THE 13TH AMENDMENT IN THE YEAR 2023 Part 1
Posted on August 13th, 2023
KAMALIKA PIERIS
We are now in the month of August, 2023 and public attention is once against focused on the 13th Amendment (1987). President Ranil Wickremesinghe stated that he wished to take further action on the 13th Amendment. He wanted to grant police powers to the Provinces. The Tamil Separatist Movement has been asking for this for years. TNA would have asked him to make this announcement.
The proposal was, as usual vehemently opposed. But for the first time in the history of the 13th Amendment, in addition to the usual Sinhala knee jerks, counter action has been proposed. Pivithuru Hela Urumaya leader Udaya Gammanpila has submitted to Parliament an amendment to the constitution which will remove police powers from Provincial Councils. This should have been done long ago, not only for police but for land was well.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe called an All Party Conference, on July 26, to discuss the 13th Amendment and its Provincial Councils. The MPs attended in a body, looking grim. They were determined to oppose him. Nothing came of that meeting.
President then summoned Parliament on 9.8.23 and treated them to an address. It was a song about Provincial Councils, regarding which he appears to have an obsessive interest. His views call for comment.
He said that the Provincial Council system was introduced in 1987 through the 13th Amendment to the constitution. Provincial Councils have been functioning in the island for 36 years. These Councils are well accepted, well entrenched, and have performed efficiently.
It is not possible to accept this flattering description of the Provincial Councils. The real position is quite different. The Provincial Councils and its Councilors have earned the utter contempt of the public. The Councils have been described as useless, money-guzzling, inefficient white elephants.
President Ranil also said that Provincial Councils have helped to produce many successful politicians who went on to reach the top in politics. They got their start in the Provincial Council. Therefore none of the political parties have ever asked that Provincial Councils be eliminated, he said.
This is a laughable argument, but a true one. Provincial Councils gave political leaders a second platform on to which they could shunt their supporters, a platform where the supporters could enjoy power and money and feel like political bigwigs.
But what followed in the President’s speech was no laughing matter. President said that there is overlap and duplication in the functions assigned to Provincial Councils and central government, therefore the three lists, national, provincial and concurrent would be revised.
A committee will look at the list of powers held by the central government, the Provincial Council powers, and the concurrent list and propose changes. Primary aim should be to develop the Provincial Council system. The Tamil Separatist Movement has been asking for this revision for a long time. Anti-Eelamists will shoot it down when it comes.
Sinhala supporters of the breakup of Sri Lanka have put forward a new argument, starting this month. It was heard on television news and it also came in President’s speech. This new argument says that the 13th Amendment is a part of our Constitution, which is the highest law in the land. Therefore the provisions of the 13th Amendment cannot be questioned. They must be respected and obeyed. They are sacred.
This is nonsense. Any clause in a constitution can be removed, (except for entrenched provisions), by a decision of Parliament. Especially if it has been forced on the country by an outside party.
The 13 Amendment was forced on Sri Lanka by India, through the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987. Sri Lanka was under no obligation to agree to create Provincial Councils and merge provinces simply because India insisted on it. JR had no business signing such a document either. Nor, in my view, did he have the authority to do so. The full text of the Indo Lanka Accord was known only after it was signed.
JR knew this. He therefore quickly got this agreement ratified in Parliament as the 13th Amendment. The 13th Amendment was then included in the Constitution as section 155 of the Constitution. The nine artificial provinces created by the British, in 1833 also got formal recognition. In this manner provinces and Provincial Councils got into the statutes”, which is what the Tamil Separatist Movement wanted. JR’s advisors, it should be noted, were from the Tamil Separatist Movement
As far as I am aware, there has never been any move to remove this section from the Constitution. The anti-Eelam lobby has never asked for this. The anti-Eelam lobby prefers to engage in knee jerk activities, like giving threatening speeches inside a posh auditorium.
The President said in his speech that Provincial Councils cannot be excised from Sri Lanka’s governmental structure .They have become an enduring component in our political landscape. This statement too, can be challenged. Provincial Councils can be eliminated provided Parliament has the will to do so. Provincial Councils are not essential, and they will not be missed. Provincial Councils have been condemned over and over again as totally unnecessary. No one likes or wants Provincial Councils, except the Provincial Councilors themselves.
The island is now over governed, said critics. There are multiple layers of administration. There is central government, provincial government, district government and local government. Local government was always there in the ancient period and the modern. A District administration was created in 1978, out of the Kachcheri system. It was headed by a District Minister with the GA as District Secretary.
Analysts do not approve of these multiple layers of administration .Sri Lanka can be easily administered as a single unit. It only needs two layers of government, central and local they said. The Provincial Council was not created to help governance. It was created as a move towards Eelam.
The President then moved to the subject of Land in his speech. Steps are being taken to expedite the establishment of the National Land Commission. A National Land Policy will be formulated, he said.
After this announcement on land, the President jumped to archaeology. Archaeology is not a subject that comes under the immediate purview of a head of state. It is usually handled by a Ministry. But in this case the President of Sri Lanka has shown a deep interest in what the Department of Archaeology is doing
In his speech, he proposed a National Plan for the Department of Archaeology. The work of the Department must be done according to a National Plan, he said. An Action Plan must be presented to the authorities before the department takes over any further land as archaeological reserve.
A long term National plan is not feasible. New discoveries have to be accommodated. The moment a significant discovery is made, the Archaeology Department is expected to move fast and secure that area as an archaeology reserve. Priorities must depend on the importance of the site and whether the site is in urgent need of conservation.
The reason for this sudden jump from Land to archaeology in the President’s speech is the archaeology work going on at Kurundi vihara in Mullativu .Kurundi has turned into a big problem for the Tamil Separatist Movement and the TNA.
Kurundi vihara was part of a large monastic complex in Mullativu. Kurundi was the leading monastery of the area during the Anuradhapura period. Kurundi was closely connected to the Maha Vihara at the time. Kurundi became one of the Mahayana temples which lined the eastern coast of Sri Lanka in the 13th century. Kurundi is evidence of steady Sinhala Buddhist occupancy of north east Sri Lanka .Kurundi is in a strategic area in Mullativu. Kurundi vihara is a registered Buddhist temple as well.
Kurundi has been re-discovered and archaeological work was initiated in 2018 by an energetic young bhikkhu, Ven Santhabodhi. The Department of Archaeology went there and to the horror of the Tamil Separatist Movement, found that the archaeological ruins of Kurundi extended to 400 acres, not the original 78 acres allotted to it in 1933.
The area was surveyed and boundary stones placed to mark the extent of the Kurundi reserve. The law permits the Department of Archaeology to gazette the surrounding area as a buffer zone, where they can control the activity but not take over the land. This means the land extent controlled by the Department of Archaeology will get even larger. An archaeological reserve, once declared, stays an archaeological reserve. There is no provision in the law to vest it back. That is why the TNA is having kittens over Kurundi.
Work was proceeding at a rate at Kurundi, so the TNA had to move fast. TNA approached the President, and briefed him about Kurundi. In July 2023, the President called a meeting with the Dept of Archaeology officers, to discuss Kurundi Vihara, and in the presence of the TNA, tried to reduce the extent of land requested for Kurundi Vihara. The Director General of Archaeology refused and resigned. Kurundi became a hot topic of discussion on social media. A book on Kurundi appeared.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s support for the TNA cause is to be expected. He has shown support for the Tamil Separatist Movement on many occasions. He helped the US Army to take a good look at the Sri Lanka army in 2002. He agreed with the Ceasefire Agreement of 2002 which gave LTTE full control over the north and east,
His name is associated with the Millennium city raid. In 2002 police raided a safe house maintained by the Directorate of Military Intelligence of the Sri Lanka Army at Millennium City housing scheme saying that there was a plan to assassinate Ranil Wickremesinghe and others. This resulted in the exposure of the army’s top secret unit, the military covert operations units known as the Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols. Their names became known. They were tracked down and all were assassinated by the LTTE.
Ranil Wickremesinghe had earlier wanted to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the arrival of the Portuguese in Sri Lanka. (Continued)