Sri Lanka's Supreme Court on Monday declared the merger of the northern and eastern provinces, effected in 1987 as part of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord, "null and void and illegal."
The move defied explicit calls by international backers of the Norwegian peace process, including India, for Sri Lanka to refrain from moves which would inflame tensions and undermine a negotiated settlement.
Sri Lanka’s largest Tamil party has reacted angrily, disrupted the proceedings of Parliament in a protest against the Supreme Court decision.
The Tamil MPs charged the Sri Lankan judiciary which they charged was being used to nullify any arrangement towards a peaceful resolution of the national problem.
The Northeast merger was temporarily effected under the Accord, pending a referendum. Amid the conditions of war that have gripped the Northeast for the past two decades, the merger has been extended annually.
The Supreme Court’s ruling Monday in favour of a petition by Sinhala nationalists is a direct attack on the Accord’s recognition of the Tamils’ historic homeland in the island’s Northeast.
Indeed, the Court declared that material provided by the Sinhala nationalist petitioners resulted in "volumes of material to establish the divisions that existed in historic times and that the eastern province was part of the Kandyan Kingdom at the time of British conquest."
The 1987 Indo-Sri Lanka Accord recognized the Northeast as "the historical habitat of the Tamil-speaking people of Sri Lanka" and thus deemed the Northern and Eastern Provinces to be merged and operate as one administrative unit and be administered by one elected council
From a Tamil perspective, that merger was the single most significant achievement of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord, which failed on many other counts, including the prevention of state-sponsored Sinhala colonization of Tamil areas.
When earlier this year three members of the ultra-Sinhala nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) filed a case demanding the merger be repealed, many Tamils saw the outcome as a foregone conclusion – the Supreme Court had already upheld other nationalist demands, including the abrogation of a much-heralded tsunami aid sharing mechanism in 2005.
On Monday jubilant JVP supporters burst crackers outside the court building and its leaders posed before television cameras.
Last month the Co-Chairs of the donor community backing the peace process – the United States, European Union, Japan and Norway – cautioned against the move.
"There should be no change to the specific arrangements for the north and east which could endanger the achievement of peace," they said in a statement.
"The legitimate interests and aspirations of all communities, including the Tamil, Muslims and Sinhala communities must be accommodated as part of a political settlement," they said.
Separately, the Indian government, in a notable diplomatic intervention, opposed the de-merger.
The point was made by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh personally to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, Indian press reports said.
At their meeting on the sidelines of the NAM summit in Havana, the Indian leadership had also pressed that the island's Tamil-majority Northeastern province should not be de-merged without a referendum and that such a referendum would only be possible when there was a 'conducive atmosphere,' IANS reported.
In his reply to Mr. Singh, President Rajapakse distanced his government from the opposition to the merger now before the Sri Lankan judiciary, IANS also reported.
But Monday this week a five-member Bench of the court, headed by Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva, gave the ruling on the JVP petition.
The Bench said the President had no powers to effect a merger of provinces under Emergency Regulation, and only Parliament could decide on the subject.
The court referred to the two conditions laid by the India-Sri Lanka Accord before considering merger — cessation of hostilities and laying down of arms by Tamil militant groups. It said the President went ahead with the merger, though the conditions were not met with after the LTTE violated ceasefire.
The international community has seen the merged Northeast province as a tool to address the Tamil demand for self-autonomy for the regions they have traditionally inhabited.
The JVP’s petitioners said the merger would result in the "Muslim and Sinhala communities being permanently subjugated to a minority." The situation would exacerbate "ethnic cleansing," they said.
