By P.K.Balachandran
The Tamil parties of the North and East have rejected President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s proposal for ethnic reconciliation made on the opening day of parliament earlier in the week.
Speaking on the President’s speech in parliament on Wednesday, Ilankai Tamil Arasu atchi (ITAK) MP, M.A.Sumanthiran, said that contrary to the President’s notion, economic development of the Northern and Eastern provinces will not bring about reconciliation. What the Tamils need, and have been demanding, is meaningful devolution of power based on the concept of self-determination and self-rule, he stated.
Sumanthiran demanded the full implementation of the 13 th. Amendment (13A) of the constitution as it was a bilateral commitment made to India. But the 13A is not the solution to the Tamil question, he pointed out. The 13A safeguarded India’s security, but it was not the solution to the Tamil question in Sri Lanka. The permanent solution lies in a federal structure based on the concept of self-determination and not the 13A which distributes power within the framework of the existing Unitary constitution.
Referring to the President’s plea that people should sink all their differences and back his efforts to solve the economic problem especially the forex shortage, Sumanthiran said that the regimes of the Rajapaksas had brought Sri Lanka to the current state in which it has to go from country to country with a begging bowl. Sumanthiran said that if the country is to over comes its economic woes, it has to solve the Tamil question to the satisfaction of the Tamils.
For India’s Security
The leaders of eleven Sri Lankan Tamil parties who met the Indian High Commissioner in Sri Lanka, Gopal Baglay, on Tuesday told him that only fully empowered provincial councils in the Sri Lankan North and East can ensure that forces inimical to India do not get a foothold there.
The Tamil leaders had met the High Commissioner to hand over a letter addressed to the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on issues facing the Sri Lankan Tamils under the Gotabaya Rajapaksa regime. President Gotabaya appears to be pushing an exclusivist Sinhala-Buddhist majoritarian agenda to the detriment of the minority Tamils and Muslims. He appears bent on adopting a new, centralized constitution later this year.
The Tamil parties fear that the existing 13 th. Amendment (13A) of the Lankan constitution will be further eroded to make the provincial councils a nullity. The 13A, which stemmed from the India-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987, gives the provinces a modicum of power, albeit under a Unitary constitution.
In the one and a half hour meeting with High Commissioner Baglay, the Tamil leaders spoke on various issues facing the Tamils of the North and East. Although the High Commissioner did not raise the issue of China’s determined bid to get foothold in the North and East, Suresh Premachandran, leader of the Eelam Peoples’ Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), told the envoy that strengthening the Tamils in political and economic terms will enable them to stop the entry of forces inimical to India.
Premachandran pointed out that under the present system of devolution, under a 13A minus powers over land, agriculture, and the police, the Northern provincial council cannot stop any project or foreign involvement desired by the central government in Colombo. He charged that due to inadequate devolution under the 13A, provincial Governors, appointed by the Center, have been running a parallel administration as per the wishes of the authorities in Colombo.
Recently, India had to step-in to stop a Chinese power project in three islands off Jaffna on security grounds. The islands are too near the Indian coast. The project was brought to a standstill by the Lankan authorities, but neither the Sri Lankans nor the Chinese have cancelled the project. Meanwhile, the Chinese Ambassador, who had made a much publicized visit to the North, announced China’s intention to invest more in the North. And the Sri Lankan government is backing Chinese moves in this regard, Premachandran allged.
C.V.Wigneswaran, leader of the Tamil Makkal Koottani (TMK),told the Indian envoy, that the Lankan government is grabbing land in the Tamil areas with the intention of settling Sinhalese and altering the ethnic ratio. Apparently there are cases of this sort in Trincomalee and Mullaitivu districts. The Archeology Department is taking over areas where there are Buddhist artifacts. This is done on the basis of a specious and historically false notion that all Buddhist remains indicate the habitation of Sinhalese, Wigneswaran said. It is conveniently forgotten that Buddhism was practiced by Tamils till Saivism gained the upper hand.
M.A. Sumanthiran of the Ilanka Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) pointed out that under one pretext or the other, the Gotabaya government has been taking over lands which were returned to the Tamils after the end of the war in May 2009. The Tamils feel that such things will not happen if the 13A is fully implemented. The 13A had given powers over land to the provinces but no government has handed over this power to the provinces. Hence the Tamils’ demand for the full implementation of the 13A with land and police powers.
Federalism
However, the Tamil parties of the North and East do not feel that the 13A is adequate for the protection of the Tamils because it is embedded in a “Unitary” Sri Lankan constitution. In a unitary constitution, powers handed over to the provinces or any other unit in the periphery, can always be taken away. But in a federal constitution, powers given, cannot be taken back.
This is why, in the letter addressed to the Indian Prime Minister, the parties of the North and East gave primacy to the demand for federalism and sought Indian support for it. To press the case for a federal setup, the letter narrated the commitments made to it by all stakeholders including the Tamil parties, successive Sri Lankan governments, and India. The demand for federalism has had the support of the Tamil electorate through successive elections. In his speech at the Sri Lankan parliament, visiting Indian Premier Modi, had said that he stood for “cooperative federalism”. Earlier, during the peace talks at Oslo in the early 2000s, the Lankan Minister G.L.Peiris and the Tamil Tigers’ political advisor, Anton Balasingham, had agreed to explore a federal solution.
High Commissioner Baglay said that India would help get investments for the North and East in solar power. A long-standing Indian suggestion to improve the Palaly airport in Jaffna to make it an international airport serving destinations to Tamil Nadu, is still pending with the Sri Lankan government, he said. According to Suresh Premachandran, the Sri Lankan government is trying to make Palaly airport a military one essentially. He alleged that the infrastructures put in place to make it a civilian airport are being taken away and used elsewhere in South Sri Lanka.
END
