we visited, we went to see a woman who had been attacked in the middle of the night and seriously cut with a knife in the lower part of her stomach. This brutal act was the benefit of the so-called ‘thugs’, a kind of gangs who operates through the support of the different political parties. The ‘thugs’ intimidate and violently attack people for their political beliefs, as it was the case of the brutality caused to the woman. It was clear that the woman was terrified and you wonder how strong once political belief is for it to survive such experiences!
We saw many signs of the ‘thugs’ brutality and violence, among others a burned polling station where the intentions were for it to be moved out of reach of the election monitors. Despite all these attempts by the ‘thugs’ to scare people into a certain political belief people were still strong believers of the democracy and their right to vote and clearly intended to do so. What probably scared me the most on that day was the clear look of fear of the local monitors’ face – the man was terrified. He had no way of knowing how his life would be after the election and yet still continued doing his work with the same enthusiasm as he had been for the last month. In the true sense of the word – a very brave man!
On election day we decided to get an early start to make sure we would be present at the first polling station on our route before the voting started at seven o’clock in the morning. Driving through the narrow mountain roads in the dim morning light I was met with some sight at a polling station placed almost a mile of the main road. Driving towards the place we noticed a significant amount of vehicles parked along the roadside. These vehicles were clearly government buses but with covered license plates. We stopped along the roadside and I started walking towards the polling station. As I came close the sight of people (civilians) holding huge machine guns in their hands met my eyes - an astonishing view during a supposedly democratic election. When they saw me they tried to hide these weapons behind their bodies but without much success. There must have been at least 60 or 80 people (civilians) hanging around in the area outside of the polling station all very obviously supporters of the ruling party the Peoples Alliance (PA).
The crowd became very quiet as I approached, moved slowly aside and created a pathway for me to walk through and gave me access to the polling station. Inside the polling station I spoke to the Senior Presiding Officer, SPO. He explained to me without hesitation that the ‘voters’ present were from outside the district, that they had been forced at gun point to let them take the votes from the local and not to mark their fingers. This meant that none of the local voters were permitted to vote, leaving them without their democratic right. As one of the victims of the incidents said; "they have taken away my right to vote – my only hope for my son to have a better life, now what future will he have? It is a violation of my human rights." At that polling station all votes, 586, were taken by PA supporters that voted again and again on behalf of the local voters. Within two hours all votes had been cast. It was clearly very systematic rigging of the votes that took place at this polling station. This incident had been carefully planned and organised. By not marking their fingers they made sure they could vote multiple times and leave no trace behind.
Another incident I observed took place later in the day. We were slowly approaching another village in which the streets were extremely crowded. The air felt tense and people were communicating in very loud voices. As we arrived, few hundred meters from the polling station, I witnessed a man in military uniform literally stuffing his pockets with registration cards. As it was happening he and I were looking at each other straight in the eyes. With the glimpse of a smile he reminded me of my ‘poor’ status as an observer! He was very well aware of my limitations.
While parking the car we were met by the group of local voters from whom the registration cards had just been taken. Their anger and frustration running through their bodies as they told us how they, with guns pointed at them, had been forced to hand over their cards while on their way to the polling station. There was nothing I could do but to take down their story.
As I entered the polling station I noticed great activity in the building next door. It looked like a bank in rush-hour with people coming and going in very high speed. Through the windows I noticed people having a stack of registration cards in front of them. They were changing the names on them as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
A business was undergoing in the building and certainly not a legitimate one!
These incidents give a very clear picture of how the election took place in the area where I was monitoring. At each and every polling station we went to there were incidents to report. Either the ‘thugs’ came from outside forcing the locals at gun point to hand over their registration cards or the cards were simply stolen from them, in many cases done by the people from their own town. Marking of the fingers had none of the intentional effect. I witnessed people walking from the polling station and into the building next door to clean the ink of their fingers for the purpose of going straight back to place someone else’s vote. This continued all day long. In my opinion nothing ran according to the protocol of a democratic election and election fraud was to be found at every single polling station.
The most appalling thing is that all the election fraud was done in a very systematic and very well prepared way. There is no doubt that the actions had been prepared before hand and the people participating in it knew what their positions were. It was like a well prepared play in a theatre. The whole existence of ‘thugs’ and rigging showed a country where extra-legal elements were in control over the police and where ‘thugs’ were superior to the polling station officials. A hijacking of the state apparatus seemed to have taken place. All was being used for the benefit of retrieving votes. So the people in control of the state apparatus was apparently in much advance of the opposition.
I must admit that after having witnessed the things I did both before and after the election I do not find it reasonable to describe the election as fair. And I also do not believe that the re-election of President Chandrika Kumaratunga can with most certain guarantee be categorised as a reflection of the people's will!
The frustration of witnessing such abuse of the people’s simplest human right in a named democratic state - the right to vote - leaves me short of words to describe. It does not, though, leave me short of interest or desire to be a foreign election monitor again, if being asked.
My experience has also left me with some reflections on the 'position' of the foreign election monitors.
First of all I find that the local organisers of the foreign monitors could gain much more out of the foreign monitors by:
All these are necessary for the foreign monitors to be able to notice any indifference and irregularities. This may include a time frame of up till one month before also adding time to observe after the election has taken place.
Secondly, in a more long-term view, I find it necessary to review the positions of monitors. Observing an election violation is important, but even more important is to take actions to prevent such incidents. Taking into consideration the complete control over the state apparatus that dominated the election in Sri Lanka it seems the position of foreign election monitors need to change. Should it be possible for the monitors to have more authorization to call for preventive intervention?
If you have any thoughts or comments on the ‘position’ of the foreign election monitors please send it to ahrchk@ahrchk.org we will publish the comments on our web-site www.ahrchk.net
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Last updated Juni 07, 2000 08:28 .
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