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| Sunday, 30 May 2004 |
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Peace process caught in constitutional trap SUNDAY ESSAY by Ajith Samaranayake Critics of the United People's Freedom Alliance Government (and they are legion ranging from well-informed commentators to pretentious television talk show pundits) are having a self-satisfied air these days. Dr. Rajitha Senarathne sports a permanent smile while Prof. G.L. Peiris looks even graver than usual as he makes his portentous pronouncements. The reason for their rejoicing is not far to seek. It is what they see as the discomfiture of the UPFA (and here the JVP is singled out for special mention) at having to resurrect the peace process with Norwegian facilitation and continuing with the Memorandum of Understanding with the LTTE, overseen by the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission after having criticised all these countries mechanisms and institutions while being in Opposition. It is difficult to believe, however, that the leaders of the SLFP and the JVP (not being political tyros after all) would not have foreseen the problem when they made these criticisms when they were in the Opposition. Their criticism basically sprang from the MoU signed between the LTTE and former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe without the knowledge of the President, what appeared to be an inflated role for Norway which, having come in as a facilitator, now looked more like a mediator or arbitrator and what was perceived as the partisan role of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, which seemed to be blind to the LTTE's violations of the ceasefire agreement. All this is about the nature of the mechanism which was put in place to handle the negotiation process rather then a questioning of the need for a negotiated settlement itself. After all, who else except a lunatic fringe at the extreme holds the view that there can be a settlement without negotiations? However, there was a growing body of opinion which felt that during the last two years, the former United National Front Government had needlessly internationalised the ethnic issue and thereby permitted international opinion to encroach in many ways upon the sovereignty of Sri Lanka. The defeat of that Government at the April elections was the best proof that such a body of opinion had in fact existed and that the UPFA had correctly sensed the national mood in articulating their criticisms. This criticism in no way negates the need for or the validity of the peace process. On the contrary, the requirements of real politik demand that the new Government pursues the process bereft of what it perceived as the flaws and blemishes of the past. The fact that the Norwegian Government at the highest levels is ready to carry forward its facilitatory role and the visit to Sri Lanka of Japan's special envoy Yasushi Akashi underscore the international community's commitment. On a different level, Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar has been able to brief the leaders of India, China and the United States on the new Government's position. If the peace process is to be pursued, the logic of the process itself demands that it should be continued from where it was stalled and this means that the two parties to the process remain the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE. This is what the Foreign Minister meant when he said that the Government by implication had recognised the LTTE as the sole representatives of the Tamil people. Indeed, the Government had no other option. The Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Wickremesinghe administration and the LTTE supremo had conferred the kind of legitimacy that the LTTE had so far not enjoyed although it had earlier had one-to-one talks with the Premadasa and Kumaratunga administrations, both of which had broken down, leading to a resumption of hostilities. It had made the LTTE an almost equal partner on the same footing as a sovereign state. It had made it acceptable practice for visiting dignitaries to go to the Wanni and meet the LTTE chieftain although some of these Western governments had still not removed the LTTE's name from their list of proscribed terrorist organisations. 'Sole representative' status So Minister Kadirgamar's statement is only a recognition of the reality as it exists. It is true that the LTTE's `sole representative'status had been extracted at the cost of decimating all its rivals both in the moderate and militant streams. But, however galling it might be to some people, it is also true that for the first time, Tamil parties as different as the first Ceylonese tamil party, the Tamil Congress, the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kachchi or the Federal Party and what remains of militant groups such as the EPRLF have come together under an umbrella which claims the LTTE to be the sole representative of the tamil people and the mandate they received at the April elections as a mandate for the LTTE's politics and programmes. The problem, however is that the LTTE's sole concern, both as policy and programme, is the Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA) which it has put forward as the means of rebuilding the North and East. The LTTE pulled out of the peace talks last April, claiming that the talks had not brought any tangible benefits to its people. It appears to believe that only an ISGA under LTTE control can bring about the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the war ravaged areas. But many sections in the South (some of them by no means flaming Sinhala chauvinists) see this as the cutting edge of a separate state since the Authority will be the sole repository of wide ranging powers conferred on the Tamil areas. While this can certainly form the basis for talks, the LTTE will have to approach the talks in a spirit of compromise, realising that the Government deriving its support as it does from the generality of the Sinhala people will find it difficult, however prepared it might be to accommodate Tamil aspirations, to persuade the Sinhala electorate to accept a far reaching proposal such as the ISGA, which goes well beyond the concept of Federalism which the LTTE had earlier said could be the basis for talks and which the then Government had hailed as a major change of heart on the part of the LTTE. Parallel talks Infact, the country appears to be caught in a cruel trap. Responding to President Kumaratunga's suggestion that while the ISGA proposals can be the basis for negotiations, parallel talks should be resumed for a permanent settlement to the ethnic problem, the LTTE's Anton Balasingham has said that this would call for serious and fundamental changes in the Constitution and that as a minority Government with a hung Parliament, she does not have the required two thirds majority to effect radical and fundamental changes in the Constitution to bring about a solution to the ethnic problem. Balasingham cannot be unaware of the fact that under this same Constitution, no government will be able to obtain the two thirds necessary for reforming the Constitution let alone the radical restructuring of the Sri Lankan State which is the necessary prelude for resolving the National Question. What is more, after the Premadasa Government of 1989, no Government has been able to obtain a clear cut majority in Parliament as a single party and have had recourse to forming governments in alliance with other parties. How then are we to get out of this trap in which the 1978 Jayawardene Constitution has ensnared us? This is the question to which no answer is offered by that ragged band of supposed constitutional pundits, self appointed oracles of civil society and other such luminaries who have suddenly developed a great affection for the Constitution. But it is the central question which will loom ever larger as the crisis in Sri Lanka enters its next stage. |
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