Sri Lankans intimidated not to vote for Tamil party: report

The Sri Lankan military has been visiting houses in the Tamil-dominated north and intimidating people not to vote for the Tamil Alliance, a media report said as the former insurgent stronghold today went to the polls for the first time in 25 years.
More than a hundred men, most wearing army uniforms, yesterday attacked the home of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader Ananthi Sasheetharan in Jaffna. Nine persons were injured in the incident.
According to several witnesses, four trucks pulled up outside her house and disgorged over 100 men, most of them were wearing army uniforms and carrying guns and wooden clubs, The New York Times reported.

"The military has been visiting houses all over the area and telling people not to vote for the Tamil National Alliance," Mavai S Senathirajah, deputy leader of the Tamil alliance, told the daily. "We will not be intimidated."
Four years after Sri Lanka's nearly three-decade civil war came to a bloody end, the first provincial council elections since 1988 are being held in the Tamil-dominated north amid sporadic reports of violence and intimidation.
There are many Tamil parties vying for 36 seats in the Northern Council under the flag of the the main Tamil party TNA, competing with candidates from the governing coalition, the United People's Freedom Alliance, which controls more than two-thirds of the national parliament.

However, the Council is said to be "fairly toothless", because President Mahinda Rajapaksa has centralised much of the government's powers in his and his family's hands, the report said.

Rohana Hettiarachchie, the executive director of domestic independent monitoring group - the People's Action for Free and Fair Elections - yesterday confirmed that those who had attacked Sasitharan's house had been wearing uniforms "similar to those worn by the army."
But Brig Ruwan Wanigasooriya, a military spokesman, said that "there was no involvement on the part of the army". He said the army was cooperating in an investigation of the matter.

Sasitharan said she is contesting the elections in part to pressure the government to release her husband, a political officer for the LTTE who she believes has been in government custody for four years, a charge the government has denied.
Sasitharan said she has been attacked in an intimidation campaign aimed at getting her to drop out. Two weeks ago, army officers stoned her car while she was still in it, and she barely escaped injury, she said.
The TNA is expected to win in the northern provincial council, but the margin of victory could prove crucial to the alliance's efforts to push for greater autonomy over police and land decisions.

Polls are also being held in two other provinces today.