{"id":110377,"date":"2021-01-04T16:56:17","date_gmt":"2021-01-04T23:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=110377"},"modified":"2021-01-06T17:56:37","modified_gmt":"2021-01-07T00:56:37","slug":"a-13-a-dilemma-how-can-you-unite-by-dividing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/01\/04\/a-13-a-dilemma-how-can-you-unite-by-dividing\/","title":{"rendered":"A (13-A) dilemma: How can you unite by dividing? Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

C. Wijeyawickrema, LL.B., Ph.D.<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Tamil-speaking people, after the defeat of the LTTE, see the Provincial Councils as an adequate sharing of power, given some minor modifications that were acceptable to them at the APRC, within a single unitary state<\/strong><\/em>.<\/strong>\u201d LSSP communique issued by Tissa Vitharana, Island January 3, 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I delivered Sri Lankan Tamils more rights than what Tamils in Tamilnad enjoy; That Island is now like Bhutan<\/strong><\/em>.\u201d <\/strong>Rajiv Gandhi, boasting at the Chennai airport, returning from Colombo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need King Pandukabhaya (437 BC-367 BC) in 2021 AD!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After, the retired geography professor Dr. G.\nH. Peiris penned an essay, discrediting the use of province as the spatial unit\nunder the 13-A, three other essays appeared, not about the size of a PC unit,\nbut about why the PC death-trap should be exhumed. Austin Fernando, Nirmala\nChandrahassan and to some extent Rajan Philips, all wanted the new Romesh de\nSilva committee to take the path proposed by Chandrika-GL-Neelan-Jayampathy\nPackage Deals in 1995-2000, reinforced by the APRC majority report and further refined\n(strengthened) by the Orumittanadu one of Ranil-Sumanthiran-Jayampathy, during\n2015-19. Encouraged by an unexpected boost, ex-APRC boss, Tissa Vitharana,\nissued a press release, under the title, PC polls should be held ASAP. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lady and the three gentlemen know, this\nis the last chance to achieve what Prabhakaran could not deliver by the bomb.\nThey are taking the balkanization path. For those who elected a non-politician\nas President and gave him a two-thirds majority demolishing the myth of king-making\nrole of the minority parties under the JRJ-R.Premadasa PR system, the Romesh de\nSilva Committee is the last chance to correct the mistake made on May 19, 2009\nby MahindaR, in failing to abolish 13-A by a war proclamation, implementing the\nrecommendations of the Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Local Government Reforms<\/em><\/a>, 1999 (the Abhayawardhana Report).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, Tamil hostages freed by MahindaR called\nhim, Our King,\u201d weeping in front of video cameras. But, as PM he is still\nholding the tiger\u2019s tail, despite the sacrifices of those like the Hasalaka\nHero, and Gotabhaya\u2019s destiny now as the President is to slain the tiger for a\nsecond time, because, last time, according to the tiger agent Erick Solheim, he\n(Gota) was the only high-level official in government who said, that this war\nIS winnable.\u201d The country and its people, Tamils, Muslims, Sinhalayas and all\nothers, could be saved if he plays the role of Arjuna, in the Bhagwat Geetha,\novercoming the buttering attempts by a so-called list of Tamil Moderates. After\nall, it was the Sri Lankan-born Michael Roberts, the owner of the Thuppahi\u2019s\nblog in Australia, who uncovered, after prodding by Jane Russell in London,\nthat a moderate Tamil can also be a Tamil Eelamist [when the time is right and\nripe]!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mismanagement and the Tragedy of the Commons<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jack London, the research author of the detective\nbook, The people of the Abyss,\u201d (1903, 14 years before the Russian\nRevolution), was puzzled when he saw slums amidst the mansions in the East End\nof London, the center of the British Empire that the sun never sat. His\ndiagnosis was it was due to sheer mismanagement, same disease that Ceylon\/SL\nhad been afflicted since the 1930s. It is double-jeopardy, when the black-white\npoliticians treated the island as a common pasture to exploit for personal gain\ntoday, leading to the inevitable public ruin tomorrow. Everything and anything\nthey touched, abuse and destruction of physical resources, to central bank\nrobbery, to selling harbours, to bribes and commissions from projects, ended\nup, thus, as more burden on the shoulders of the people.   The whole island has become a huge nine\npieces of pasture for exploitation after the nefarious 13-A.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mythical Tamil Homeland<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the Bhoomi Puthra Movement growing,\nChelvanayagam had to leave Malaya (like those who had to leave East Africa in\nthe 1960s), and, according to his son-in-law, A. J. Wison created a myth of a homeland\nin the Eastern Province, because NP was not big enough to be a Kosovo-type\nTamil Country. Despite, that the true Tamil Homeland is Tamilnad, Ceylon has\nbecome the easy target, a prime real estate for a Tamil country with a UN seat\nand an Eelam flag, due to the favorable climate of Sinhala black-whites\u2019\npartisan politics. From the minutes of a confused Hugh Cleghorn (June 1, 1799),\nto Vigneswaran\u2019s claim recently, that the Island had been blessed with five\nSHIVA LINGAMs brought during pre-historic times (Colombo Telegraph, October 1,\n2020), the homeland myth has grown now to an Eelam Lebensraum, engulfing the\nentire Sinhale nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This kind of lunacy is different from the\ndelusional behavior that SWRD attributed to SJVC in a Parliamentary debate\n(Hansard vol 31, June 3, 1958 cols. 244-5). Finally, SJVC passed it on to the\nboy Prabhakaran, by garlanding a statute of Sivakumaran in 1975, who committed\nsuicide after a failed assassination attempt on a superintendent of police.\nVignesh is now lecturing to clueless MPs that the Ides of March is around the\ncorner, his hope for a reverse Nandikadal in Geneva in March (Colombo\nTelegraph, December 9, 2020). American administration (not American people)\nfacing humiliation from Gotabhaya for a second time with the rejection of the\nMCC- trap (first humiliation was when American agents, British and French\nforeign ministers, made an attempt in April 2019, to rescue Prabhakaran to an\nAmerican ship waiting outside Trinco harbour), must be lurking in the dark for\nan incident like a Sharia-based Muslim uprising so that the UN forces have an\nexcuse to land in the island with the newly designed R2P weapon. Silence so far\non what has happened to the cellphones (digital data) of the April 21 Easter Sunday\nbombers, that the FBI agents took with them worries everybody. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sinhale nation is facing two threats, the\nThesawalamai-homeland-Orumittanadu- Eelam threat, and the Sharia Muslim\nvillages located all over the country in systematic fashion, using Arab dollars\nand the womb as a weapon. Purposely isolated these villages also have one or\nmore mosques, equipped perhaps with swords to cut grass on the adjoining\ncemetery ground. For example, Kattankudy town has mind-boggling number of\nmosques. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rajiv Gandhi was able to get constitutional\nrecognition to the homeland myth, and 13-A was the legal manifestation of it.\nTherefore, as long as, 13-A remains as the law of the land, and with the\nSupreme Court deciding  that 13-A has converted\nSri Lanka into a federal state, Sinhalayas are living with the danger of the\ncountry succumb to balkanization sooner or later. Hence, the black-white\nSinhala politicians are like the proverbial crabs playing inside pot of water\nwarming slowly on low flame. While teaching children Sinhala and Tamil, so that\nTamil separatist politicians cannot fool Tamil masses with genocide tales, the\nhomeland myth must be eliminated by removing the opportunity to talk about it\nas a propaganda base. This was what the APRC minority report said, and it was\nwhat Prof. Tissa Vitharana himself said then in 2006 to news reporters: that\npolitical divisions should not be based on language or religion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is then the rational, reasonable,\nscientific, equitable, just and the Buddhist solution? Just like the eye cannot\nsee the eye (unless before a mirror?), all kinds of stories about 13-A, miss a\nbasic solution available, a kind of panacea for all ethnic ailments.\nApparently, the King Pandukabhaya, knew this according to the great chronicle,\nMahavamsa. Like the Baseline Rd., the straight line used by the British to\nsurvey the entire island, King P, surveyed the island (populated areas?) and\nmarked the boundaries of all villages and local chiefdoms to bring them under\none unifying flag. The Gamsabhava became the vehicle of governance, with the\nsocio-economic-political Trinity, the village-water reservoir- and the temple. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solution:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Re demarcate the 14,000+ GSN units, the\nlowest civil administration agency, using natural boundaries. Like in New\nZealand, where the use of river basins as boundaries for its lowest\nadministrative units is constitutionally mandated, we have 103 river basins as\na base for this exercise.  In USA and\nCanada, river basin and groundwater management districts cover the entire\nlandscape, with strict sets of regulations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Province or District?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

R. Premadasa increased the number of 4,000\nGSNs to 14,000, and a natural boundary demarcation will reduce this arbitrary number\nsignificantly. Once this is done, they could be combined to decide what should\nbe the spatial extent (size) of political unit desirable, and acceptable to\nall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Empowerment of people at the village level<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

13-A PCs failed to empower people. It only\ncreated a new tier of resource-robbing local political crooks. Therefore, to\ndecentralize governmental power, meaningfully, to people, new GSNs with Natural\nBoundaries should be used as the third- level or second-level political unit\n(If the existing 340+ local government units (pradesheeya sabha, p.s.) are\nrearranged combining new natural GSN units, each such GSN unit could function\nas a ward of a p.s.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tamil Aspirations<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The private needs and wants of Tamil, Muslim\nand all other communities could be realized at ward level (or as Jana sabha) or\nat p.s. level. But a public aspiration for an Eelam balkanizing the Sinhale is\nout of the question. See the map printed in 1986 by the International Alert\nabove, to understand the ultimate dream of the Eelamists (note that the map did\nnot even care to name the Sinhala portion allowed). Wigneswaran\u2019s dream\npublished in 2020, has a target of covering the entire island with his lunatic\ntheory based on the five Siva lingams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But by creating language-blind and\nreligion-blind GSN units, the mindset of a Tamil homeland in the island is\nblocked, and the Sinhale fear of a larger Tamil spatial unit trying hide and\nseek games with them is erased. For example, if a crazy p.s. decides that it\ndoes not want a new Buddha statue within its jurisdiction as part of promoting\nits Arumuga Navalar type of Hindu culture, it is not like an aspiration to stop\nsouthern fishermen migrating seasonally to the east coast or Wigneswaran\u2019s\nslogan, we do not want coconut toddy in Jaffna\u201d (the latter issues will come\nunder the national economic policy). The balancing act will happen when a\nsouthern p.s. decides to \u2018retaliate\u2019 with request to build new Hindu kovils. In\na truly democratic climate, the conflict will <\/p>\n\n\n\n

end when anti-Buddhist elements realize that\n15-20% of the sacred space of a Temple is devoted to Hindu gods and goddesses\n(do you remember the Gurukanda Vihara case?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can you unite by dividing?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The title of this essay comes from an actual incident.\nA friend of mine had to explain his white American friend the Tamil problem in\nSri Lanka. Due to mismanagement of the foreign service system in Sri Lanka,\npeople outside think that Tamils are discriminatorily treated by a Sinhala\ngovernment. While listening to my friend\u2019s long explanation, when the 13-A\narrangement was disclosed, his American friend stopped him and asked point\nblank, the question above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Federalism is a political marriage. If\nhusband or wife has a paramour, and to save the marriage one with the lover\nwants to leave the bedroom and move to the annex which has separate entrance\netc. would that marriage survive?  This\nis exactly what the federal option means in the Sri Lankan context. Federalism\nis a friend if it is based on friendly circumstances and a friendly\nenvironment. The past since 1921\/4, recent past from the 1980s to 2009, and the\npresent from the Wignesvaran days beginning 2013 had been a sore tale of\nmisery, betrayal, and distrust. Any attempt to take the 13-A federal path is\njust a vain effort like feeding a cancer to cure it. This why I say SLPP\nministers and MPs badmouthing about the virtues of 13-A are idiots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of the statement by Tissa Vitharana\npromoting his APRC majority formula, another essay is needed to set the record\nstraight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

C. Wijeyawickrema, LL.B., Ph.D. Tamil-speaking people, after the defeat of the LTTE, see the Provincial Councils as an adequate sharing of power, given some minor modifications that were acceptable to them at the APRC, within a single unitary state.\u201d LSSP communique issued by Tissa Vitharana, Island January 3, 2021 I delivered Sri Lankan Tamils more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c-wijeyawickrema"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110377","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=110377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110377\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}