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| Sunday, 4 January 2004 |
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Politics |  |
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SLMC finalises constitutional proposals by P. Krishnaswamy The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) has finalised its constitutional proposals to resolve the ethnic problem and will be presenting it to the relevant authorities before the provincial council elections. The proposals incorporating an interim constitution as an integral part was drafted by the SLMC on behalf of the North-East Muslims. Party leader Minister Rauff Hakeem told a press conference in Colombo last week that these proposals, based on the South African model, which also incorporated an interim constitution, suggests annexation of non-contiguous Muslim pre-dominant areas as a unit of devolution. Pointing out that discussions on the matter have not been concluded, he said the document will be released before nominations to the PC elections which are round the corner. Further consultations on finalising the document will be held in the coming weeks with the North-East Muslim MPs Forum, Muslim intellectuals, academics and religious leaders, he added. The SLMC politburo and high command approved the draft proposals at a meeting held yesterday at the party headquarters, 'Dharusalam', party sources said. Minister Hakeem also said that their suggestions, based on " the Muslims' right to the utilisation of their resources and to assure their security", are in conformity with the Oslo Declaration of December 2000 on a federal solution to the Sri Lankan crisis to which the LTTE too was a signatory. The proposals were drafted taking into account the factors that 'self-rule and shared rule' are primary requisites of a federal system of governance and the current unitary system is deficient in that respect. The SLMC proposals are also intended at offsetting and remedying the polarization between the government proposals and the LTTE proposals. The SLMC as per its proposals would welcome asymmetrical power devolution, re-demarcation of boundaries and consideration of power devolution in respect of the other ethnic communities outside the North-East, he said. |
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