NORTHERN PROVINCIAL COUNCIL: THE DEVOLUTION DEBATE

NORTHERN PROVINCIAL COUNCIL: THE DEVOLUTION DEBATE

Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka-5 May, 2013

Groundviews

I approach this subject as a political scientist, a former diplomat and briefly a Minister in the Cabinet of the North East Provincial Council. At the overlap of these experiences and roles is what is classifiable as a Realist perspective.

As a Realist, I reject outright three myths about devolution which have been around for a long time but have been resuscitated in the post-war period. Firstly, that devolution in our context is primarily to do with empowerment of the people and ‘the people’ considered without any ethnic connotation. Secondly, that it was to do with the Tigers and now that the Tigers are no more, there is no case for devolution. Thirdly, that it has to do originally and primarily with India.

If I were to put it simply, this is primarily to do with the Tamils and the Sinhalese, or the Sinhalese and the Tamils. In Sri Lanka, there are relatively compact ethnic groups approximately corresponding to certain regions (a point not vitiated by the fact that you have many Tamils outside of the Northern Province); there is an ethno-regional distribution, there is a domestic geopolitics in this country and it’s been recognized throughout at least the 20^th century.

Whatever the history, the formation, this is where we are. This is why S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, in 1926, writing a set of six articles in the Ceylon Morning Leader, made the point that he knows of no countries which is non-homogenous, which is heterogeneous, that can succeed with a centralized form of administration. That is the basis of the case for devolution. If I may fall back briefly on my old Marxist lexicon, there is a contradiction between the demographic base or substructure, and the political superstructure.

So this is the first reason: It’s about the Sinhalese and the Tamils and how we can peacefully coexist on this island. It is about coexistence and co-habitation. It is an existential question. What are the terms of the political equation that will enable us to coexist politically on this island? So it is not primarily about administration, or anything other than the ethno-national or nationalities question.

The second erroneous argument is that this had to do with the Tigers. Again this is not true because if it were, you would not have had the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam Pact of ’57 or the Dudley-Chelvanayakam Pact in ’66. Furthermore, JR Jayewardene would not have seen fit to include in his massively popular election manifesto of 1977, a substantive section about the Tamil people, recognizing that the Tamil people have been driven to the point of “even asking for a separate State”, which was of course a reference to the Vattukottai resolution of 1976. The election manifesto was in 1977 and the Tigers were a tiny outfit at that time. Thus the issue was not primarily about the Tigers and by logical consequence the military defeat of the Tigers does not take away the need for a political settlement.

Thirdly, the argument is that devolution had primarily to do with India. Well, if that is the case, the last time I looked India is still there and political climate is getting even more fraught with the elections coming up in 2014. But if you set that point aside for a moment, the province was publicly agreed upon as the main unit of devolution in the documents of the Political Parties Conference of June 1986, held in Colombo. That conference was under the chairpersonship of President Jayewardene and summoned at the written request of Vijaya Kumaratunga. There were no Indians present. If the detailed blueprint arrived at on this occasion had been implemented at the time, with a five-sixths parliamentary majority in hand, there would not have been an opening for the coercive interventionist diplomacy by India one year later!

So these three myths have to be set aside. Then what is provincial devolution really about? It is very simple. If you want the family, the extended family, to stay under one roof, often you have to build an annex. Otherwise, it just would not work. Now, even when it comes to a nuclear family with children, when you have teenagers, the smart thing is to give them a room of their own and not mess with their mail, their music and stuff like this. Because if there is no recognition of the irreducible minimum space that is required for the individuality of that member of the family, or of that branch of the extended family to grow, then there cannot be a shared overarching space. In short, they cannot live under one roof. This is still more so, when one branch of the extended family has a large number of close relatives just next door, across the wall or the lane. That is the basic, existential case for devolution.

As a realist, I really do not wish to spend time on the old debate of the primary unit of devolution. I think there is a case for subsidiarity but that must necessarily pertain to what is known as sub-unit devolution. However, the primary unit has to remain the province for a very simple reason. As President Jayewardene once said in an interview with my father, Mervyn de Silva, editor of the Lanka Guardian, “The Sinhalese say district councils and no more, the Tamils say a regional council and no less; I say provincial councils.” He said that a little bit late in the day, but that is the point of intersection; the saddle point.

Dismantling the provincial unit can in fact be done in this parliament, but there will be no Tamil takers; not one, not even Cabinet Minister Mr. Devananda. There is not a single Tamil political entity that will agree to the abolition of the province as the main unit of devolution. So it will be unadulterated unilateralism on the part of this or whichever administration that does it. We have had such unilateralism before, with the promulgation of the new Constitution in 1972 and this country and its citizens have suffered the harsh consequences. Whoever attempts it now –and there are loud voices calling for this– have to know that there would be a chain of consequences of such a unilateralism. Therefore, as a realist, I commend that the province remain the primary unit of devolution.

Speaking not only as a political scientist but even more so as a former diplomat, I would say the 13^th Amendment is the only cross-cutting point we have. The Tamil political parties were rather unhappy with the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord. They have yet to grasp and live with the reality that the 13^th Amendment was the best that could be obtained even at a time more favorable for devolution, when India had forcefully intervened, J.R. Jayewardene had a 5/6^th majority in the Parliament (albeit a parliament delegitimized by the coercive and rather fraudulent Referendum of Dec ’82), and there was a strong pro-devolution Left, a Left which made the supreme sacrifice in defense of provincial devolution as a solution to the Tamil question. 170 cadres of Vijaya Kumaratunga’s Sri Lanka Mahajana Party (SLMP), the party of which I was an Asst Secretary and the only party of which I’ve been a member, were killed by the JVP in the civil war in the South.

So, that’s the best deal that the devolution project could and would get, but from ’87 or more accurately from the excruciatingly difficult passage of the 13^th amendment through the courts and the legislature in 1988, the Tamil nationalists, including the non-Tiger or anti-Tiger ones, were not satisfied. The TNA still says that it never accepted the 13^th Amendment in 1987 and the EPRLF even before it took office had already denounced the 13^th Amendment as being insufficient in terms of power. Now, how could they know that until they sat there? How could they know it a priori?  This attitude is why I resigned after four months as a Minister in the cabinet of the Northeast provincial Council, writing an Open Letter to the Chief Minister, which was published in the Sunday Times (Colombo), the Sunday Divaina, etc.

It is of course true that the UNP under Ranil Wickremesinghe set fire to the August 2000 Constitution. But whether it was Mangala Moonesinghe’s Parliamentary Select committee report and the deal of Indian model quasi-federalism in exchange for de-merger that was on the table, or Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga’s political packages of 1995, 1997, or August 2000, the TNA or those who comprised the TNA today (at the time the TULF) was just not interested or engaged as a peace partner. Even those political offers and opportunities that went, perhaps over-generously and imprudently, beyond the 13^th amendment were just was not enough for mainstream Tamil nationalism. Well, those chances having been forfeited, now the challenge is to defend what is left of the 13^th Amendment. That is what happens when you ‘price yourself out of the market’, which is what has happened to the TNA.

While most of the Tamils would like to go beyond the 13^th amendment, most of the Sinhalese would like the 13^th Amendment to go away. As a realist, my point is that we cannot go beyond the 13^th Amendment at this stage of history even if it were desirable (which it isn’t) because the only way to go qualitatively beyond it is to do something that would require a referendum. If you go for a referendum, that amendment will come down in flames, probably taking provincial devolution down with it.

There are very strident Southern voices arguing that we should abolish the 13^th Amendment and we should not have the elections that have been promised in September 2013. Of course that can be done. If, however, I could put words into the mouths and minds of the Tamil separatists in the Diaspora it would be “go ahead, make our day” because the only thing that turned India away from -pivoted it from- support of the separatist Tamil movement was the Indo-Lanka Accord and its inevitable corollary the 13^th Amendment. That is what turned around Indian policy from its posture of 1983-1987 and put the IPKF against the LTTE. That is what kept India on our side during the concluding stage of the war in 2009, despite the agitation and imminence of elections in Tamil Nadu. The 13^th amendment –both presence and promise– made the difference between the interruption of Operation Liberation in 1987 and the successful termination of the war by Sri Lanka in 2009. Unplug it and the process may go into reverse.

For those who say that they “are not going to give the TNA what they refused to give the Tigers”, well they seem to forget or deliberately obfuscate the fact that the LTTE fought against the 13^thAmendment, it fought the EPRLF, it fought against the Northern provincial council and above all it fought the IPKF because it knew that the 13^th Amendment is not a stepping stone to – still less tantamount to — separatism. Prabhakaran knew that there is no equation between the 13^thAmendment and Tamil separatism; that these are two different things; that the 13^th amendment is devolution within a unitary framework.

The TNA is not happy about devolution within a unitary state, but that’s what we have. That’s the only deal in town and it’ll be a ‘small miracle’ if it can be made to stick. For the Tamils, the challenge is this: either you make this work or you take a walk on the wild side, hope for external assistance to set up something much bigger. That is a dangerous gamble.

As far as the Sinhalese hawks go, I would say OK you can do away with the 13^th amendment, the Northern provincial council, and the election –but are you ready to face the consequences of the morning after? Those consequences involve the remote possibility of Mrs. Jayalalitha as a Prime Minister next year or the far less remote possibility of an administration that is more susceptible to Tamil Nadu influence; the push factor of a Tamil Nadu that is hostile to Sri Lanka than it has been in 1987 when Mr. M.G. Ramachandran was Chief Minister. Is that a risk that Sri Lanka wants to take? Because I repeat, it was only the 13^th Amendment that broke the nexus between the Tamil militant movement based in Tamil Nadu, the use of that as a rear base and patronage from New Delhi. If we remove that, are we willing to risk the reversal of everything that the 13^thAmendment obtained for us in strategic terms? Do we want Tamil Nadu turned once again into the rear base of separatism? Do we want a convergence between the separatist elements of the Tamil Diaspora, the hardcore separatists of Tamil Nadu and a vacillatory administration at the Centre, together with the chill winds we now experience from the most powerful quarters of the West? Is that what we want to do? I mean, can you think of something that is strategically more moronic, more dangerous to our national security, than that?

While I am not a nationalist and would like to consider myself as, among other things, an enlightened patriot with a sense of Sri Lanka’s national interest, I recognize the reality of nationalism, of nationalisms, and I think they have to be accommodated partially if they have to be contained, pre-empting inevitable or renewed collision. The 13^th Amendment is the only framework I see which can do that because if you undo it the whole deal is going to break down. The gap is too wide between the Sinhalese and the Tamils, and the North and the South. So the only deal that I think can be done is what I call the 13^th Amendment with swaps i.e. with mutually agreed upon tradeoffs.

I am aghast about the whole discussion of taking out from the 13^th amendment the powers relating to land. That’s probably the crux of the issue and has been fairly carefully worked out. The one man who has the most intimate knowledge of the Indo-Lanka Accord and specifically the working out of the segment of land, the man who knows most about Indo-Sri Lanka relations and the loop it goes through the Tamil question and devolution, is a member of the Government and amazingly, shockingly, he has not been brought in to this equation at all. I refer to Dr. Sarath Amunugama in whose ministry and with whose active input –when he was Secretary to Mr. Gamini Dissanayake– the section on land powers was very carefully deliberated upon. I urge the administration to bring Dr. Amunugama front and center into helping manage our relations with India and handle the issues of 13^th Amendment and land, because if you take away the powers of land through unilateral legislation, I do not think again there will be any Tamil takers and the whole deal may fall through, with the Tamils falling back on their old tradition of non-violent civic protest and the huge population of Tamil Nadu backing it up.

As President Obama said about peace between Israel and Palestine, everyone knows what the solution is: the solution is the 1967 borders with swaps. He also warned Israel that with the Arab Spring and the uncorking of popular nationalism, demography is moving against it. Similarly, everybody should know that whatever each actor’s notion of the best solution, the only feasiblesolution to Sri Lanka’s Tamil question is here: it is the 13^th Amendment with mutually agreed upon tradeoffs i.e. the redistribution of the concurrent list. What you need is mutuality, where the concurrent list can be redistributed and some powers can be handed over to the province in exchange for the retention or taking back of certain others.

If we do not electorally reactivate the 13^th amendment in September as promised, Sri Lanka will find that time and space are moving against us; that demography is moving against us and the political dynamics of our large and sole neighbor are moving in a direction that is adversarial towards us. I hope that nobody tries to unplug the 13^th Amendment and not hold the elections this September. We are running out of time.

 (Presentation at discussion series on Constitutional Reform organized by The Liberal Party) 

Land, Ethnicity And The Military Defining A Power Balance

By Kusal Perera -May 6, 2013 

Kusal Perara

“Approximately 6,400 acres of private lands belonging to several thousand Tamil people would be acquired for military cantonments.” – M.A. Sumanthiran – MP / TNA (Colombo Telegraph)

On former military commander and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s arrest, a Karachchi based defence and political analyst, Ali K. Chishti was quoted in Pakistani media as saying, “The military is not happy and watching the developments very cautiously.” Adding that some of the serving Generals found the situation, “very embarrassing”. It is said and quite openly too in political circles, no civilian government could function on its own free will, when the Pakistani military can and does call shots as it wants. Musharraf would not have come back from his exile, if he had no trust on the Pakistani military, said another media comment, after he was whisked off from the Courts by his security men, who are military personnel provided to him, when the Court ordered him to be arrested. In Pakistan, the military is all powerful and runs its own “mil-bus” (businesses under military).

How different is it here, in Sri Lanka ? Fonseka was certainly not “Musharraf of Sri Lanka” and this Rajapaksaregime is not Mir Hazar Khan Khoso’s government. The Sri Lankan military may not be as economically powerful as that of Pakistan. But, this military is certainly not the old, traditional, ceremonial military it was in 1962, when the “Colonels’ Coup” was being hatched against the elected government of Madam Bandaranaike, led by a cousin of late S.W.R.D Bandaranaike, Colonel F.C. De Saram. The  military today is very much larger in numbers, different in its formations and most importantly in its training to handle and defeat an “internal enemy” with an extremely penetrating intelligence and surveillance capability. It is now a battle trained and battle hardened military, having gone through a ruthless and a bloody war for almost 30 years. The military “mindset” has thus evolved differently today in understanding the environment it is deployed in.

Post war, this military in common parlance also meaning the Navy and the Air force too, has been brought in to be entrenched in civil administration. The two Governors appointed by the President to Northern and Eastern Provinces, District Secretary in Trincomalee, ministry secretaries, chairmen and directors in State corporations and importantly too, in many diplomatic postings in the Sri Lanka Foreign Service have all been accepted as normal and as faultless by the Sinhala society. With these security forces getting into economic ventures of numerous scales, no eye brows are raised in the South. They now provide boat rides and helitours as business, have beauty salons, own and manage tourist hotels and resorts and even own a complete golf link in the East coast. They have also at local level got into agriculture, acquiring large patches of land in North and East, using their idling labour.

Such a military does not and cannot remain “blind to politics”. They gain good access to decision making at high levels and enjoy political authority as the most important State agency, with a new self acquired responsibility of running the State. The urban Sinhala middle class in particular, concedes the military and the defence establishment as an efficient agency in delivery of services and therefore an advantage. The political leadership elected to head the civil government that has no vision, no development programme and no will to have a political solution for a tattered post war Sri Lanka, lives on the “war gained” Sinhala importance and authority of this “new military”. For now, they have mutually beneficial roles between them for survival.

The accelerated grabbing of land belonging to civilians in the North – East in recent times, has to be discussed and understood in this heavily militarised, Sinhala political context and not simply as legal or administrative issues in a democratic society. Any democratic society can have violations of its laws at times, but not complete suppression and suspension of laws, at all times.

Therefore, taking over of land in North – East that is more than mere “land grab” is nothing close to  relocating families in the South for “development” projects. For construction of “express ways” or removing of “illegal constructions” in cities. They have always to date, gone through legal processes and people in the South have had recourse to law before implementation. The construction of the “Southern Express way” was stalled during the periods of President Kumaratunge and PM Wickramasinghe due to legal interventions by people, especially in Bandaragama and Akmeemana, who delayed the whole project and allowed President Rajapaksa to open it as one from his own “Chinthanaya”.

Land in the North and East had not been acquired for such clearly identified and planned projects. Had not been acquired under the provisions of Land Acquisition Act No. 9 of 1950, nor under that of Land Development Ordinance. Nor is there Emergency Regulations in force, under the Public Security Ordinance for any acquisition of land by the State (Refer to “Sky No Roof” – pages 29 to 31 for legal details). Land in North – East was not acquired by any civil authority unless by accident or as an exception, and not without the security forces making their intimidating presence. Whole villages can not be taken over by a civil administrator in one single move through legal provisions. A civil administration, how ever irresponsible, is controlled to an extent by its own roots and links to civil life that fashions its thinking. The village of Mullikulum that had 400 families in the Southern edge of Mannar that now has the North-Western Naval Head quarters declared open by the Secretary to the MoD, stand as proof of such uprooting of civilians in bulk by non civil, rigidly regimented agencies that does not decide and act with a civilian approach.

“Last week saw a hugely dangerous move by the government. Section 2 notices under the Land Acquisition Act were pasted on trees in Valikamam North in the Jaffna Peninsula indicating that an extent of approximately 6,400 acres of private lands belonging to several thousand Tamil people would be acquired for Military cantonments.” wrote TNA parliamentarian and legal luminary, M. A. Sumanthiran.

It certainly is very dangerous because his assumption that it was a “move by the government” is also one that needs to be further investigated. The approximate acreage that Sumanthiran tells, is exactly 6,381 acres and the “several thousand” Tamil people would count to over 12,000 families and not persons, from the Grama Seva Niladhari divisions of Valikaamam North and East. While it is extremely dangerous to allow a government to go about demolishing the lives of its own people, never mind the numbers, it is also and far more dangerous when it is not certain, the decisions made are that of the  political leadership in the government or that of the military high command. In post war North – East, there were many incidents that were not the making of the civil administration and not that of the defence establishment high command in Colombo, either.

Perhaps they do fall within the ideological thinking in the high command. But day to day decisions, the likes of changing street and village names to Sinhala, providing business opportunities to Sinhala vendors, may not be always micro managed from Colombo. What is serious and dangerous nevertheless is that they have an accumulated and a synergistic impact on the Tamil society in a very negative way. On the flip side, all of it provides ingredients for a bigger foothold and more military might in the North and East.

These land grabs from Tamil people, not only in the Jaffna peninsula but elsewhere in the Vanni and the East as well, therefore has more than their share of “illegality”. Very importantly too, they come after the second UNHRC Resolution adopted in March this year on post war reconciliation, resettlement and a political solution to Tamil grievances and while the CHOGM to be held in November in Sri Lanka, is highly debated and contested on the same issues in different international forums and in neighbouring India too. For an elected political leadership in government, this would not be the ideal context for trespassing on minority rights. Not when the whole world is looking at it, from a perspective of “minority rights”. Yet, this Rajapaksa regime continues with its policy of subtle but serious changes in the political demography through land grabs and patchy Sinhala settlements. It continues with the military playing an important political role in such change.

The political leadership of this regime has often kept a distance from these issues in the North – East, allowing “land acquisition” by the military to be seen as mere administrative issues, while ignoring the issue of Sinhala settlements raised even in parliament by the TNA. Outside parliament in the Sinhala South, it brings out proxies like Weerawansa and the JHU to provide political backing to such moves. Weerawansa’s May Day demand on a very romantic statement for withdrawal of land and police powers from PCs before elections for the Northern PC is held, claiming land and police powers would open the gate for a separate “Thamil Eelam” is the political explanation for military presence in North and East. That Sinhala platform provides the political leadership of this regime the justification to keep the defence establishment as its main plank of power too.

Thus the fight against this land grab is one that can not be taken as an isolated, single issue. It brings forth the political necessity to force this government to present a reasonable and an adequate political solution based on power sharing, the TNA and the Tamil people living in Sri Lanka could accept. The necessity to drive a clear and a definite political wedge between the defence establishment taking to political decision making and the elected political leadership of the government, is now politically unavoidable. This does not remain the sole responsibility of the brutally suppressed and dislodged Tamil society in the North, but that of the more influential, middle class Colombo Tamil society as well. So is it for the Sinhala society too. For militarisation and land grab would not stop at the still remaining, feeble Omanthai checkpoint.

May Day rhetoric reflects multiple divisions

From the sidelines�By Lasanda Kurukulasuriya-Sunday, May 05, 2013

May Day last year was memorable for an unusual convergence that saw the leader of the main Tamil political formation, the TNA, and the leader of the main Opposition UNP hoisting the national flag together in Jaffna, cheered by a massive crowd. Rajavarothayam Sampanthan’s gesture was generally seen in the South as a sign of readiness to move away from communal politics and join the national mainstream. But that symbolism of unity was short lived.

As Workers’ Day came around this year, the political landscape seemed to be marked by an opposite tendency, with tensions and divisions becoming apparent within the various political groupings, including the ruling coalition.The government’s constituent parties held separate rallies and they didn’t exactly speak with one voice. With the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) election now very much on the cards, the fault lines are becoming apparent. The controversy would seem to extend beyond the NPC election to the Provincial Council system itself and the 13th amendment that brought it into being.

National Freedom Frontleader Wimal Weerawansa has reportedly threatened to leave the Government if the NPC election is held without constitutional amendments that would do away with land and police powers for the provinces. The TNA with whom the Government’s talks have stalled for over a year now has been demanding the devolution of precisely these powers. Jathika Hela Urumaya’s Champika Ranawaka has opposed the holding of the election altogether, citing fears that the TNA would use it as a stepping stone to secession. Implicit in the highly charged rhetoric is the assumption that the TNA will most likely win the election.

Meanwhile, the Government’s partners in the Socialist Alliance comprising the Democratic Left Front, Lanka Sama Samaja Party and the Communist Party at their joint May Day rally have criticised the Government’s neo liberal economic policies.

The NFF and the JHU represent extreme nationalist elements and cannot be taken to reflect the views of the Government as a whole. Yet their rumblings come at a time when the Muslim parties that form a sizeable bloc within the ruling coalition, have reason to be disillusioned over the Government’s seeming indifference towards a vicious hate campaign directed against their community. Disparate though they may be, the issues that divide the coalition partners of the Government are of a kind that would resonate with the various constituencies they represent.

According to ‘Online Uthayan,’ some MPs of the TNA at their rally in Kilinochchi called for a re-merged North and East. These remarks,assuming they have been accurately reported in translation, would not be well received by many in the Southern polity.Are they helpful at a time when national reconciliation is the foremost priority? The constitutionality of the temporarily merged North-East Province formed in 1988 was challenged in court, the provinces were de-merged following a Supreme Court ruling in 2006 and it is unlikely the issue will be revisited any time soon.

Yet it would be probably be a mistake to assume that these comments convey the official line of the TNA.It is known that there are tensions within the alliance. The media have reported on disagreements that have surfaced relating to the registration of the TNA’s five constituent Tamil parties as a single politicalparty ahead of the election.

These reports lead to speculation that the superficial differences may be manifestations of deeper tensions at a strategic and/or ideological level.Up until now the TNA constituents contested elections under the banner of the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK).ITAKMPs R Sampanthan and M ASumanthiran, considered to be moderates within the group, have reportedly expressed reluctance to register the alliance with three former militant groups – the EPRLF, the TELO and the PLOTE — on board.

Sampanthan’s introductory remarks at the S.J.V. Chelvanayakam memorial lecture last month may seem reminiscent of the conciliatoryattitude he conveyed in his gesture of hoisting the national flag on May Day last year. He is reported to have said:
“The TNA is prepared to genuinely contribute towards the evolution of a reasonable workable and durable political solution within the framework of a united, undivided Sri Lanka which will enable reconciliation between the different peoples who inhabit the country.”

However, many people would tend to view the TNA’s semantics with caution. They would recall that barely four weeks after the joint May Day celebration with the UNP in Jaffna last year, Sampanthan in his speech at the 14th ITAK Convention in Batticaloa in so many words seemed to renew the call for secession.

A surprise appearance this year at an event that has now come to be associated with May Day, was that of Dayan Jayatilleka who shared a platform with UNP’s former deputy leader SajithPremadasa at the commemoration of the 20th death anniversaryof his father. Former President R. Premadasa was assassinated by the LTTE at a May Day rally in 1993.The fact that the former Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, an academic and arguably the most trenchant analyst of Sri Lankan politics around today, chose to throw his weight behind the main contender for the UNP’s leadership, speaks volumes in itself.

Addressing the crowd Jayatilleka said the late president Premadasa never spoke of going beyond the 13th Amendment. A crisis arose as a result of the North-East Provincial Council exceeding its mandate and seeking to form a separate state. Regardless of pressures from external peace keeping forces in the country at the time, he made the necessary moves to dissolve the Council. That was all. He did not try to dissolve the Provincial Council system, he said.

Jayatilleka has consistently warned against jettisoning the Provincial Council system, referring to the unraveling of Yugoslavia which he says “commenced with a single act: the unilateral abrogation of the autonomous status of the province of Kosovo by Serb nationalists” who thought that Tito had favoured the minorities.

The 13th Amendment represents an agreement below which no Tamil party is willing to go, Jayatilleka argues. Here’s the ‘hard sell’ on the 13th Amendment as he articulates it in his book ‘Long War, Cold Peace – Conflict and Crisis in Sri Lanka’(p.268):

“�.. it is already in place and does not have to be (re) negotiated. It has only to be implemented and Sri Lanka’s military triumph would be politically reinforced instantly. Tamil nationalism would be split between the hyper-nationalists who reject it and the moderates who accept and participate, the Diaspora would be divided, the North-South gap would have a bridge, a renewed cycle of conflict would be much less likely or possible, the impressive weight of India in the world system would be solidly with us, the international pressure on us would greatly lift, our allies and friends in the international system would be relieved and vindicated, the anti-Sri Lanka global campaign would be severely weakened and the attempt to encircle Sir Lanka would be defeated.”

Squandering A Costly Victory

By Asanga Welikala -May 6, 2013 

Asanga Welikala

Author’s Note: I wrote this political column in the final days of the war at the invitation of Frederica Jansz, then the Editor of The Sunday Leader. It appeared in that newspaper on 3^rd May 2009. As we approach the milestone of four years since the war ended, I reproduce it because many of the issues raised then have become reality now, including political violence, majoritarian chauvinism, minority persecution, the destruction of the rule of law, the absence of power-sharing, attacks on free expression and the press, fractious international relations, and the LTTE’s share of the responsibility for the tragedy that unfolded as this piece was being written. Never has political prognostication been such a depressing experience.

Rakwana

The Tamil press this week reported an ominous incident from Rakwana which might portend things to come. Picturesque Rakwana in Sabaragamuwa is a plantation area with a large population of Tamils of recent Indian origin. The annual festival and procession of the Muthumariamman kovil has been held there, according to the Thinakkural, for nearly two hundred years. This year though, self-appointed representatives of the Sinhala Buddhist interest in Rakwana paid visits to members of the kovil organising committee to put it to them bluntly that the procession should not be held, because it coincides with the month of Vesak. The police attempt at mediation came to nought: the meeting with representatives of both sides to settle the dispute was decided when a mob of some five hundred turned up on behalf of the Buddhists. Mano Ganeshan M.P. has written to the President asking for intervention, and it would be interesting to see what form this will take, if and when it happens.

This episode may be an isolated one, but it is symptomatic of several serious political challenges facing Sri Lanka today.

The argument, enforced with the threat of mob violence, that minority groups cannot peacefully exercise their constitutionally protected right to freedom of religion because it offends a peculiarly defined notion of celebrating Vesak is so blatantly repugnant to any conception of a free society that it almost requires no response. However, it is an early sign that the military victory in the North over the LTTE is going to be interpreted, at least among some sections of the Sinhala-Buddhist polity, as the stamp of supremacy over minorities. By this chauvinistic logic, Sri Lanka is the property of Sinhala-Buddhists. Minorities exist at the sufferance of the majority community, and the temerity to exercise anything so exalted as a right guaranteed under the Constitution can be legitimately suppressed. This is the implicit justification for the spate of violence in the recent past against Christians and their churches.

This kind of incident poses a challenge for more thoughtful Buddhist Sri Lankans. How is it that this most reflective, unworldly and tolerant of religious philosophies has been transmogrified into a political ideology of misanthropic narcissism, in the service of thuggish behaviour? There is a significant doctrinal and liturgical challenge to salvage Buddhism from this misappropriation. It is also a political challenge in that Buddhism is the religion of the democratic majority that enjoys a constitutionally privileged status, which carries with it the responsibility to treat minorities and their religions with the decency that should be the hallmark of the good Buddhist.

It is also an illustration once more of the debilitation of the rule of law in this country. As we saw in the murder of the JVP’s Nandana Balage in the Western Provincial Council election campaign, the police feel unable to enforce the law and to do their duty when faced with politically motivated assertions of illegitimate authority in the community. If minorities in Sri Lanka cannot expect the protection of the Constitution and the law enforcement authorities, what hope do they have? This is precisely the kind of majoritarian intolerance that made such a disaster of our post-independence nation-building experience, and which led eventually to militant separatism and civil war. For those who argue, from self-interest or naivety, that the military defeat of the LTTE presents a political opportunity for sustainable peace, it is exactly this kind of behaviour among those who think they are the President’s political vanguard, that should give pause for thought.

How can Sri Lankans who believe in an inclusive, pluralistic Sri Lanka and a rights respecting society underpinned by the rule of law have any realistic faith that the avowed defeat of terrorism in the North heralds a new era? This is why it would be interesting to see how the President responds to Ganeshan. It is an opportunity for him to send a strong message to potential vigilantes that minority-bashing will not be tolerated, and to give a measure of reassurance to the minorities that his government’s anti-terrorism programme is also not an anti-minority programme.

The ‘Sandy Strip’

The military conflict between the State and the LTTE is coming to an end, and although the end now is inevitable, it certainly cannot come quickly enough for civilians who are undergoing a truly horrific experience. The international press’s euphemism of the ‘the sandy strip’ in Mullaitivu has come to typify both the defeat of the LTTE’s nationalism, as well as the attendant possibility of a humanitarian disaster.

The imminent end, for now at least, of the military phase of the conflict gives rise to several issues. The past weeks and coming days will see the unfolding of a terrible humanitarian tragedy for citizens of Sri Lanka who have already experienced decades of conflict, with people dying of disease, starvation, dehydration, and violence. The LTTE’s notion of nationalism also involves a macabre mythology of death and martyrdom, and it seems determined to ensure that its final showdown is the equivalent of an epic sacrificial ritual. It is a deliberate attempt at myth-making through which it hopes to sustain Tamil nationalism over and beyond the present defeat. It is inconceivable therefore that it will heed any call to surrender and let the civilians go.

What the LTTE and its diaspora supporters seem incapable of understanding – just as they were unable to see that separate statehood or indeed autonomy was not possible through exclusively violent means and without political transformation – is that this attempt at pinning the State with the stigma of genocide will simply not hold. Should a large number of civilians die in this final phase as a result of military operations, any objective observer will see the LTTE’s complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity is as much if not more than that of the State. The charge of genocide, even if one understands the sense of outrage that people like Arundhathi Roy, Maya Arulpragasam, and Anita Pratap have, is an easy one to make, less so to prove. In a context in which future responsibility for war crimes or crimes against humanity is not a clear cut matter of one or other party, it is better that the gravity of these offences are not devalued by injudicious and hysterical use of words like genocide, especially where the LTTE is in the best position to avoid such a catastrophe befalling its own people by surrendering.

Having said that, the government is at serious risk of winning the war but losing the peace. Its attitude of smug complacency that its ‘humanitarian / hostage rescue operation’ is the best thing to happen to the people of Mullaitivu is belied by the fact that conditions are only little better in ‘welfare camps’ than in the ‘safe zone’, which in any case are an example of the mass internment of citizens that should have no place in a free society. Naturally, no one is suggesting the government provides five star treatment to these people, but with the help of the international community and humanitarian organisations, the government can do far more to ensure that its provision of basic services to them better meet international standards governing this type of situation. Instead, the government’s general attitude has been one of confrontation and belligerence especially towards the West, and one of aggression towards the media and civil society. These attitudes stem from what seems like paranoia and defensiveness, especially when arguments about sovereignty and national self-respect are marshalled in its favour. For example, the acrimony surrounding David Miliband’s visit this week only caps weeks of fractious relations with the UK, in which Britain has been frequently reminded that it does not rule Sri Lanka anymore. Quite apart from the fact that we can confidently agree Britain harbours no secret ambition of re-colonising Sri Lanka, this is the kind of embarrassing posturing that surely undermines our international standing as a small but respected member of the international community.

One of the most disturbing factors in what is happening in the North’s humanitarian situation is the government’s close management, indeed manipulation of information with regard to it. It allows no independent verification or reporting and stubbornly refuses more open co-operation with the UN and other organisations. The political dimension to this of course is that the people in the South only hear what the government tells them. This is critical in maintaining popular support in the South, especially in regard to the electoral strategy of staggered provincial elections (and presidential and general elections to come), which are deployed as periodic referenda for the government’s war achievements. Thus for example, while the outcome of the Western Provincial Council election was never in doubt in the present political context, it might have been interesting to see how margins in especially Colombo district may have been affected should the electors here had the benefit of a more complex understanding of what is happening up North. This is at least a partial explanation how, fully allowing for the invertebrate quality of opposition it has ever been the UNP’s misfortune to offer, that the Colombo constituency that voted consistently for peace and constitutional reform seems to have been won over by the government.

Prospects for Devolution and Constitutional Reform

Beyond the immediacy of the humanitarian issues, however, is the big question about the constitutional settlement the government hopes to introduce to address the root causes of the conflict. This is what will ensure that diversity and pluralism in Sri Lanka will be protected and celebrated, rather than becoming a source of future conflict. The government’s stated position in this regard is that it will fully implement the extent of devolution under the Thirteenth Amendment, until the APRC reports on a scheme of further devolution to an extent consistent with the unitary state. Notwithstanding the well-known flaws of the Thirteenth Amendment, it can be argued that some of these may be ameliorated through implementation in a way that respects provincial autonomy, and this was what was expected of the government in its great test case, the Eastern Province. The Eastern Provincial Council marks one year this month, and the story there offers interesting insights into what the government means by full implementation of the Thirteenth Amendment, and thereby indications as to its commitment to deliver more devolution in the future.

Chief Minister Chandrakanthan has publicly made known his complaints about the lack of progress with regard to transferring competences that his Council ought to be exercising in terms of the Constitution, including critical subjects like policing. The Provincial Councils spend next to nothing on capital expenditure and investment, even though there are several devolved subjects that require such expenditure. Instead, this seems to continue to be done by the central government, with the massive Nagenahira Navodaya programme (administered by Basil Rajapakse) for the Eastern Province taking centre stage. The Eastern Provincial Council has passed several statutes in the exercise of its legislative power, that have not received the assent of the Governor because the latter has referred them for review by the Attorney General’s Department. This of course is one of the oldest impediments to the exercise of devolved legislative power experienced by all Provincial Councils. The Governor delays assent by referring provincial statutes to the AG, even though this is not required by the Constitution, resulting either in unnecessary delay or in some cases, the withholding of consent.

Therefore, if this is the experience of devolution in the Eastern Province, the centrepiece of the government’s devolution policy, taken together with the SLFP’s May 2007 constitutional reform proposals to the APRC, it is difficult to be optimistic about what the future holds in respect of devolution as a strategy of securing the peace through constitutional reform. This is why the militarily created political opportunity seems likely to be squandered (adding to the tiresome litany of lost opportunities in this country), and the government’s victory is a victory for the status quo.

TMVP Push For Devolution

By Easwaran Rutnam-Monday, May 06, 2013

The Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pullikal (TMVP) has decided to push for devolution of powers to the provinces.

TMVP spokesman Azad Maulana said that the decision was taken at the TMVP May Day meeting held last week in the east.

Maulana told The Sunday Leader that the party would urge the government to fully implement the 13thAmendment to the Constitution and through that to devolve maximum powers to the provinces.

“Our position on that is very firm and it was reiterated when we had a rally for May Day last week,” he said.

He also said that the TMVP, a government ally, is ready to work with Leftist political parties and others in the government who support power devolution.

Maulana also said that the TMVP backs holding provincial council elections in the north but has not decided if it would field candidates for the election.

Some political parties in the government have strongly opposed holding provincial council elections in the north.

Minister Wimal Weerawansa is among the most vociferous saying it will give the Tamil National Alliance an upper hand.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa had recently assured that provincial council elections will be held in the north in September.

The President said that the people of the north had suffered immensely as a result of the 30 year war and those people will now have a chance to have provincial council elections.

My Take On Tilak Samaranayaka’s Perception Of Sinhala Muslim Conflict

By Rifai Naleemi -May 6, 2013

Dr. Rifai Naleemi

I was shocked and dismayed to read one-sided   article of Mr Tilak Samaranayaka in Colombo Telegraph on 5-5-13. The title article is “Understanding the causes of Sinhala Muslim conflict in SriLanka”.  With full respect to his economic expertise in the field I’m sorry that I had to disagree with some of the points he raised in his article. I’m sorry to say that this article is not written objectively.  He has indeed distorted some facts with mere prediction and assumptions. It looks that Tilak Samaranayaka has become one more victim of BBS’s false propaganda machine. A learned man like him should not write on the basis of mere prediction and more assumption without substantiated evidence.

I have full respect for Sinhalese race and I think that Sinhalese race is one of the unique and best human races on the face of this earth. I have had opportunities to interact and get on with many nationalities in my work place.  Compared to customs, mentalities, and behaviours of many ethnic groups Sri Lankan Sinhalese are unique in their politeness, kindness, sense of humour, good manners. As a Sri Lankan born and brought up among them I can tell through my personal interaction with them for more 27 years in Sri Lanka.   Even our long history itself witnesses that. This is the behaviours and manners of the majority of Sinhalese people and yet, a handful Sinhalese people are trying jolly ride with sense of superiority complex at the backdrop of defeating euphoria. They openly claim that they are indigenous people of Sri Lanka and all others are guest people or visitors. Hitler type mentality is inflicted to some of these extremists.

Yet, it is my own humble observation and I may be right or wrong. I do not know for sure how far my observation is fitting from anthropological, sociological and linguistic perspectives but Sinhalese people resemble Bangladesh people in calmness, politeness and appearance. I observe some similarities between people of the Bay of Bengal and Sri Lankan Sinhalese people in term of customs, language and way of life.  Any one who has been to Bangladesh villages will notice these similarities in features and calm characters.

I’m neither a historian in ethnography nor an anthropologist and yet, I have been living among these two communities. Since I arrived in London I have been living with many Bangladesh friends.  Some Bangladesh words look similar to Sinhalese language terms.  Their physical appearance and foods are very much similar to Sinhalese. For that reason I’m very much convinced that Sinhalese race originates and hails from that part of sub-continent: I’m not an authority on this but it is a mere observation of mine. Today with the advancement in DNA technology this genealogy could be firmly established sooner rather than later. I think some students of sociology should do some research on this line. I recall this to remind all Sri Lankan communities that one way or another we all come to this Island from India continent/some other part of the world.   Only Veddhas are the original inhabitants of Sri-Lanka in antiquity. So, we should not have superiority or inferiority complex at all.

Muslims have been living more than a thousand years in Sri Lanka among Singhalese people.   Please read (The Muslim of Sri Lanka: One thousand of Ethnic Harmony 900-1915) by Lorna Dewaraja. And read Singhalese historians who testify this.  The Singhalese people never harmed Muslims in Sri Lankaand indeed, it was Sinhalese kings and Sinhalese people who protected Muslims in the past.

I do not see any academic credit in your analysis of Sinhala Muslim relationship in Sri Lanka. You have one sided and biased story.  I wonder if you are BBS agent in Australia. Let me refute and repulse some of your argument in a simple language: you argue that Muslims “never participate in any social or community activity. Their participation in any sport in the country is practically non-existent” This is a pure lie because, Muslims have been fully participating in all aspects of socio-political life: How many Muslim policemen were killed byLTTE just because of they worked with Sinhalese Government. ?  How many Muslim officials of different government departments were killed by LTTE simply because they were with Sinhalese in their war with LTTE?  How many Muslim army officials were killed merely because they are with Sinhalese?

Please read the history of Police establishment in Sri Lanka you will know that first police to scarify his life for police service was a Muslim police man.  You say that we do not have any sport men in Muslim community. Look at the history sport in Srilanka in Rugby, Football, and in some other sports you will see a lot of leading Muslims persons in the past: It may be today we do not have enough sport men.   It is not because of lack of talent among Muslims but because of discrimination and racism: Do you think that Tamil and Muslim communities have no talent in Sport?  Of course, they have but they are not given opportunities. There are a lots of talented people but today racial and communal politics do all dirty work inSri Lanka:  Sport persons have not yet been given rightful opportunities and you know well politics of Sri Lanka.

Since the independence Sri Lankan politics dominated by Sinhalese with the majority in parliament   They could change laws and they could erect laws in their favour at any time: Look at this terrorism law that has been introduced recently: under this law any one could be arrested and detained for 90 days without access to lawyers. Of course, I agree with you that Sinhalese people were marginalised during the colonial period but now they are trying to marginalise all minority communities as they were treated by colonial powers: This is revengeful tactics and some of BBS members are leading this crafty politics.

I could tell you hundreds of incidents of racial discriminations that have been taken place since the Independence in Sri Lanka. Recent time it has doubled. In recent SLAS Examinations soon after 2009, all AGA are appointed by Singhalese candidates: as if there are no quailed candidates from Tamils and Muslims.  Do you know how many percentages of Muslims in public sector employment in Sri Lanka?  Less than 1.5% of entire Muslim population is in public sector employment SL. Why is this discrimination? Do not we have qualified people?  How many percentage of Muslim students get university admission?   I do not like to divide Sri-Lankans in communal liens at all. We all have to be united as Sri Lankans and strive and work hard   as one family to rebuild Sir Lanka.

You have mentioned about population growth and religious conversion:

These are two sensitive areas I have intended to write extensively on these two areas: I will do so in this News paper other times: These two areas need more time and more space to write. Yet, in short, it can be said that Sinhalese population growth is not in decline rather growth is slow compared to Muslim population: Why is that.  It is because the social lives of both communities are different to some extent. Sinhalese girls get marry late in life. Sinhalese girls go to work.  They do not have time to look after children at homes. Most of them go to higher education and end up delaying marriage until late thirties.  How could you expect them to have healthy babies if they marry late in life?

Whereas Muslims want their girls to marry early in life because of some religious reasons.  We want men go to work and ladies look after children at homes and it is responsibility of men to provide maintenance for wife and children. It is  the materialism that destroys Sinhalese population and it is materialism that encourages Sinhalese girls to live a  western way of life and destroys family life: Tell them to follow pure Buddhism and control the greed for this world then they could increase Sinhalese population.

More facts could be attributed to this debate: Unlike in the past, new generation of Sinhalese population now move into town and cities: Both newly married husbands and wives work. Therefore, they do no have time to look after more than one or two children.  Some do not want to have more than two children.  If this social change has taken place within your community why do you blame Muslims for that: It is your problem of your won community and nothing to do with Muslims?   it is a rapidly developing social change of your community: You should address this to your community.  It is unfair to blame Muslims because of the fault of Sinhalese girls: secondly, your people do more abortion than Muslims because of our faith we do not do it?

We believe that killing babies in wombs is not acceptable at all in any human sense except there is any real danger for the life of mothers. Moreover, the thirty years of war may have contributed slightly for the decline in Sinhalese population growth. These are some of the facts you should examine and gauge in your objective research and we Muslims do not try to deliberately increase our population as you assume.   Muslims feel that most of them live below poverty line and for that reasons they can not afford to increase population. If I do not offend you one more reason for Sinhalese population decrease may be that unlike other faith groups Sinhalese monks are not allowed to marry: This may in return reduce growth of population slightly in long runs.

It would not  be make a huge difference and yet, this could contribute to some extent to the  decline of population in your community.  Take for instance, if Sinhalese have a community of monks around two to three hundred thousands in total in Sri Lanka. I do not really know what the monk population in Srilanka is and yet I assume like that. If these two hundred thousand monks can not marry this could definitely decrease Sinhalese population to some extent. I hope someone do a field research on this subject with some practical and scientific evidence. I do not say that these monks should change their faith and traditions to increase Sinhalese population rather I’m saying these as some of the facts that contribute population increase.  Do not take me wrong for this and I’m just looking this problem from different perspectives.

Moreover, today more than 1.7 millions SriLankans work in the Middle and Europe. Most of house maids from Sir Lanka are from Sinhalese community and most of them are Sinhalese girls. They go to Middle East countries in the teenage life or in their adult age. Some of these girls work years in these countries and come back to Sir Lanka in their late twenties or thirties.  Some do not even marry them on the basis of social stigma and suspicion.

Moreover, poverty and alcoholism among Sinhalese community may be some of the other factors that contribute to this decline in Sinhalese population and yet to blame Muslims for this is not convincing at all.  Muslims maintain family unit in tact as a part of their religious faith not only in Sri Lanka but also over the world:  The family life is one of the unique institutions that Islam shapes and guides in a beautiful way no other system has any parallel to that.  That is why more western ladies accept Islam and become part of International Muslim community.  Indeed, Muslim family life wives are not obliged to provide maintenance for the children and whatever Muslim wives earn they could keep it for themselves and not obliged to spend on children or on families rather it is husband’s responsibilities to finically support families. This is one of the reasons that educated western girls prefer to marry Muslim boys. At least theatrically this is stipulated in Islamic law.

You have argued that this population growth of Muslims put the county into economic burden. I’m sorry that I had to disagree with you. Today, population growth is not a burden rather it is human capital.  If Sri Lanka could invest on this human capital in a good manner without any racial discrimination, this population growth of Sir Lanka could bring more wealth and prosperity to Sri Lanka more than any nation in Asia. Sri-Lankan is blessed with talents and skills. We have rich human resources in Asian countries and our human potentiality is better than any countries in Asia except a few states in India:  You are saying that this could be burden. Yours  is a pure pessimistic and one sided observation.  “To meet this future Muslim population growth, scarce resources will need to be allocated for food production, health services, housing, education, and various other social services. In addition, the increase in population will also need more land to build schools, to expand infrastructure facilities for trading and other activities”

This is the fallacy of your argument and this should be seen from a positive perspective in line of human resource development. Sri Lanka could become prosperous nation competing Singapore if our politicians have determination and political will to do so without any racial bias between communities.  That dream needs the unity of all communities in Sirlanka and also some good long term development projects and support of broad minded people.

I’m sorry that our economists in Sri Lanka have failed to advise our politicians in right directions in many projects and I’m sorry that we have do not have a good systems to train our youths in many modern professions in our country and this is the world of brain powers and skill forces. If Srilanka could guide and train next generation in modern professions that are in demand we could become of one of rich nations in Asia. This needs politically stable situation but BBS wants to destroy that and create more wars. They want to destroy economy of Muslims first and then they want to destroy Tamil heritage and then they want to destroy Christian heritage in order of priority. They are so narrow minded and so primitive in their thinking and mind setups.  They do not think that if they destroy Muslims properties or Muslim business that they are destroying national wealth and national asserts.

As an Economist you tell me do not they do this by their rhetoric?  Do not you see they encourage communal hatred?  Do not they have any civilised way to address their concerns in this modern way?  They have given bad impression and bad name for the entire Sinhalese community in the world?  This has already damaged the image of this government too locally and international.  It is shame that police, security and politicians have failed to take any actions. Yet, you seem to be pouring oil in burning wounds. Finally what can I say except Almighty God guides all of us into right path in our thinking, intention and actions?  I shall write on conversion next week.