Political
Statement of
Eelam
People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) at the 2nd
ICAPP held in Bangkok
delivered
by Dr.K.Vigneswaran
Introduction
According
to the epic Ramayana, the island kingdom of Lanka on the
southern tip of India was ruled by Ravana, the Rakshasa
king. The Europeans called it Serendib, Taprobane, Zeylan
and Ceylon. The name Ceylon persisted until 1972 when the
island became the republic of Sri Lanka. The island of Sri
Lanka is home to the Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and others.
The Sinhalese constitute 74.0%, the Sri Lankan Tamils
12.6%, the Indian Tamils 5.6%, the Muslims 7.4% and others
0.4% of a population of 19 million. The Sinhalese and the
Sri Lankan Tamils have been in occupation of the island for
more than 2 millennia. The Indian Tamils migrated to Sri
Lanka from India during the early part of the 19th
century. The Muslims are descendants of Arab traders who
arrived in Sri Lanka through South India, over the past few
centuries.
The
vast majority of the Sinhalese are Buddhists while the vast
majority of the Tamils are Hindus. A small percentage of the
Sinhalese and the Tamils belong to different Christian
denominations. The Muslims are adherents of the Islamic
faith. The Sri Lankan Tamils, the Indian Tamils and the
Muslims speak the Tamil language while the Sinhalese speak
the Sinhala language. Thus, Sri Lanka is a multi-ethnic,
multi-religious, bilingual, plural society. Of the 9
Provinces in the Island, the Northern and Eastern Provinces
are predominantly Tamil speaking. The Tamils and Muslims
live in other parts of Sri Lanka as well.
Post
independence Period
The
Island nation had faced very difficult times over the past
quarter century. Following independence from British rule in
1948, the Tamils and Muslims faced discrimination in respect
of citizenship, franchise, and in the use of language. State
sponsored colonisations, which changed demographic patterns,
reduced the political power of the Tamils and Muslims. The
Sinhalese majority appropriated all political power.
Consequently, the country got torn apart on ethnic lines.
The Tamils led by the All Ceylon Tamil Congress demanded
balanced representation, and later, led by the Federal
Party, demanded a Federal Constitution for the island.
Peaceful agitation of the Gandhian type was undertaken by
the Tamils in 1956, 1958 and in 1961. These agitations were
brutally suppressed by the state. Anti-Tamil pogroms were also let loose in 1956 and 1958. Anti
Muslim riots were let loose in 1976.
The
Federal Party dominated the Tamil political scene from 1956
to 1972. During this period the problems faced by the Tamils
and Muslims got worse. They lost their due share in the
state services, the armed services, the police service and
even in admissions to the universities. In 1972, Sri Lanka
became a republic severing its links with the British Crown
by enacting a republican constitution. The Sinhala
leadership continued to be obdurate. The Tamils declined to
be a party to the new constitution. As a result, the
political scenario worsened. The All Ceylon Tamil Congress
and the Federal Party merged to form the Tamil United
Liberation Front (TULF). The TULF called upon the Tamils to
exercise their right to revert to the status quo ante, that
is, to reestablish the independent Tamil state that existed
prior to the arrival of the Portuguese in Ceylon, in 1505.
At the election to the Parliament of Sri Lanka held in 1977,
the vast majority of the Tamils endorsed the leadership of
the TULF. However, this overwhelming support shown to the
TULF resulted in another anti-Tamil pogrom.
The
TULF which promised to struggle for the establishment of an
independent state of Tamil Eelam did very little on the
political front to win back the rights of the Tamils,
despite the fact that the TULF was the second largest party
in Parliament. It was therefore no wonder that the Tamil
people turned to their youths who were already branding
themselves into different armed militant groups to achieve
the goal of an independent state.
Tamil
Militancy
From
the late 1970s, Tamil militants overshadowed Tamil
moderates. The killing of 13 Sri Lankan soldiers
in a single incident in Jaffna prompted the worst anti-Tamil
pogrom in 1983. Thousands of Tamils lost their lives and
property. Thousands fled the country seeking refuge abroad,
particularly, in Tamil Nadu in India. This anti-Tamil pogrom
of 1983 was an open invitation to the Government of India to
be involved in the affairs of Sri Lanka. The Government of
India became involved as a third party mediator between the
Sri Lankan Government and the Tamils. Over the next 4 years,
while Tamil militants belonging to the various militant
groups continued their war against the Sri Lankan state,
India was working on a negotiated settlement with the Sri
Lankan Government.
Indo
Sri Lanka Agreement
The
Indo Sri Lanka Agreement of July 1987 was signed between the
Governments of India and Sri Lanka, providing for the
establishment of provincial councils throughout Sri Lanka
with a single Provincial Council for the Tamil-linguistic
majority Northern and Eastern Provinces. The TULF and all
militant groups representing the Tamils endorsed the
Agreement, though each with its own reservation. The
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which had by then
become the predominant militant group, too accepted the
Agreement and agreed to surrender its weapons.
An
Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) was inducted into Northern
and Eastern Sri Lanka to oversee the surrender of the
weapons and to implement the Peace Accord.
However, within a matter of months of signing the
Agreement, the LTTE repudiated it and took on the IPKF
militarily. Notwithstanding the position taken up by the
LTTE, elections were held to the Provincial Council of the
combined Northern and Eastern Provinces and a Provincial
Administration headed by a Tamil Chief Minister was
established in December 1988.
A
change in the leadership in the Government in Colombo in
January 1989 brought about a change in policy. The new
government in Colombo decided to secretly help the LTTE to
fight the IPKF and to undermine the Provincial
Administration of the North-East Province and to gradually
nullify the Indo Sri Lanka Agreement.
The
IPKF departed in March 1990 on the request of the Sri Lankan
Government. The elected Administration of the North East
Province collapsed due to its inability to resist the LTTE,
which was ironically being supported by the Government in
Colombo. The LTTE took over the North-East Province with the
blessings of the Government in Colombo.
The next decade was filled with skirmishes, battles,
war and ceasefires between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan
government of the day.
Terrorism
of the LTTE
The
history of the world is full of instances where youths
fuelled by an ideology or by an urge to fight for justice
had taken up arms against established order. Such rebellions
or armed struggles are not to be condemned.
Many a human civilisation has been built on such
struggles as foundations. Yet, there have been instances in
history of armed liberation movements degenerating into
armed terrorist movements when the underlying causes of the
rebellion remained unaddressed over a period of time. There
have been instances of the original sacred goals being
abandoned by selfish schemers, who aim for hegemony over the
very same people whose rights they had initially championed.
There have been instances of a just cause of a people being
hijacked by group of self-seeking individuals. It is
therefore important to be able to clearly identify a
terrorist movement when it masquerades as a liberation
movement.
The
LTTE belongs to the category of a terrorist movement
masquerading as a liberation movement over the past 15
years. The LTTE was not only guilty of killing members of
fraternal Tamil militant groups but also of assassinating
other Tamil leaders, including moderate leaders of the TULF.
It was responsible for the killing of several Sinhalese
leaders including President Premadasa. It was responsible
for killing several senior civil servants and intellectuals.
The leader of the LTTE is a convicted criminal wanted in
India for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv
Gandhi. Yet the EPDP sees a need for any government of Sri
Lanka to talk to the LTTE, in order to rein it in, and, not
to reward it for its terrorism.
Mission
of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party
The
Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) was formed in the
latter half of 1986. Its leadership and members comprise of
persons who had been involved in the armed struggle to set
up an independent state in the North and East of Sri Lanka,
and others who had supported the armed struggle. Following
the Indo Sri Lanka Agreement of July 1987, these persons
disavowed the armed struggle and the setting up of an
independent state, and decided to work towards autonomy for
the North – East Province within a united Sri Lanka.
The name ‘Eelam’ is used to refer to that
Province within a single Sri Lankan state. The autonomy is
to be achieved through asymmetric devolution of powers to
the ‘Province of Eelam’.
In
1995, after the Jaffna Peninsula was cleared of the LTTE,
members of the EPDP pioneered the reestablishment of the
democratic way of life in the North. Despite threats to
their lives from the LTTE, members of the EPDP boldly
participated in three parliamentary elections and in local
authority elections in the North – East Province. The EPDP
has been represented in the Sri Lanka Parliament without a
break from 1994. Today, the EPDP controls 10 out of 17 local
authorities in the Jaffna Peninsula. It has a substantial
number of members in the other 7 local authorities.
The
EPDP made valuable contribution in drafting a new
constitution for Sri Lanka, which was presented to the Sri
Lankan Parliament in August 2000. Unfortunately political
expediency on the part of certain sections of the Sinhalese
and of the Tamils sabotaged the passage of that new
constitution.
Relief
and Rehabilitation
The
EPDP is a party committed to democratic ideals, pluralism,
human rights, social justice and the alleviation of poverty.
Sri Lanka faces a daunting task in respect of providing
relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction resulting from a
quarter century of civil war.
The
civil war has resulted in displacement of hundreds of
thousands of our people, both externally and internally.
Nearly 700,000 persons have moved out of the country.
Of these 150,000 are in India for nearly two decades, 85000
being cared for in refugee camps. There are hundreds of
thousands of externally displaced Sri Lankan Tamils spread
over Canada, Australia, Britain, France, Germany,
Switzerland, Holland, Norway and other European countries.
Within
Sri Lanka alone around 225,000 fall under the category of
internally displaced persons. As many as 20,000 have been
living in refugee camps referred to as Welfare Centres for
more than a decade.
Donors
have been reluctant to whole-heartedly support
rehabilitation of displaced persons as well as damaged
infrastructure because of the fear that re-eruption of the
war could push everything back to naught. Although the EPDP
has been very successful during 2001 when its Leader was the
Minister of Development, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction
of the North, and, Tamil Affairs, North and East in carrying
out a major programme of rehabilitation, the inability to
carry out de-mining in war-torn areas with an ongoing
conflict remained a disadvantage. It may thus be seen that
there has to be permanent peace to carry out large-scale
rehabilitation programmes.
One
cannot be certain of permanent peace unless there is a
political solution in place to discourage re-resorting to
arms. The EPDP therefore supports the current Ceasefire
between the Sri Lanka Government and the LTTE and the Peace
Talks between them, which has already begun in Thailand. A
political solution, which in its implementation guarantees
democracy, pluralism and human rights, is an urgent
necessity. The EPDP is however of the view that durable
peace would not be possible unless democratic parties
representing the Tamils and Muslims and other parties
representing the Sinhalese are brought into the political
negotiations. The EPDP believes that the path to success is
the South African way and not the Israeli-Palestinian way.
Economic
Development
With
a political resolution of the ethnic problem on the top of
the priority list, rehabilitation would logically take
second place. Rehabilitation means the provision of housing,
water supply and sanitation, health and education
facilities, electricity, roads, community services etc. to
all affected persons. The Sri Lankan experience has been
that rehabilitation has to be coupled with development, as
otherwise areas affected by decades of war would be decades
behind areas physically unaffected by war in the same
country. Such disparity is bound to give rise to social
friction in the years ahead.
In
such a scheme of things, creation of employment
opportunities in the agriculture, fisheries and industrial
sectors comes next in our priority. Social programmes to
alleviate poverty would also fit in here. In a country that
had been affected by war, the role of the state sector has
to be substantial as the private sector is generally
motivated by profits while the state sectors is essentially
motivated by social justice. The role of the state sector
however has to decrease and the role of private sector
increase in proportion to the restoration of normalcy in the
country. It is the characteristic of private capital to look
for political stability and cheap labour in its quest for
profits.
All
countries are now becoming part of a particular regional
economy and the global economy. There are those who say that
privatisation is the only route to join the global economy.
The EPDP does not subscribe to such a view. In developing
countries, certain sectors must necessarily be controlled by
the state if the economy of a state is not to collapse due
to mismanagement or fraud in multi-national corporations.
Social
Development
Further,
most Asian countries face a problem, which is peculiar to
developing countries. We, in Asian countries do not have
statutory social nets such as social insurance schemes and
unemployment insurance schemes, which would step in to bail
out employees who lose employment due to a recession. Firing
redundant employees is an accepted practice in the private
sector. The only social insurance we Asians have is the
reliance on other members of the family or on relatives. We,
therefore, cannot blindly emulate the developed countries in
the process of privatisation.
Regional
Security
On
the subject of regional security, the EPDP holds the view
that regional security is inextricably linked to stability
and good governance in the countries of a region. Stability
is achieved through the absence of ethnic or religious
tensions, absence of discrimination on account of ethnicity
or religious beliefs, absence of poverty, respect for human
dignity, and, through the enhancement of democratic
governance. By striving to create stability and good
governance in each one of our countries, we in turn ensure
regional security.
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