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18th March 2002 Her Excellency Chandrika
Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, Your Excellency, RE: LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS - MARCH 2002 I am in receipt of Your Excellency's letter Ref. CPA/1 of March 17th 2002 in which you have referred to the possibility of the deployment of the armed forces to assist the police during the Local Government Elections which would be commencing from the 20th of March 2002. I have noted with some concern your assertion that the People's Alliance and you as the President have no faith in the Police and their capability to maintain law and order and act independently and impartially with cases of election related violence. I have to say as Minister with responsibility for the conduct of the Police, that I find this allegation un-supported by the factual situation. As indicated by the DIG in charge of election related violence (Mr. Gamini Navaratne), the level of violence as compared to the 2001 election is very low. He has in fact rated the number of incidents so far reported by all political parties (the UNP being the highest) as only about 20% of the number that took place at the last General Elections. There is, as Your Excellency also would be aware, an election monitoring mechanism which was decided upon at the last Cabinet Meeting which Your Excellency chaired, at which it was agreed that 2 representatives each from the People's Alliance and the UNF, and 1 each from the other parties contesting the Elections would assist the DIG Elections in monitoring reported incidents of intimidation, etc. In fact this monitoring committee has commenced its work and one of the People's Alliance representatives - Mr. S S Sahabandu, P.C., was present at the first meeting on Friday the 15th March. The Committee is scheduled to meet continually throughout the period of the local government elections, and will be the forum in which allegations of intimidation and violence will be taken up and resolved. You have in your letter also referred to the behaviour of the police in not acting independently as regards complaints lodged by the People's Alliance candidates during the 2001 General Elections. I find this statement surprising since it was the People's Alliance that ran the government at that time. In fact I believe the Police was then under your control as part of the Ministry of Defence. My view on the deployment of the armed forces is, as I told the IGP when he discussed the matter with me is that it would not be necessary to call out the forces at this time. The situation I feel does not warrant such an extreme step. Moreover, as your Excellency as yourself said, in terms of the 17th Amendment of the Constitution, it should be the IGP in his discretion who should be recommending such a step to the Commissioner of Elections if he feels that the Police cannot handle the situation. In such an eventuality the Commissioner of Elections would no doubt request you to order the deployment of the armed forces. I am constrained to say that in this regard it is unfortunate that the Constitutional Council has not yet been set up. If this had indeed been established the matter of the deployment of the armed forces if the need arose, could have been handled without any uncertainty. Since your Excellency, you seem to feel strongly that the armed forces should be deployed, I would in humility suggest that you may wish to obtain the opinion of the Attorney General and also the Minister of Defence on the matter. As you have mentioned, you have discussed this with the 3 Service Commanders and the Senior DIG but not with the Minister of Defence who would have been able to provide you with some advice regarding this matter. I would certainly wish to give you every cooperation on this issue but I must reiterate that I consider the Police perfectly capable of dealing with the situation as it now is. However, if your Excellency is of the view that the armed forces should be brought out you would undoubtedly want to act in terms of the prescribed procedure set out in the 17th Amendment. Yours sincerely, Sgd./- John A.E. Amaratunga, M.P. Minister of Interior Copy to: Hon. Ranil
Wickremesinghe
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