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We
reproduce the following article by Batty Weerakoon,
General Secretary of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party by
courtesy of the Island of 23rd May 2002:
Needed,
a Progressive Platform on the Ethnic Issue
The
Lanka Sama Samaja Party accords to the negotiated
ceasefire and the ending of hostilities as between the
Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE the recognition that
it is an opportunity for the progressive forces in the
country to take forward the struggle for a permanent
political solution to the ethnic problem.
The
LSSP accepts that there are serious drawbacks that could
affect the peace process. What was perceived as
conspiratorial activity of the UNP and the LTTE in
defeating the PA government has tainted the on-going peace
process with the suspicion that it has objectives that
cannot be disclosed to the people. LTTE activity under
cover of the MOU and the demonstrable failure of the
Monitoring Mission to ensure that the LTTE honours the
terms of the MoU have not helped in giving the much needed
authenticity to the peace process.
The
LTTE’s declared lack of concern for a permanent solution
and its unremitting pursuit of the objective of itself
carrying on an interim administration of the Northern and
Eastern provinces while it remains armed are presented by
opponents of the MoU as a wily attempt by the LTTE to
establish a legitimized base to carry forward its armed
struggle for a separate state. They see in this not the
prospect of peace but the certainty of escalated conflict.
This perception has its impact on mass consciousness and
it cannot be lightly dismissed. The LSSP does not see it
as feasible or sagacious to discuss any interim
administration by the LTTE except as part of a process
which accomplishes the genuine disarming of the LTTE on
its agreement to a permanent political solution. Where
resort to military means by the LTTE remains a reality the
perception that the interim administration demanded by the
LTTE is a half way house in the armed struggle for a
separate state can fatally undermine the peace process.
The
UNP has no policy on a permanent political solution. Nor
has it a principled approach to such solution. This is no
weakness limited to the UNP. The UNP and the SLFP are both
essentially Sinhala based parties. Neither party could on
its own bring about a solution to the ethnic problem
without making it the occasion for the other party to
embark on a Sinhala communal based attack on it. Hence the
political opportunism to which both these parties have at
all times gravitated in respect of the problem at hand. It
is the LTTE’s awareness of this chronic ailment in Sri
Lanka’s politics that has brought out its clear
statement in its media interview in Kilinochchi that the
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is not strong enough
to give to the Tamil people a permanent solution to the
problem at hand and that the LTTE is therefore confining
itself to an agenda on the establishment of an interim
administration of the N & E provinces under its
control.
Interim
administrations have been contemplated in earlier attempts
to come to terms with the LTTE. The LTTE recalled in its
report to the International Tamil Conference (1988
April-May: London) that Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in
persuading them to abide by the terms of the Indian- Sri
Lanka accord gave to them the promise that "an
interim Government would be formed with the LTTE playing a
dominant role." The report went on to state that this
was among the Indian premier’s undertakings on the basis
of which it decided to lay down its arms. It is
understandable that in the negotiations which are
reportedly scheduled for June 2002 the LTTE is likely not
to settle for anything less than this notwithstanding the
difference in situation in that the Accord embodied a
permanent solution. This is bound to scuttle the process
even though the Government be willing to go along with it.
We are of the view that interim arrangements of this
nature should be contemplated only in the light of the
permanent settlement that can be agreed upon.
The
interim administration the LTTE demands is part of a
strategy on which it entered the negotiated ceasefire.
That strategy has tied down the UNP to discussions only
with the LTTE in seeking a political means of ending the
war. Such discussions cannot possibly go beyond what the
LTTE itself has placed on the agenda which is the interim
administration. This is seen as a trap-like situation
structured by the LTTE.
Ceasefire
Monitoring
The
way forward would depend to a large extent on the proper
monitoring of the MoU on the cease-fire. In this task the
government must involve the machinery available to
Parliament and to civil society. The present division in
the government as between the Cabinet of Ministers and the
President has to be ended. Under the present Constitution
the executive President is part of the government even
though in the present relation of forces the UNP does not
accept her as its head. It is all important that her
position as head of the armed forces is respected. Any
attempt to undermine her in that position can seriously
disorient the chain of command in the armed forces. She
has a legitimate role in the implementation of the MOU and
any conflict in this regard cannot be confined to personal
bickering. Such conflict will necessarily relate to the
role of the armed forces in the arrangements contained in
the MoU. It is possible that if the MOU is not implemented
with due attention to the anxieties of the armed forces
the ensuing dissensions will be exploited in the
inter-party power struggle which is proceeding at present.
The UNP cannot disregard the fact that these are
possibilities which can undermine public confidence in
what it is trying to take forward.
The
LSSP recognizes that the MoU goes beyond a cease fire and
avoidance of hostilities. The prevailing ground situation
had compelled parties to mutually recognize the zones of
control of each other. The LTTE remains exclusively in
control of the Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi districts. The
MOU recognizes the responsibility of government to provide
for law and order in the Eastern province but it has not
addressed the question of monitoring LTTE activity in the
area as affects both law and order and the security of the
people. Even on matters of abductions and extortions the
Norwegian Monitors take the position that these are
matters for the Sri Lankan police and that they do not
come within their purview. The government’s studied
silence on these issues fails to inspire confidence on its
ability or willingness to use the provisions of the MOU to
counter LTTE activity that endanger national consensus and
also affect seriously both Tamil and Muslim people living
in the Trincomalee and Batticaloa districts in particular.
The MOU must be implemented with due respect to the
democratic freedoms of the people in the affected areas.
It must, in addition, ensure their human and fundamental
rights.
Positive
Impact
Despite
the weaknesses in government strategy the ceasefire that
has been achieved has had an overall positive impact both
in the South of the country and the North. After over two
decades of the unceasing experience of the conditions of
war the people of the North and the Wanni have reason for
their profound enthusiasm about the prospect of peace. The
opening of the Jaffna-Kandy road will take them further in
their appreciation of what is at hand. It is not possible
that they will acquiesce in a re-imposition on them of the
conditions of war by the LTTE resorting once more to
military operations. This is a perception the LTTE cannot
ignore.
There
is another factor too that would operate against the LTTE
resuming war. That is that there is no longer a credible
objective it can achieve through war. International
opinion as formulated in UN Conventions does not favour
the disintegration of established States on the principle
of "self- determination". Legitimacy may be
achieved for a separatist struggle even by a people living
in a separable area only where they are subject to
oppression by a majoritarian state. But the PA’s record
with the credible political solution it brought forth and
the conditions of life created by the present ceasefire
would in the perception of the international community
rule out the suggestion of the Tamil community being in a
situation of continued oppression by the State.
The
cessation of hostilities under the MOU has helped the
people in the South to free themselves of the trauma of
LTTE terrorism. War hysteria promoted by those with vested
interests both political and otherwise has been dampened.
Although there are those among them that respond to the
barrage of criticism aimed against the provisions of the
MOU there is among them no desire for a resumption of war.
Attention is now on what could be the ultimate outcome of
the peace process which they have in large measure
endorsed even though with reservations on its workings.
There is another matter they cannot ignore. That is the
heavy dependence on imperialism the country is being
pushed to in what is recognized as the globalization
process. Civil wars in Third World counties on ethnic,
religious and tribal issues have been the means of direct
imperialist intervention too. Compradorist capitalism
would see as the only salvation to a war ravaged Third
World country like Sri Lanka the subservient and dependent
position of "ally" to the US led imperialist
investment-related global war on terrorism.
National
Consensus
National
consensus on the need for a just political resolution of
the ethnic conflict has to motivate the implementation of
the cease-fire agreement. It cannot be properly and
honestly implemented in an overall political situation in
which there is room for parties to have reservations on
its success. The LSSP is firmly of the view that the UNP
as the government and the Peoples’ Alliance as the main
Opposition in Parliament, the Peoples’ Alliance must
together make commitment to the position that the
political solution to the ethnic problem has to be a
bipartisan matter. The LSSP sees no insurmountable
difficulty in this regard. The political solution evolved
by the PA government with the 13th Amendment as its basis
was a significant break through. All Tamil parties working
within the democratic framework and Muslim parties were
consulted and their consent obtained on the draft
amendment that was taken for discussion with the then main
Opposition party, the UNP. Although it was not clear at
that time as to how the LTTE could be brought into the
political process there was the perception that where the
Tamil people react favourably to the offered political
solution the LTTE would have no option but to accept it as
the basis for any negotiations it would seek with the
government of that time.
The
solution embodied in the PA government’s proposed
constitutional amendment accepts the need for the Sri
Lankan state to evolve the necessary mechanisms to
accommodate the interests of the pluralist society which
we in fact are. It jettisons the outmoded concepts of
"unitarism" and "federalism" that have
been the principal stumbling blocks to the dispassionate
consideration of the relevant issues. Its prospect is the
devolution of political power within a unified country. In
very recent years in countries such as the UK devolution
of political power has proved to be a feasible device for
giving to a people the needed degree of political autonomy
in those parts of a country they permanently inhabit.
The
UNP and the PA together with its major component, the SLFP,
have accepted as a viable means of democratic government
the devolution of political power. It is a device assented
to by all Tamil and Muslim political parties from the
mid-1980s. The LTTE too assented to it as incorporated in
the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord reached in 1987. Even in its
later day rationalization (Report to International Tamil
Conference - April-May 1988) of its decision to disregard
the Accord it avoided rejecting the device of devolution.
Its criticism was on the manner the devolution of power
was embodied in the 13th Amendment to the Constitution and
the limitations on the powers and functions of the
Provincial Councils. The criticism was legitimate and the
LSSP accepts that the PA’s draft Constitutional
Amendment that was discussed with the Tamil and Muslim
political parties had taken this criticism into
consideration. The LSSP is of the view that broad
consensus has been reached by political parties on
devolution of political power being the basis for a
political resolution of the ethnic problem which as Dr
Colvin R. de Silva has reminded us is also the problem of
the Sri Lankan state.
The
de-proscription of itself that is demanded by the LTTE is
not a matter of principle. Nor is it of relevance to peace
negotiations because the proscription has not in any way
impeded or prejudiced the LTTE in it’s exercise of what
has been assured to it by the Ceasefire MOU. Today it is
no more than a fiction that is maintained as a concession
to those in the South who have as yet no faith in the
on-going peace process. The LTTE’s fulfilment of its
obligations under the MOU and its co-operation in the
negotiation of a permanent political solution would make
irrelevant the continuation of the proscription. On this
the LTTE must win the confidence of the people in the
South by its own commitment to the peace process.
The
LSSP is of the considered view that there is the need
today for progressive forces in the country to intervene
to achieve the objective of the devolution of political
power within a united Sri Lanka that is possessed of
territorial integrity and political sovereignty as the
means of resolving the ethnic problem through the
extension of democratic processes.
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