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| Sunday, 8 May 2005 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Transfer of power a priority by Rashomi Silva "There ought to be devolution. The level of devolution is held up by one fact, by the fact of what to do with the Eastern province. That is the truth of it. If we do not resolve the problem of the Eastern province we can not resolve the problem of the quantum of devolution. If tomorrow the problem of the Eastern province is resolved, any government sitting in Colombo would not hesitate too much about giving a great deal of autonomy to the province of this country," Lalith Athulathmudali as the Minister of Education and Higher Education on the issue of power devolution, Emergency debate Hansard 1990.
That was a part of the speech made by the one time National security Minister late Lalith Athulathmudali on the situation in the East in early 90s. At that time the government he represented was fighting the LTTE militants. While stressing the necessity of broad based power sharing arrangement in his speech he foretold the complications any government would have to encounter when it seriously contemplate power devolution as an answer to the country ongoing ethnic conflict. Since then the ground situation in the North-East as well as political thinking in the South about the ethnic conflict has changed drastically. For the first time in the history both major political parties and the LTTE has agreed on a federal module as a solution. And the country is experiencing what the social scientists term the negative peace in the absence of armed conflict. The developments are definitely positive. But on the other hand the complex ground situation in the East has become even more complex today due to the emergence of several other actors that were not present back in 1990s. Muslim groups that demand equal attention to the cause of their community and the Karuna faction, a breakaway rebel group of the LTTE has complicated the matters to a great extent. Even though there is no all out war in the East, the situation there is deteriorating on daily basis. With it's almost equal demographic presence of Tamils, Muslims, Sinhalese and a marginal Burger populace, the East has a marked difference with other regions with similar ethnic composition. During the last three years of ceasefire, the East turned out to be one of the biggest challenges to the very existence of the peace move. This multi ethnic and multi religious province which could have been an icon of the country's rich cultural and heritage diversity became a battle field and a land of tears and blood. Strained relations between communities sparked off civil protest and ethnic polarisation tearing apart the region's economy and social fibre. Muslim issue For a careful follower of the developments of the past three years, it is apparent that the LTTE tries to keep the Muslim away from the main negotiating table, their argument sound convincing. The North-East is the traditional homeland of the Muslims as well as the Tamils and they both speak the same language, 'Tamil' and therefore considering them both as 'Tamil speaking' the LTTE insists that they would argue the case for the Muslims as well as the Tamils and as a secondary step they propose to discuss the solutions with the representatives of the Muslim community and with the regional Muslim political entities. The question is if that kind of an arrangement would appease the Muslim leadership who insist an equal attention to their cause and wants to retain an identity of their own furthermore the past of the LTTE was such that the Muslims may dared not trust the LTTE. And they have just apprehension to be a minority in a regional administration headed by the LTTE. When it come to a separate delegation for the Muslims it arises another issue that demand serious consideration. That whether the accommodation of three separate delegation at the negotiation table would not develop a situation where 'too many cooks would spoil the broth'? However the most grave problem the community has to encounter does not come either from the government or from the LTTE, but from the community itself. It has come in two major forms. The first problem is lack of leadership after the demise of the SLMC founder M.H.M Ashraff in 2000. The second is the lack of consensus among the so-called present day leaders of the community. There is a tendency among the present generation of leaders to point accusing finger at each other publicly and to embarrass the members of a rivals political parties. There certainly is no harm in having different perspective, which is one of the main feature of the democracy. But if leaders or members of a party has differences of ideas they should try to solve them behind close door without trying to embarrass one another and trying to get temporary political advantages. The Muslim community has several major issues that demand serious attention. Settlement of land question, a Muslim representation at talks, power sharing arrangement in North and East and security concerns of the Muslims. But unfortunately the Muslim community is largely divided on those vital issues as they are on the other political issues. Thus it remains the different perspectives in the Muslim politics without much helping the Muslim community to get their rights even from the negotiating table. Political immaturity also pose a serious setback to the community's bargaining abilities. Muslim who had never been the champions of power devolution made it a strategy to associate themselves with the Sinhalese community in politics. Even today Muslim politicians could be found in both major political parties namely the United National Party and the Sri Lanka Freedom party therefore in post independent era the community was often over and disproportionately represented in the parliament. Until the formation of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress by late M.H.M Ashraff in mid 80s, who pledged his support to power devolution proposals forwarded by the President Chandrika Kumaratunga, they did not have a separate political party. In fact if not for the LTTE's insistence of a North-East as Tamil home land and ethnic cleansing in 'the traditional Tamil home land' which reduced most of the Muslims into stage of refugees, the Muslims would not have felt the need for a separate ethnic political party to articulate their interests. Sudden death of Minister Ashraff has left the community without leadership. It created a political vacuum which is likely to be filled by Jihad or Muslim militant group. Prof. Jayadeva Uyangoda in his book titled 'Sri Lanka's peace process 2002' has described it as a "Muslim youths who had faced the harsh treatment of the LTTE and equally disappointed with the present leadership of the community harp on the necessity of an uncompromising and militarily powerful Muslim leader to argue their cause." Infact there are persisting rumours about an armed group operating in the East. What most political leaders seems to have forgotten is that Sri Lanka ethnic conflict has three main stakeholders namely Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese. And a political solution should not only consider the aspirations of the two major communities but also the aspirations of the Muslim community. The bottom line however says Prof. Uyangoda is that Sri Lanka has a tripartite ethnic conflict which requires a tripartite settlement. Karuna and the East Already a complex ground situation in the East looked more complex when Karuna Amman, one time trusted comrade of LTTE supremo, V. Prabahakaran split ranks with the main outfit claiming discrimination against Tamils known as Batticaloa Tamils. The fact that most of the cadres died in action happen to be from the East, testify to the strong presence of Eastern cadres in the LTTE fighting ranks. The common complain is that the Eastern cadres are used as cannon fodders whilst Northern cadres get a priority when it comes to making appointments to top appointments in the administrative ranks. After a heavy struggle between the two factions, cadres loyal to Prabhakaran gained victory and took control of Karuna's territory in the East. The break away group leader Karuna was reported to escorted to Colombo for safety. His offer to sign a separate MoU with the government was turned down due to fears of offending the LTTE. LTTE in the process of transforming itself to a political entity from a military entity may have to encounter more challenges in the process analysts here predicted. Colombo media and the diplomatic circles looked at the split with misgivings and concern lest it would upset the country's fragile peace process. Analysts here attributed the internal crisis within the LTTE to the diversity of Tamil nation. For the last three decades the combined efforts of the Tamil nationalist movement was concentrated on winning back their rights and privileges. But today they want to get back to their separate identities. Commenting on a possible solution Prof. Uyangoda said a suitable federal structure should be in the form of federalism within federalism, within every administrative unit there should be degree of autonomy which allows it's sub units a certain degree of decision-making. The final settlement should be an autonomy within autonomy, federalism within federalism. Tamil unity should not replicate another unitary system of Sri Lanka, he said. The aim of any future negotiating process should be getting an equitable sharing of power by all communities, including sharing of powers among members of the same community but belonging to different groups, such as Batticalo Tamils, Jaffna Tamils and etc. Taking into consideration of the minorities in the South as well as the North and transfer of power to members of other communities should be given a top priority in any process. |
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