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Defeat of LTTE – Challenges before Rajapaksa

	May 25, 2009

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa must be privately patting his back and those of his two brothers who assisted him in breaking the back of the LTTE and annihilating the terror mastermind, V. Prabhakaran. But a mere military victory is not enough to bring peace to Sri Lanka. He has now got to go into the root cause of the problem - discrimination against the Tamils by the successive Governments in Colombo and going back on the promises for an equal deal written in such documents as the 13th Amendment of the Constitution and the Indo-Sri Lanka peace accord. The illusion that a final, lasting victory has been or can be secured, will not survive long and another Prabhakaran may rise from the ashes of the LTTE’s death if the cause for which Prabhakaran fought – justice and equality for Tamils - is not adequately addressed. Any partial accommodation of Tamil demands for their rights and aspirations such as equality in jobs and education, self-government in the North and East, adequate devolution of powers to the two Tamil-majority provinces to run their own affairs, will only build the frustration of the Sri Lankan Tamils.



Both in his victory address to Parliament and during his talks with the two Indian envoys - Foreign Secretary Shiv shankar Menon and National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan – Rajapaksa promised that he would seriously look at a devolution package for the Tamil community after the end of the war. He told Parliament that “it is necessary that the Tamil people are given equal rights and the political solution they need should be brought closer to them faster”.



If President Rajapaksa is serious about honouring his words, there are two major tasks before him. First, paying immediate attention to rehabilitating more than 2,25,000 internally displaced persons resulting from the last phase of the conflict, and second finding a lasting resolution of the ethnic Tamil issue.



Rajapaksa will have to resist Sinhala chauvinists who may resist any concessions to the Tamils now that the only fighter for their rights has been eliminated. The Sri Lankan Government’s recent record on post-conflict reconciliation does not inspire confidence. Fears are being expressed in Tamil quarters in the island nation that Rajapaksa may be keen to broaden his Sinhala support base rather than providing a constitutional solution. Even the coterie around him may not let him proceed smoothly in this direction. His brother, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, and the Army Chief, Gen. Sarath Fonseka, would not prefer their hard won military victory to be frittered away by political generosity to the Tamils. In their perception, Sri Lanka is a country of the Sinhalese and for the Sinhalese. The Tamils could live here if they want, but peacefully. There are people around this coterie who have for long been planning a demographic restructuring of the Tamil-dominated north-eastern part of Sri Lanka.



It is notable that despite the election of a Tamil-led regime in the Eastern Province, there was no headway in devolving powers to it. According to the independent International Crisis Group, “violence, political instability and reluctance to devolve powers to provincial administration” continue to characterize the situation in Eastern Province, where the Tigers’ strongholds were captured in 2007. It has recommended that the future international assistance to Sri Lanka should be made conditional on Colombo empowering the Provincial Councils as part of a genuine democratic political transformation in both the North and East.



During his meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the SAARC summit in New Delhi in April, 2007, Rajapaksa told him that his Government was committed to unveiling a comprehensive package of devolution of powers to Tamils and other minorities 'in the next few weeks'. He and his aides talked of finalizing a consensual devolution package to act as an alternative to the dragging Tamil homeland campaign. Dr. Singh for his part said such a devolution package should satisfy the legitimate political aspirations of all ethnic groups in Sri Lanka.



India is worried by the slow progress of the political process in Sri Lanka to unveil a package codifying devolution of powers and changing the way the island will be governed. Rajapaksa had earlier promised that the process, which involves almost all major political parties in his country, would be complete by February. Nothing has emerged from these pledges so far.



Earlier this year, a group comprising Sri Lankan government ministers roposed a devolution package to meet the long-standing political

aspirations of the minority Tamils in the context of the impending military defeat of the Tamil Tiger separatist rebels. They proposed the creation of a second chamber in Parliament called the Senate which will give representation to the minorities. They also proposed steps towards the full implementation of the 13th Amendment which outlines devolution of power to the provinces. They proposed that the provinces should have full powers over the acquisition of land, but its distribution should be subject to approval from the Central Government. As regards power over the police or law and order, the group felt that the provinces could have control over minor crime. However, major crimes and those relating to national security, should come under the purview of the Centre.



The transfer of power over land and the police to the provinces has been very controversial in Sri Lanka. As per the 13th Amendment passed under pressure from the Indian Government in 1987, powers of land and the police are devolved to the provinces. But these provisions have remained unimplemented for the last two decades.



While the Tamil minority has been demanding devolution for the Northern and Eastern provinces, where they are in a majority, Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan governments have refused to hand over powers. The fear of land grabbing by the minorities in the provinces where they are numerically strong and the fear of separatism have prevented the Centre from devolving any power over land and law and order.

However, the full implementation of the 13th Amendment is claimed as a goal of the Mahinda Rajapaksa Government.



Sri Lanka Sinhalese majority began discriminating against the Tamils after the country gained independence from Britain in 1949. The situation eventually led to the rise of the Tamils.



Before 1949 the relatively better educated Tamils brought in by the British from South Asia, were dominating in services. However, after Independence the Sinhala majority Governments steadily began to put into practice the “Sinhala only” policy primarily by declaring Sinhala as the national language and making the knowledge of Sinhala compulsory for getting jobs.



In 1956, the Ceylonese Government, which had hitherto followed a policy of using Sinhala and Tamil as its official languages, decided to introduce the Official Language Act No. 33. This Act declared Sinhala to be the only official language. This was protested by the Tamils who said no government could make Sinhala the official language by trampling down the languge rigts of over a million permanent residents of the country. Thereafter, successive national governments made efforts to redress the discrimination caused and damage done by the language policies adopted previously, at the same time retaining the pre-eminent position accorded to the Sinhala language by bringing in amendments to the Constitution.



India, especially its Congress Government was instrumental in the enactment of the 13th Amendment of the Constitution of Sri Lanka during the Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi who signed a peace agreement with Colombo which saw the Indian Peace Keeping Forces go to Northern Sri Lanka to drive out the LTTE which, however, proved to be unsuccessful.



But, the 13th Amendment was far too short in addressing the basic requirements of Tamils: recognition of their ethnic identity as a nation of self-determination which was essential for their emotional security in the context of the inherent nature of Sinhala nationalism in Sri Lanka, physical security in the context of ethnically charged and inflated armed forces of the State, integrity of land in the background of State sponsored encroachments which started even before Independence and structural provisions to implement development in all sectors in the way and extent they wish without hindrance.

The Provincial Council solution facilitated by the 13th amendment in 1987, failed at the outset primarily due to its incompatibility in concept and structure to match the acuteness of the ethnic divide in Sri Lanka, than due to the opposition to it by the LTTE.A fundamental, conceptual conspiracy in the 13th Amendment was that it provided devolution for eight provincial Councils when the question was between two ethnicities. Thus the amendment was designed to nullify the importance of regional identity by equating those who wanted it and those who never asked for it.



The advocates of the 13th Amendment argue that all basic Tamil aspirations could be found in it in an implied sense. But it was a folly or perhaps a deliberate sabotage that India and Sri Lanka thought of stuffing and stressing a unitary constitution with a phenomenon that needs at least a confederation-constitution to handle.



Further, a court in Sri Lanka held void the 13th Amendment that divided the Northern and Eastern Provinces united by the 13th Amendment.