{"id":107152,"date":"2020-09-30T16:44:29","date_gmt":"2020-09-30T23:44:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=107152"},"modified":"2020-09-30T16:44:29","modified_gmt":"2020-09-30T23:44:29","slug":"only-way-forward-for-a-developed-and-peaceful-sri-lanka-put-13a-to-a-referendum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/09\/30\/only-way-forward-for-a-developed-and-peaceful-sri-lanka-put-13a-to-a-referendum\/","title":{"rendered":"Only Way Forward for a Developed and Peaceful Sri Lanka: Put 13A to a Referendum"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Dilrook Kannangara<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Since 13A was imposed\non Sri Lanka by India in 1987 with the help of gunboats, an invasive Indian\narmy and Indian sponsored Hindu terrorist groups, a number of progressive laws\nand constitutional amendments have been blocked as they were inconsistent with\nthe provisions of 13A. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Divi Neguma is\none such attempt to take benefits of post-war economic revival (the peace\ndividend) to people of all corners of the island. But 13A blocked it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A number of\nagrarian services acts were passed against 13A provisions and they cannot be\nimplemented in a number of provinces as a result, which is a severe blow to\nagricultural revival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>13A created\nnine provinces with extensive powers in the island of just 65,000 square\nkilometres which is a joke that made Sri Lanka the smallest federal country in\nthe world. Although 13A kept the unitary\u201d clause of the constitution, in\nreality Sri Lanka is an extreme federal country after 13A where even the\nparliament cannot pass laws without consulting provincial councils! Somewhat\nsimilar to the United States of America and now defunct Soviet Union. Even the\nIndian federal model allows the parliament to pass any law without consulting\nstates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The only way\nto silence local and regional separatists is to present 13A to a referendum. If\npeople reject it, that will be the end of 13A. No matter what international\ncommitments Sri Lanka has, people hold the nation\u2019s sovereignty. Sri Lanka must\ncomply with what the people decide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The government has the golden opportunity to turn tables on\ndemocracy champions. Put 13A to a referendum. Why fear the people if 13A is so\ngood!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dilrook Kannangara Since 13A was imposed on Sri Lanka by India in 1987 with the help of gunboats, an invasive Indian army and Indian sponsored Hindu terrorist groups, a number of progressive laws and constitutional amendments have been blocked as they were inconsistent with the provisions of 13A. Divi Neguma is one such attempt to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dilrook-kannangara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}