Top
ACTION GROUP OF TAMILS
IN COLOMBO
(AGOTIC)
BEHIND THE PEACE PROCESS President Kumratunga practised transparency on three occasions in March 1996. The first occasion was her interview with Sidharth Bhatia of India Business Week, broadcast on the 10th of March. The second, was her interview with Malini Parthasarathy published in The Hindu of 27 March. The third occasion was her address to the Sudu Nelum meeting held at the Sugathathasa Indoor Stadium on the 30th of March. Taken together the opinions the President expressed frankly at these fora about the Tamil people in Sri Lanka constitute a fundamental departure from the so-called "peace process". The AGOTIC believes that transparency begets transparency. It is our turn to reciprocate the President's actions. The President announced her "Devolution Proposal" on the evening of the 3rd of August 1995. The stated intention then allegedly was to present the Proposal to the public and generate public awareness about its contents. The Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Prof G L Peiris, explained that the Proposals will go through the following stages:
The Draft Provisions of the Constitution was presented to the PSC on the 16th of January 1996. The success of this five-stage process depends on the following crucial factors. Firstly, the President must be able to marshall the support of other members of the PA to reach a consensus. But the DUNLF is implacably oppposed to the Draft Provisions; and there are reliable indications that influential sections within the President's own Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) also oppose the Draft Provisions. Clearly the President has failed to cobble together a consensus within the PA Government. Therefore AGOTIC is of the view that the present Draft Provisions are NOT the proposal of the Government. Secondly, the President surely knows that she must solicit the support of the United National Party (UNP) in the Parliamentary Opposition in order to obtain a two-third majority vote in Parliament. But the President has consistently antagonised the UNP. She has repeatedly chastised them for their past political actions and even dissolved two UNP-controlled Provincial Councils in the North-Central and Sabaragama Provinces. The Courts have since held that her actions are illegal and the dissolution order has been quashed (The Island, 28/3/96). Therefore AGOTIC is of the view that the President has deliberately foreclosed every avenue of potential support from the UNP and she cannot now obtain a two-third majority vote in Parliament. Thirdly, the President has been forced to declare Emergency Rule islandwide and to postpone Local Government Elections (The Island, 19/4/96). It follows that the popularity of the PA Government and the SLFP in particular among the Sinhalese people is sinking fast. Given the fact that she has already antagonised the UNP, the President cannot even pretend that she could win approval at a nationwide referendum for her Draft Provisions. Therefore AGOTIC is of the view that President Kumaragunga has consciously and effectively terminated the "peace process". She now has ONLY a military option and nothing else to resolve ethnic conflicts. At this point we must reflect on the arguments advanced by the so-called "peaceniks", who are members of the conflict resolution and peace lobbies in Colombo. When the President unleashed the armed forces to capture Jaffna, the "peaceniks" supported her actions. Indeed, immediately after the "fall" of Jaffna on the 5th of December 1995, a prominent Sinhalese "peacenik", Dr Jehan Perera, in fact took pride in the NGOs' contribution and insisted that "the human rights NGOs have to be given their share of `credit' for the governmental victory in Jaffna" (The Island, 10/12/95). The "peaceniks" explained their support for the military campaign on the grounds that the weakening or outright defeat of the LTTE in the North will strengthen the President's hand against the Sinhalese extremists in the South. This, they said, will embolden her to sell her Devolution Proposals to the Sinhalese people and will therefore make peace all the more possible. In other words, the "peaceniks" made the following assertions: 1. They claimed in effect that it is necessary to maim and kill thousands of Tamil men, women and children in the North (and later in the East) and bomb and shell Tamil areas in order to satisfy Sinhalese public opinion. AGOTIC prefers not to comment here. 2. They believed that, after the LTTE was weakened or defeated, the President will voluntarily give away at the negotiating table all or most of what she won on the battlefield. This is pure and simple self-serving political fiction. AGOTIC can only conclude that the "peaceniks" must possess a grossly warped and abysmally neanderthal logic. That is not all. This neanderthal logic appears to have convinced the North-American and West-European donors who support the activities of the "peaceniks". The policy-makers in the Indian Government and the Indian press have also been convinced: The Hindu (27/3/96) lauded President Kumaratunga as "a pathbreaking peacemaker". However, AGOTIC believes in giving credit where credit is due. President Kumaratunga has skillfully manipulated New Delhi by announcing the August 1995 Devolution Proposals. Her evident intention was to induce New Delhi to rein in Tamil Nadu and to give her a free hand in pursuing the assault on Jaffna. In return she offered New Delhi the Proposals, which New Delhi naively assumed will be implemented after the "fall" of Jaffna so as to stabilise India's southern border. New Delhi kept its side of the bargain. But President Kumaratunga published a diluted version of the Proposals as the Draft Provisions, which even the legendarily servile Tamil politicians in Colombo are embarassed to support. Then again, all is fair in love and war. Dr K Velauthapillai (President) Published in The Sunday Leader, 19 May 1996. |
