The Big Joke About the APRC,
Power Sharing and the 13th Amendment - All These Have Failed Already!
Dilrook Kannangara
There is no argument that Sri Lanka needs a political solution to sustainably
settle the underlying causes of the conflict. Also it is widely accepted
that Prof Rajiva Wijesinha, Secretary General Secretariat for Coordinating
the Peace Process is indeed doing a commendable service alongside the
APRC Chairman, Prof Tissa Vitharana. However, the APRC, its inputs,
processes and the output must be analysed in further detail in order
to assess the suitability of their suggestions.
After a grand and much talked about effort, the APRC has come up with
nothing. Instead they have fully endorsed the ill-fated 13th Amendment
which was a hasty piece of legislation enacted under duress, undue influence
and behind closed doors. It reflects what India wanted little Lanka
to do in 1987 and contains no gratifications for Sri Lanka and its national
interests.
However, given the extreme fragmentation in the political arena which
is in turn a mirror image of the society, the government and the APRC
evaluated that it is impossible to legislate a Constitutional reform
without the support of the UNP, JVP and the TNA. The present government
has been unable to muster a simple majority let alone getting a two
thirds majority for APRC proposals. Therefore, they decided go ahead
with an existing piece of law that was never fully implemented. From
the point of view of a public relations exercise it serves the government
as it would pretend to do something all governments for the past 21
years failed to do – implement fully the thirteenth amendment.
Can this forced ‘solution’ solve the problems faced by Sri
Lanka? Sri Lanka? Who said Sri Lanka has a problem? It is the Tamils
who have problems and therefore the solution should be able to solve
Tamil grievances and aspirations; so tells some Tamil leaders! They
forewarn that unless Tamil grievances and aspirations are sorted out
the conflict will continue.
Don’t the Muslims, the Sinhalese, the Veddhas, the Malays, the
Burgers, etc. have problems? They do. ‘But they bear no weapons
and hence their problems are immaterial.’ This seems to be the
widespread thinking.
On the other hand if Tamils have problems why should the Sinhalese,
Muslims, etc. care about them? They have their own share of problems
for Christ’s sake. From another point of view, why should Sri Lanka
get involved in Tamil problems? Sri Lanka should only solve Sri Lankan
problems.
Hence, a racial view of the problem is not going to work. What is needed
is a national view of both the problem and the solution. A racial view
of the problem and a national view of the solution is also not going
to work. Unfortunately the thirteenth amendment looks at the problem
from a racial point of view and suggests solutions along those lines.
Before suggesting a power sharing based political solution, other possibilities
must be analysed. Who said only power sharing can solve the problem?
What magic brought up this power sharing panacea? May be it is the international
community. But in reality we haven’t studied the problem in detail,
have we? All the committees that came up with devolution/decentralisation
proposals had to work within the devolution/decentralisation framework
given to them. Never have we taken the time to analyse, study and brainstorm
about the problem! It was always the solution (solution was also specified
by the international community) that was studied! What a joke trying
to solve a problem not studying it?
There is this true story about a scientist inventing the most complex
mouse trap in the 19th century after extensive studies into mice and
their behaviour. However, his mouse trap was not popular and the producer
soon abandoned it. Why? It was not user-friendly. Although the scientist
had studied mice in detail, he failed to study the requirements of the
users!!
It is time to take a new fresh look at the problem (or to look at the
problem for the first time) from the national point of view. What is
the problem affecting Sri Lanka? It is faced with separatism which has
been a problem in many parts of the world. There are armed separatists
and political separatists. On the other hand there are those who struggle
amidst severe hardships to retain the undivided state of the nation.
These are the two conflicting forces at work in Sri Lanka. What should
Sri Lanka do? Support the forces trying to retain the undivided nation
and cripple the separatist forces; full stop. This is the only solution
to the nation’s problem.
Does the thirteenth amendment, by the remotest of remote coincidence,
support the forces trying to retain the undivided nation and cripple
the separatist forces? No, not at all. In fact it promotes division,
regional isolation, regional disagreements (including water wars between
a Sinhala majority division and a Tamil majority division and within
regions between Sinhala, Muslim and Tamil villages), sub optimisation,
lack of national direction, confused diplomacy (a Tamil majority region
will want Tamil Nadu to be their neighbour. Force it to accept national
diplomatic priorities and that is the end of it all), conflicting interests
between the centre and the regions, creates new minorities, hinders
policing and security measures (if the regional administration cannot
protect its ‘rebels’, or if it sides with the national army,
that administration goes home or the administrators go to hell) and
kindles terrorism (try and stop regional terrorism, we are back to square
one).
Instead if a solution can be drawn which specifically supports the forces
trying to retain the undivided nation and cripples the separatist forces,
that will fix Sri Lanka’s ailment for good.
An insightful analysis would reveal that there are two approaches. One
is to try and satisfy the insatiable separatism thirst of separatists
and the other is to strengthen the guards of the undivided nation. Parallels
can be drawn between these two approaches elsewhere. India and Malaysia
have tried to address the very same issue in these two ways. Both countries
are federal countries as they were created by the integration of states
and sultanates. Sri Lanka needs not go again in the reverse gear from
a unitary state to a scattered state (whatever the name that is used
to hide the evils federalism creates in a hitherto unitary nation).
Both India and Malaysia have guards to protect their nations from disintegration.
Each Malaysian regional unit is multi-cultural and representative of
the nation (not a natural occurrence but the result of effortful colonisation
by the government) whereas most Indian states (especially Tamil Nadu)
are mono-ethnic; ethnic demands in India were addressed by a process
of division whereas in Malaysia ethnic demands were scuttled aggressively;
there are many regional conflicts across India whereas Malaysia experiences
none. There are active separatist movements in Tamil Nadu that are banned
by Indian Central authorities. However, it is no secret that these movements
are very much active and has the blessing of many Tamil Nadu politicians.
It is the exact opposite in Malaysia. The recent agitation by Tamil
ethnic elements in Malaysia was just a storm in tea cup and Malaysia
would not bend itself to gratify their racial aspirations or racial
grievances.
In fact Malaysia faced the very same problem faced by Sri Lanka today
many decades ago. Its truly intelligent leaders gave it the appropriate
solution - support the forces trying to retain the undivided nation
and cripple the separatist forces. The Bumiputhera law empowered the
majority that were identified as the force trying to retain the undivided
nation and separatist movements were crushed. Although the Bumiputhera
law contains negatives such as discrimination, it has very good points
as well. Most importantly, it set up a framework where separatism however
innocent it may look is handled violently; separatist political elements
are not recognised; it uplifted the majority to effectively participate
in exercising their majority rule which is the salient characteristic
of a democracy.
Of course the West was not happy and the rest is history! Malaysia solved
its separatism issue for good whereas India is shattered by manyfold
separatism movements. Although India cannot adopt a Malaysian-like solution,
Sri Lanka surely can. It is unfortunate that the APRC did not even study
the successful Malaysian solution!
However, there is a bigger problem at the Sri Lankan door step. It is
much bigger than Sri Lanka which is about the national rights of 80
million Tamils the world over. They tried to carve out this Tamil Nation
from India, Malaysia, Maldives and Sri Lanka. If a particular region
is unrepresentative of the average Sri Lankan ethnicity, regional power
sharing will only distance them further away. This is aggravated by
the presence of a powerful magnet across the Palk Straits called Tamil
Nadu.
One gawky argument is that the implementation of the 13th amendment
will empower the people in development work. If the hundred odd Ministers
including many assigned the task of nation building do what they are
supposed to do, people would be better empowered to carryout more development
work. There was a time when Presidential Mobile Services addressed village
level issues successfully. We don’t need a Constitutional amendment
to better serve the people!
The thirteenth amendment is all about Indianisation of Sri Lanka that
can bring all India’s miseries to Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka must look
up to the Malaysian solution to integrate the nation and usher in prosperity.
Also the government must ensure that these experiments have an undo
provision. Many failed experiments have granted unfair privileges to
certain ethnic groups to the detriment of others (e.g. the merger of
the North and the East). Once it is clear that the experiment has failed
as evidenced by the continuation of war, etc., pre-experiment status
quo must be achieved.
Sadly this nation is forced by outsiders to present a ‘political
solution’ to satisfy racial interests of Tamils. Every country
that houses Tamils looks to Sri Lanka to pave the way for the Tamil
Nation. But Sri Lankans don’t want to; they hate it and this is
the reality whether the Caucasian international community likes it or
not. A very successful politico-military leader once said ‘the
Americans give us money, weapons and advice, we take the money, we take
the weapons, but we don’t take their advice’!
It is time that Sri Lanka comes up with a solution that advances Sri
Lankan national interests to the detriment of separatists’ interests.
Before implementing the thirteenth amendment, the government should
present it to the people of Sri Lanka at a referendum. The international
community will be surprised how democracy will dismember it and chop
it down mercilessly
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