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| Sunday, 20 June 2004 |
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Editorial |  |
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Editor, Sunday Observer. E-mail: [email protected] Snail mail : Sunday Observer, 35, D.R.Wijewardana Mawatha, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Telephone : 94 11 2429239 / 2331181 Fax : 94 11 2429230 Peace process and partisan politics The United National Party has criticized President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga on her proposal to set up a broad-based National Advisory Council for Peace and Reconciliation (NAC) as a manoeuvre to bypass Parliament. Earlier, it said that the entire peace effort of the President is a sham. How the UNP deduced that the President is trying to bypass Parliament remains a mystery since she has not said so. Is it the UNP contention that issues of peace should be talked of only inside Parliament? The UNP is also apparently relishing the reported instances of divergence of opinion between the government and the LTTE. These divergences are natural between adversaries who have fought a war for almost two decades. The duty of a responsible Opposition is not to relish these divergences but assist in the process of bridging the gap between the perceptions of the two sides. UNP pronouncements that delay in re-starting the peace talks have caused serious concerns regarding the security of Colombo seek to cause apprehensions among the public that war is round the corner. This is in contrast to the ground realities, the present global context and the declared intentions of both sides. In an interview reported elsewhere in our issue today Secretary, Organization Committee of the UNP S.B. Dissanayake says that the UNP will form a government next year. It shows that the UNP is more interested in grabbing power first. This explains their negative attitude to the government's peace efforts. By this approach they are negating the positive contribution it made by halting the war and entering into a Ceasefire Agreement with the LTTE that brought the people the longest respite from the devastating war that bled the country. Is this a case of history repeating itself in a country that every effort at national reconciliation by governments in power had been thwarted by the Opposition whose sole ambition was to regain power as soon as possible? It may have happened earlier. But today such repetition would be a national tragedy of colossal magnitude. The UPFA government on its part must also refrain from sending diverse signals at diverse times by different spokespersons and different constituents. It is high time the UPFA forged an internal consensus on its approach to peace. Nor should the government mix up its priorities and emotionally react to non-issues raised by the Opposition and displease potential allies in the solution of the National Question. It is unfortunate that certain politicians do not realize that a sincere and bold approach to peace seeking is a sure way to win the numbers game too. In pursuing peace the UPFA could also gain from the experience of the UNF government. The peace process under the UNF started to drift rudderless after its initial successes and was at the mercy of its international friends whose geo-political interests were not exactly the same as the national interest of Sri Lanka. ####### Regime change in Baghdad On June 30 the Coalitional Provisional Authority (CPA) under US Proconsul Paul Bremer and the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) handpicked by him will cease to exist. "Power" will be transferred to Sovereign Interim Government of Iraq with the sanction of the UN Security Council Resolution 1546. The interim government will be in office till December 31, 2005 when an elected government will take over power. The United States and the CPA have called the present change "a transfer of sovereignty". But how far the new regime could be sovereign is a moot point with over 130,000 US, British and other occupation forces remaining on Iraqi soil. According to Sir Adam Roberts, Professor of International Relations at Oxford University neither the US and its coalition forces nor the CPA can transfer sovereignty because they do not have it. Under international law occupation forces or their nominees do not have sovereignty. It is always vested in Iraq. The UN Security Council confirmed Iraq's sovereignty twice: by Resolution 1483 on May 22, 2003 and by Resolution 1511 on October 16, 2003. Whether the new regime will be sovereign or not will ultimately be tested in the streets of Baghdad and other regions in Iraq. It is the approval of the Iraqi people that would make it sovereign. According to media reports, the new Prime Minister Iyad Allawi though proposed by UN Special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is a nominee of the US Proconsul Paul Bremer. He has been a CIA agent since 1992 and had planted bombs in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities during the 1990's. The CIA funded his outfit - the Iraq National Accord (INA). He had close links with Britain's MI6 and was responsible for the claim made by Tony Blair that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) that could be operational in 45 minutes. The new regime in Baghdad is only an interim administration. It is far from sovereign. |
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