NORTHERN CM
WIGNESWARAN ALLEGES GENOCIDE, CALLS FOR PLEBISCITE
Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka
Mr Akashi was absolutely right when he urged flexibility and
reform on the Sri Lankan government and sounded the alarm of serious
consequences in Geneva March 2014 (that’s 75 days away, folks) if it failed to
shift in the right direction. He did get one thing wrong though. There is
neither a “Central government” nor a “Northern provincial government” in Sri
Lanka. Those categories and that terminology pertain to a federal system such as
that of India. Constitutionally what we have is a unitary state form in which
there is one government and power has been shifted outwards and downward, in
specific respects, to provincial councils or administrations. That is the
crucial distinction between federalism and devolution. Of course Mr Akashi’s
political Freudian slip indicates the view of Sri Lanka and attitude towards it
in a large segment of the international community. The treatment of Sri Lanka as
already containing two power centres, two capitals, does not help the battle for
devolution and only reinforces the propaganda of the Sinhala hawks within and
outside the State.
What looks like a sideshow, namely the growing
confrontation between Chief Minister Wigneswaran and Governor Chandrasiri, is
much more than that. It is the thin end of the wedge of a clash of two projects:
that of the strategy of escalating globalisation by Tamil nationalism and
narrowing of space by the defence establishment which seems to drive much of
state policy at a subterranean level.
With the recent election and the end of the
stage of war as well as a post war political vacuum, Governor Chandrasiri should
logically have been eased out as the gesture would have marked a new beginning.
However, the security establishment seems to wish to emphasise continuity rather
than signal discontinuity, perhaps to assuage the apprehensions of the soldiery.
This is quite understandable given the invocation of Prabhakaran and the LTTE by
‘moderate’ TNA members during the election campaign and after.
The answer would have been to appoint a
Sinhalese able to balance between the armed forces and the Provincial council,
as well as between the state and the diplomatic/donor community. The former head
of the government’s Peace Secretariat, Prof Rajiva Wijesinha comes readily to
mind. If the requirement were for someone with a military background, there are
at least two former army commanders with liberal credentials and ambassadorial
experience, Generals Gerry de Silva and Srilal Weerasooriya. So far the
government has chosen not to exercise these options and may not even be aware
they exist.
That said the Northern Provincial Council
should not have passed resolutions calling for the removal of the governor and
the retrenchment of the armed forces, so soon after taking office. These could
demands have been urged at negotiations –perhaps backchannel ones—rather than
publicly demanded. Furthermore the TNA leader should not have announced to Mr
Akashi that the government has three months to act on Tamil grievances and
should it fail to do so the TNA would initiate a non-violent campaign of
agitation. Mr Akashi, who has very considerable international experience how
these things go, rightly counselled patience.
It is against this backdrop that the inaugural
Budget speech of Chief Minister Wigneswaran delivered on December 10th 2013 is
especially worrying, but it would have given cause for serious concern in any
context.
Justice Wigneswaran complains that the system
of provincial councils applies to the entire island. That was not only a
decision of President Jayewardene who did not wish to be seen to confer special
status on the North and East which would then become the target of majoritarian
resentment, and wanted instead to give devolution greater acceptability and
strategic anchorage by creating a constituency for it among the Sinhalese, it is
even more importantly, the consistent stand taken by progressive opinion in the
south for decades, ranging from the Marxist Left in the 1940s to the populist
social democratic Vijaya Kumaratunga in the mid 1980s. In the face of a savage
JVP insurgency, the provincial council election was held in late 1988 only
because the path had been prepared by the holding of such elections throughout
that year in the midst of a bloody Southern civil war between pro-and
anti-devolution political forces, in the island’s other provinces. Many more
died in that Sinhala-on-Sinhala civil war than did in the famous final days of
the war against the LTTE.
Justice Wigneswaran protests that “...But the
then Government made the Provincial Council System applicable to the whole
Island and thus stultified the whole concept of power sharing essential for the
Tamil speaking Northern and Eastern Provinces. Thereby nothing was given
specially for the Northern or Eastern Provinces when power sharing was urgently
needed by them rather than the other Provinces. In fact the political need to
devolve power for the North and East was effectively scuttled. The political
needs, aspirations and the special interests of the people of the Northern and
Eastern Provinces were thus overlooked.”
One fails to understand how the conferment of
provincial councils on the other provinces “stultifies” the sharing of power
with the Tamil people of the North and East. How can the “political needs,
aspirations and special interests” of the people of the North and East have been
“overlooked” by conferring a similar measure of autonomy on the other provinces?
His logic seems to be that justice for the Tamils is possible only when it is
exclusive and unique. In a democracy, the special interests of the people of a
province, be it ethnic, religious, linguistic, cultural or economic, can and
usually will find expression in the specific policy mix of that Council. It is
not necessary that it should be the only such autonomous entity in the entire
country!
The answer of Tamil nationalist ideologues may
be that Kashmir has special status as does Quebec. However, had Quebec been
separated from France a few miles and the danger of irredentism been real, the
degree of autonomy may have been significantly different. That this is not mere
counterfactual speculation is best evidenced by the sharp reaction of Canada to
Gen Charles De Gaulle’s strident reference to Quebec. As for Kashmir, the
history of the accession and the pledge of a referendum made in the UN by Shri
Nehru give a unique dimension to the problem.
The complaint registered by Justice Wigneswaran
is important for two reasons. Firstly it reveals that he is questioning and
re-opening the fundamental coordinates of the Indo-Lanka accord of 1987 and the
progressive Southern consensus, clearly indicating that the Tamil project goes
well beyond that agreement and that consensus. Secondly it betrays the long
standing Tamil sense of being unique and deserving of special privileges not
enjoyed by the rest of the country’s citizenry or areas.
He says “The Provincial Council System, it must
be noted has been identified by all as a means to devolve power to the
periphery. But the Thirteenth Amendment in fact has strengthened the hands of
the Executive President and widened his powers.”
This is significant in that the target of the
criticism is not the Southern hardliners on the charge of seeking to sabotage or
abolish the Thirteenth amendment. It is not the government of the day for the
crimes of non-implementation, tardy implementation or partial implementation of
the Thirteenth amendment. No! The target is precisely the Thirteenth amendment
itself. This indicates that the Chief Minister seeks not the full implementation
of the amendment but its supersession.
He goes on to criticise the office, role and
function of the Governor, rather than the attitude and ideology of the present
occupant of that post. He says “The Governor is the representative of the
Executive President. No appointment is possible within the Province without the
approval of the Governor. From the Secretary to the Minor Employees, it is the
Governor who holds the whip hand.” It is only subsequent to this that he
specifically criticizes the present governor.
Justice Wigneswaran then goes on to disclose
the real reason behind contesting the Northern Provincial Council election. It
was certainly not to make the 13th amendment work; still less to work
constructively in the interstices of the present structure and situation so as
to consolidate and proceed at a measured pace.
He poses and answers the question as to the
TNA’s motivation. “At this stage someone might pose the question as to why we
decided to contest the Provincial Council Election if the Thirteenth Amendment
lacked teeth and was insufficient. There were two important reasons. Only if we
stood for election could we bring out to the notice of the world the feelings
and aspirations of the people of the Northern Province and show that the
Government was portraying a false picture. In fact at the last Election the
people were able to loudly proclaim their disapproval to the Government in power
and the presence of the military in the Northern Province. Secondly without
power, without authority in our hands to proclaim insufficiencies in the
Thirteenth Amendment at Colloquiums and Seminars made no impact on the
Government nor the International Community. But we felt it was better to get
ourselves established in authority, experience the short comings in reality and
thereafter tell the world what was happening. That exactly is what we are doing
now. Rather than to merely say that Thirteenth Amendment is insufficient we feel
exposing its shortcomings while established in office would be beneficial for
future changes.”
Thus the objective of the TNA has not been to
secure the full implementation of the 13th amendment and to expose the
government for non-implementation, but rather to expose the insufficiency of the
13th amendment as such!
Justice Wigneswaran then moves seamlessly from
the problems of devolution to the UN Human Rights Council resolutions, referring
to “the objective of the 2012 UN Resolution”, thus revealing the nexus between
external pressure and their strategy.
The next point is about the military in the
North. The grievance is not the overly large footprint of the military. No, it
is the very presence of the military in this most strategically sensitive of
border areas for the Sri Lankan state that is seen as incompatible with
reconciliation. He says “You cannot continue to keep the Military in the North
and expect reconciliation and regeneration. The Joint Declaration by the
President and the UN Secretary General in May 2009 has not been honored to say
the least.” Thus he does not want the military kept in the North, in any
configuration. His reference to the joint declaration between UN
Secretary-General and the Sri Lankan President is irrelevant and misleading
because there is absolutely no commitment to the non-retention of the military
in the North.
The Chief Minister’s speech then escalates to
its maximalist political climax. He says “It should be understood by all clearly
that the present Provincial Council cannot be a vehicle of change for the
betterment of the Tamil speaking people of the North and East.” This must be
understood clearly by the diplomatic community for what it is: a structural
rejection of the system of Provincial Councils itself. This rejection goes far
beyond a criticism of the present government for its immobility. It is a
rejection of the Indo-Lanka accord and its product the 13th amendment.
He follows it up with a programmatic political
proposal of dangerous dimensions saying “It could be converted into a
transitional Administration.” What exactly such a transitional administration
would be transitional to, the Chief Minister fails to indicate. Therefore the
goal remains open-ended. It would seem that the Chief Minister is picking up the
infamous ISGA model of the LTTE.
The Chief Minister alleges that “for 65 years
since Independence the problem of the Tamil speaking people of this country have
not been solved”, which ignores the role of the LTTE and ‘great hero’
Prabhakaran in wrecking such efforts. Mr Wigneswaran alleges in all seriousness
that “consecutive Governments of whichever hue were only interested in foisting
more and more hardships and calumny on our people.” He thus dismisses every
single Sri Lankan administration—all democratically elected, one might
add—including, obviously, that of President Kumaratunga who proposed three
political packages which went well beyond the 13th amendment, all of which were
rejected by the Tigers as well as the precursor of the TNA, the TULF and its
leader Mr Sambandan, at the time. One cannot help but wonder what he was doing
while these consecutive governments were intent on “foisting more and more
calumny and hardship” on the Tamil people.
Most incredibly yet utterly significantly,
Justice Wigneswaran, the newly elected Chief Minister actually uses the ‘G’
word: “...activities of successive Governments in this Country have bordered on
genocide if not genocide...” All this in his first Budget speech!
He then unveils the strategic conclusion: “It
is essential that an International strategy is innovated to quickly ascertain
the views of the Tamil speaking people presently still occupying their
traditional home lands.” Plainly the Chief Minister is calling for a plebiscite,
a referendum of the Tamil people in the North and East, by means of “an
international strategy”. This is an exit strategy; a roadmap for
secession.
The game-plan designed by the Diaspora hawks is
clear: (a) launch mass agitation either in the run up to or the immediate
aftermath of Geneva March 2014 (b) goad the army into a crackdown and Colombo
into dissolution of the Provincial council (c) use Jayalalitha and Tamil Nadu to
leverage the incoming BJP, which unlike the Congress is not emotionally invested
in the 13th amendment and deeply affected by the LTTE’s assassination of Rajiv,
to push qualitatively beyond it. The model is the creation of Kosovo through an
“international strategy”. The secessionist strategists in the Tamil Diaspora are
going for the grand-slam. They seem to have politically and ideologically
infiltrated or influenced the TNA/NPC. It is a pity that the Northern PC and the
new Chief Minister is exhausting southern goodwill and laying the foundations
for an anti-provincial autonomy multi-partisan Southern consensus, by playing
according to the Diaspora/Tamil Nadu script.
Courtesy - Sri Lanka Gaurdian
