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President Rajapakse’s proposals for ending Sri Lanka’s war take more power away from the ethnic minorities. Photo Sudath Silva |
Constitutional experts, Sri Lanka’s main opposition and Tamil political parties were taken aback by the proposals put forward by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) to a standing all party conference on constitutional reform, the APRC.
Even the anti-LTTE Tamil paramilitary groups allied with the SLFP government of President Mahinda Rajapakse were compelled to denounce the proposals.
As ever, however, the ultra-Sinhala nationalist parties were quick to condemn the proposals as going too far towards sharing power.
Amid the criticism from several political parties including the Sinhala hardline JVP and JHU, the SLFP said the proposals would be ‘slightly adjusted’ before being submitted to the APRC.
The SLFP’s ultra-conservative proposals are likely to disappoint members of the international community who are backing President Rajapakse’s efforts to militarily destroy the Tamil Tigers.
The international community has repeatedly urged the government to put forward a credible power sharing proposal in a bid to tempt the Tamils and create a split between the LTTE and the community, which is enduring considerable suffering as a result of Sri Lanka’s military onslaught against the Tigers.
There have been no formal international reactions to the SLFP’s proposals.
Indeed, with leading SLFP figures stating a few weeks ago that the proposals would be in line with President Rajapakse’s hardline election manifesto of 2005 – ‘Mahinda Chinthanaya’ (Mahinda’s Thoughts) – expectations were low.
But the SLFP’s vision didn’t meet even these.
The LTTE has not officially commented on the SLFP package and the Tigers’ military spokesman, Rasiah Ilanthiraiyan, told Reuters: “As long as the Colombo masters push ahead with their military agenda, we will not even consider moves such as these.”
Analysts said the proposals would likely only widen the chasm between the foes because they fell far short of wider ethnic Tamil demands.
And the Hindustan Times quoted a top source at the LTTE's political headquarters as saying: "The proposal devolves power to the districts and not to the provinces. We cannot accept any proposal which does not envisage devolution to a unified north-eastern Province."
"This is going to be a total disaster," said Rohan Edrisinha of independent think-tank the Centre for Policy Alternatives.
"Psychologically this is going to be a huge blow to the peace process, because it would suggest that the SLFP is going back to the early 1980s if not 1970s."
"The SLFP is offering less than what is already in place in the form of the 13th amendment to the constitution (which set up provincial governments)," he added.
"Viewed from the point of view of conflict resolution, it's really quite astounding."
The proposals were swiftly criticized by the opposition United Nationl Party (UNP) as well as the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) – the latter are Sri Lanka’s largest Tamil and Muslim parties respectively.
Indeed, Tamils across the political spectrum rejected President Rajapksa's devolution package because it does not envisage a federal set up, a meaningful sharing of power, and the re-unification of the Tamil-speaking north-eastern Province, the Hindustan Times reported.
These parties are for the continuance of the Province as the unit of devolution. The UNP instituted the Provincial Councils system in 1988 as part of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord.
The Accord also decreed the merger of the Northern and Eastern Province into a single entity, in recognition this region is the ‘historical habitation of the Tamil speaking people of the island.’
And the Tamils have been demanding a substantial amount of provincial autonomy - such as substantive federalism - in lieu of full independence from Sri Lanka.
The Muslims are eager not to counter the Tamil demand for provincial autonomy because a good number of them live in the Tamil-speaking north and east, the Hindustan Times noted.
Even pro-government Tamil parties like the TULF, EPRLF (P) and PLOTE said in a statement that the Tamils rejected the proposal "totally" as it did not envisage a federal set up.
The powers to be devolved to the regions had been reduced from what was already nominally in place, they said.
“Fifty years of agitation by the Tamil speaking people to win their rights, has brought them back to square one,” the statement said.
“After so much of loss of life and destruction to properties and having failed to find a solution under a unitary system, the Tamils will not accept any solution less than one under a federal constitution.”
The SLFP's proposals make it clear that Sri Lanka will be a decidedly unitary state (though it avoids using the term) and not a federation.
The unit of devolution will be the district and not the province, as is the case now.
The number of districts can go up from the present 25 to 30. Each district council (DC) will have a ‘chief minister.’ He or she will be appointed by the president from among DC members.
In devolving power, the current supremacy of parliament, the executive powers of the President (including those relating to public security), and the powers of the judiciary will not be compromised.
The all-powerful executive presidency may be pruned or replaced by the Westminster system, if there is a consensus on this issue.
There will be a second chamber at the Centre, the Senate. All district chief ministers will be members of the senate, which will also have members nominated by political parties. The Senate can review, suggest and delay legislation, but not legislate or veto any legislation.
And before power is devolved to a district, all armed groups operating there (i.e. the LTTE), will have to surrender their arms.
In other words, the LTTE must disarm before any power-sharing can begin.
The APRC, meanwhile, is moribund with the JVP having pulled out, saying it will not be party to any efforts to divide the country and the UNP refusing to fully commit to it.
After Rajapakse won the 2005 Presidential elections, the international community put pressure on him to forge a southern consensus with the UNP on a proposal to of the LTTE in the North and East of Sri Lanka.
In response to this, President Rajapakse setup the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) in early 2006.
The APRC consisted of all the Sinhala parties including the centre-right UNP and the ultra-nationalist JVP as well as anti-LTTE paramilitary parties.
The TNA, which swept the 2004 elections in the Northeast, were not invited.
