{"id":99093,"date":"2020-02-18T18:11:57","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T01:11:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=99093"},"modified":"2020-02-18T18:11:57","modified_gmt":"2020-02-19T01:11:57","slug":"sainthamaruthu-the-untold-horror-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/02\/18\/sainthamaruthu-the-untold-horror-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Sainthamaruthu: The Untold Horror Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Sainthamaruthu\nis the Sri Lankan equal of Kandahar of Afghanistan and Idlib of Syria \u2013 the\nSunni extremist capital. It was the safe haven of Zaharan and his band of\nterrorists and his birth place. Creating a separate Urban Council for\nSainthamaruthu will only accelerate extremist activities and remove all\ngrassroots level checks and balances. (There are no 24\/7 military presence\nanyway making own administrative checks and balances critically important.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s road to\nseparation has a long history and root causes that are not apparent. The matter\nwas hush-hushed from media and public discussion for obvious reasons.\nSainthamaruthu was part of Kalmunai Municipal Council until 2020. The entirety\nof the Kalmunai area is a Muslim majority area with some Tamil and Sinhala\npresence. Sainthamaruthu within that is a Muslim only area. That too, with an\nextreme version of Islam than the rest of Kalmunai. By turning it into a\nseparate political and administrative unit, it now loses checks and balances by\nmultiethnic councilors it had when under Kalmunai MC. It also loses moderation\nby moderate Muslims of rest of Kalmunai. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The road to\nseparation started more than 30 years ago taking little from successive\ngovernments. A breakthrough came at the 1999 presidential election when\nChandrika promised to create a separate Divisional Secretariat for Sainthamaruthu.\nIt was granted just two days before the 1999 presidential election in exchange\nfor a few votes. That had a new impetus for separatism. Two decades later under\nvery similar circumstances, it was split into a separate Muslim only Urban\nCouncil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the\nbeginning of a very dangerous trend of creating mono-ethnic Local Government\nbodies throughout the country. Pradeshiya Sabhas, Urban Councils and Municipal\nCouncils are the grassroots level political units elected by the people. They\nare critically important as they have most interaction with the people.\nCreating mono-ethnic and extremist LG bodies predict a very violent and\nseparatist future for Sri Lanka. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the near\nterm, the Sammanthurai- Sainthamaruthu axis (both Muslim only political LG\nbodies) will become the dividing line of a larger and extremely influential\nmono-ethnic ghetto that will expand westwards and southwards. Don\u2019t forget that\nthe Eastern Provincial Council and all parliamentarians from these areas also\nsupport whatever that goes on there. In other words, the Sainthamaruthu event\nis the culmination of the coming together of the entire hierarchy of political\npower \u2013 LG level, Provincial Level, Parliamentary Level and the Presidential\nlevel (the matter was a presidential election promise in 1999 and 2019). A\nstunningly strategic move that covers all sides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To make\nmatter worse, a patriotic politician who had an unparalleled military career from\nAmpara has been called to Colombo to contest the election. That creates an\nenormous vacuum in the East further encouraging separatism and extremism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the\nmedium term, other Pradeshiya Sabhas, Urban Councils and Municipal Councils\nwith sizable minority concentrations within them will also demand and get\nseparate LG units. These include Colombo, Puttlam, Kandy and Galle MCs, parts\nof Nuwara Eliya, Kalutara, Gampaha and Mannar Districts. Chandrika also divided\nColombo DS Division into Colombo and Thimbirigasyaya DS Division. Very likely\nit will have its own UC soon which will drastically reduce Sinhala\nrepresentation at the CMC \u2013 the largest, richest and most strategic LG body in\nthe country. Thereafter CMC area will have a 70% Muslim majority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a far more effective separatist strategy than the\nstrategy followed by Tamils. Grabbing 37% of the island in a single attempt was\nbound to fail and it did. Tamil strategy also involved confronting the military\nand Sinhala politicians. That was another reason for its lack of success.\nHowever, the Sainthamaruthu strategy is likely to succeed slow and steady in\nvarious parts of the island. It is reminiscent of the story of the camel\u201d.\nUnfortunately for politically divided Sri Lanka, when people realize these home\ntruths it will be far too late. Obviously someone has misled the president to\nopen floodgates of Balkanization of the crucial grassroots level of governance\nbased on mono-ethnic enclaves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara Sainthamaruthu is the Sri Lankan equal of Kandahar of Afghanistan and Idlib of Syria \u2013 the Sunni extremist capital. It was the safe haven of Zaharan and his band of terrorists and his birth place. Creating a separate Urban Council for Sainthamaruthu will only accelerate extremist activities and remove all grassroots level checks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dilrook-kannangara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99093\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}