Problem due to shortsighted policies of previous regimes

By Jaliya Wijeyekoon

Sri Lanka would have remained a dismembered country today had not the brutal LTTE savagery been warded off by our valiant Security Forces and restored peace under the deft political leadership of President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Dudley Senanayake

Sir John Kotelawala.

D.S. Senanayake

J.R. Jayawardene

Ranasinghe Premadasa

Mahinda Rajapaksa

S.W.R.D Bandaranaike

Chandrika Kumaratunga

S.J.V. Chelvanayagam

The LTTE's substitution of terrorism for peaceful means of resolving conflicts had caused boundless misery by driving thousands of people homeless and limbless.

The United National Party and Sri Lanka Freedom Party had governed the country successively for 65 years since Independence, under 11 leaders.

The founder of the United National Party D.S. Senanayake was the greatest visionary who commanded the respect of all communities. He efficiently tackled the minority communities, accommodating most of the leaders in his first Cabinet. Senanayake realised that ethnic tension was simmering under the carpet and his program of work was aimed at uniting both communities in the country with his colonisation schemes, intermingling the Sinhalese and Tamils and allowing them to live in harmony.

Senanayake died unexpectedly, falling off the horseback during his regular exercises at Galle Face Green and his son Dudley Senanayake became Prime Minister. Dudley continued the same policies introduced by his father, accommodating minority community leaders in his Cabinet.

Dudley Senanayake was re-elected Prime Minister at the next election with a two-third majority, but didn't continue for long as his health was poor and also he had constant problems with his Cabinet colleague, Sir John Kotelawala.

Dudley stepped down from politics and Sir John became the Prime Minister. Sir John wanted the Tamil community's support and in Jaffna he agreed to make both Sinhala and Tamil official languages in the country. That was the stand taken by the Communist and Sama Samaja parties too at that time. However, there was severe resistance to this idea from various quarters in society; The Maha Sangha was against making Tamil an official language.

S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike had broken away from the UNP and formed his own party, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. He was gathering public support and he managed to mobilise the masses effectively against the UNP which was rapidly becoming unpopular under Sir John's leadership. At the 1956 general election Bandaranaike announced that he would make Sinhala the official language of the country within 24 hours which helped him defeat the ruling UNP comprehensively.

However, it is believed that this action by Bandaranaike led to a number of grievious problems in the country and the beginning of communal disharmony. Subsequent developments in Tamil political circles proved that the beginning of the issue may have been the Sinhala only policy of the Bandaranaike government.

Bandaranaike immediately realised the gravity of the problem and had a series of discussions with Tamil political leaders to pacify them. Finally, Bandaranaike had to sign a pact with S.J.V. Chelvanayagam with regard to the Reasonable use of Tamil instead of Sinhala in the Northern and Eastern Provinces and it was known as the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam (BC) Pact. The main Opposition, the United National Party heavily objected to this move and went to the extent of making a peace march to the Temple of the Tooth, the Dalada Maligawa in Kandy against this pact. They mobilised the masses against the government over this issue.

The Maha Sangha who supported Bandaranaike to win the elections were also against this pact. Bandaranaike realised that it was politically suicidal to antagonise the Maha Sangha and tore the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam Pact into pieces and apologised to the Maha Sangha.

The grievances of the Tamils worsened with the passage of time.

When Dudley Senanayake formed a government in 1965, he allocated a top ministry to a Tamil political leader, Thiruchelvem and garnered the Tamil community support. However, the grievances of the Tamils were escalating with regard to the administration and Dudley Senanayake and Federal Party Leader S.J.V. Chelvanayagam signed the D-C Pact introducing District Councils mainly to devolve administrative power to the Tamils in the North and the East.

The main Opposition, the SLFP along with the LSSP and CP objected to the DC Pact, saying that undue power would be vested with the Tamil community due to this pact. Since the Tamil political leaders supported Dudley's government, Opposition parties came out with the slogan Dudlige Bade Masala Wade and resisted heavily against the pact. Finally, Dudley was forced to withdraw it, resulting in Thiruchelvem leaving the government and Tamil people's aspirations not being fulfilled.

Dudley's government was swept out of power in 1970 and Sirimavo Bandaranaike formed a stable government with the support of the LSSP and CP. It is doubtful whether she took any special measures to satisfy the aspirations of the Tamil community. Sirima's government introduced the first republican Constitution in 1972 architectured by Constitutional Affairs Minister Dr. Colvin R. de Silva who did away with the Section 29A of the Soulbury Constitution which safeguarded the rights of the minorities. This dealt a death blow on the Tamil community who were already having some grievances.

J.R. Jayewardene, the astute politician of the era took over the reins of the country in 1977 and implemented several measures to assuage the fear and apprehension of the Tamil Community. A few of them were giving parity of status to the Tamil language, introduction of District Development Councils, (DDC) Constitutional provision for fundamental rights, which are justiceable and finally the 13th Amendment to the Constitution for devolution of power to the periphery.

Ranil Wickremesinghe

Despite the progressive nature of the features in the context of national cohesion, JR's regime failed to muster support from the Opposition. Sirimavo Bandaranaike mobilised the masses against JR's moves which resulted in an unhealthy situation in the country in 1987.

The intransigence and rigidity on the part of the Tamil political parties, partly dictated by their fear of terrorist groups, stalled compromise and consensus which would have thawed the situation. Provincial Councils, a by-product of the 13th Amendment could be regarded as the first measure in the devolution of power to the periphery within a geographically much smaller country such as Sri Lanka.

Had the then Opposition parties supported the UNP government at the crucial hour the 30-year terrorism could have been averted and the country made secure.

Far from giving flesh and blood and making the North East Provincial Council a viable body, its Chief Minister Vardharajah Perumal had his maiden Unilateral Declaration of Independence and consequently a grand opportunity for reconciliation, reappraisal and readjustment was lost.

During Ranasinghe Premadasa's tenure of office, he took exception to the conventional practice and had face-to-face discussion with members of the high command of the LTTE.

President Premadasa's honeymoon with the LTTE proved disastrous to the country. It's modus operandi was to make the LTTE his cat's paw to banish the IPKF back to India by supplying sophisticated military hardware to the LTTE. In the end this proved counter-productive.

Chandrika Kumaratunga also had peace negotiations with LTTE representatives and spent a large amount of money on the Sudu Nelum movement with no positive results being reaped and she herself being badly victimised.

Ranil Wickremesinghe as the Prime Minister signed a controversial Ceasefire Agreement with Prabhakaran through which he expected to resolve the problem with international support. The LTTE was weakened to some extent with the Ceasefire Agreement which led to splits in the outfit, but he could not do much about it as his government was dissolved unexpectedly by the Executive President. No support was extended to Wickremesinghe by the SLFP in his endeavour to solve this problem.

Mahinda Rajapaksa became President in 2005 and he too tried to address this issue through negotiations at the outset. Far from using democratic means to resolve the Tamil grievances, the monolithic LTTE began its bloodthirsty campaign and 30-years of terrorism was militarily crushed in 2009 under the stewardship of President Rajapaksa.

However, a complex situation has arisen today due to the domestic issue of Tamil grievances being internationalised and forces hostile to Sri Lanka trying to dictate terms to the legally and constitutionally elected government of Sri Lanka "to do this or that" according to their whims and fancies.

It's sad due to the archetypal ding-dong bell between the government and the Opposition the Tamil issue remains in the "order book" without being disposed of.