People’s Alliance (PA) Member of Parliament Nalanda Ellawalla is assassinated.
Source
Human Rights Watch World Report: Sri Lanka, 1998.
Quotations
“On February 11, one day before the deadline for filing nominations in the March 21 local elections, People’s Alliance (PA) Member of Parliament (MP) Nalanda Ellawalla was assassinated…The murder sparked a rampage in southern Sri Lanka, as PA supporters burned scores of UNP homes and buildings. A special police unit set up to monitor campaign and election violence recorded 369 complaints in February alone, including many incidents of threats and assaults on UNP and other opposition party members by PA supporters. In an effort to contain the violence, President Kumaratunga ordered the confiscation of arms owned by political party members and declared an amnesty until March 15 for those who voluntarily turned in their weapons. Some took advantage of the amnesty, but many did not. Two citizens’ groups monitoring the vote, the Movement for Free and Fair Elections and the Movement against Political Violence, reported 1,836 incidents of political violence during the elections, including murder, assault, voter intimidation and impersonation, theft of polling cards, and abduction and intimidation of opposition polling agents. The government was accused of using state-owned media to influence the election, and international observers were denied visas.” Extract from Human Rights Watch report, 1998.
“He was a young MP who was active in working for PA-UNP consensus on a political solution to the ethnic solution. What he represented was a willingness and ability of backbench parliamentarians to approach the ethnic conflict in a genuinely non-partisan manner.” PA-UNP Cooperation is essential, Press release, National Peace Council, 13 February 1997.
