by The Action Group of Tamils (TAGOT); Kotte, Sri Lanka, March 29, 2004
Kotte, Sri Lanka
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PRESS RELEASE
29 March 2004
AFTER THE APRIL ’04 ELECTIONS
Whilst we await the post-election scenario, it is important to be fully aware of how Sinhala politicians are exploiting the rhetoric of “peace” laced with empty slogans of “devolution”, “decentralisation”, “united”, “unitary” and so on. On many occasions, particularly in our Press Release of 18 March 2002, The Action Group of Tamils (TAGOT) emphasised that both Sinhala political parties, the United National Party (UNP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), have paid lip service to the hazy notion of “peace”. But neither party has worked among the Sinhala people to prepare them to accept the real structure – a confederal or, at the very least, a federal system of government – as the indispensable basis for a political settlement.
For more than five decades the Sinhala leadership refused to legitimise the political structure – federal or confederal – that is the only basis for a just peace. In fact, during this period both political parties did the opposite. They systematically brainwashed two generations of Sinhala people to intensely detest and irrationally fear federalism; confederalism became utter abomination.
The Sinhala Jathika Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which is grotesquely baying for Tamil blood, is the deformed visible expression of that brainwashing; it is the proverbial tip of the Sinhala chauvinist iceberg.
The UNP and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) subscribed to the December 2002 Oslo Declaration. The relevant provision of the Declaration reads as follows: “Responding to a proposal by the leadership of the LTTE, the parties agreed to explore a solution founded on the principle of internal self determination in areas of historical habitation of Tamil speaking peoples, based on a federal structure within a united Sri Lanka”.
TAGOT underlines the fact that the LTTE initiated the idea.
But the UNP followed the decades old Sinhala practice of prevarication. It put forward the July 2003 Sinhala proposal, the “Discussion Paper”, which envisaged the creation of the Provincial Administrative Council (PAC). The aim of the PAC was to decentralise authority. The UNP made no attempt to base the proposal on internal self-determination. In fact the objectives of PAC were spelt out as “the rebuilding of the war damage [sic] infrastructure and economy in the Northern and Eastern Provinces…to ensure rapid improvement in the life of the population.” In the “Discussion Paper” the UNP in effect went back on the commitment it made in Oslo. The UNP neither confirmed the acceptance of internal self-determination for Tamils nor did it reinforce the commitment to seek a federal alternative.
In contrast, the LTTE honoured its commitment in Oslo. It publicly shelved its long established aim of building a separate Tamil State. Instead in its November 2003 Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA) proposal the organisation envisaged the first step toward a framework for internal self-determination by Tamils within a united Sri Lanka.
Federalism based on internal self-determination had been the viable option up to the early 1980s. Thereafter the Tamil National Movement, led by the LTTE, built its armed forces through the 1980s and 1990s. Today there are two standing armies – the Sinhala army and the Tamil army – in Sri Lanka. Any political settlement would now have to accommodate two separate armies.
Consequently, a confederal arrangement has become the necessary structural basis for a political settlement within a united Sri Lanka. The minimum starting point for negotiations is a federal alternative.
But President Kumaratunga (from 1994 to present) and Prime Minister Wickremasinghe (from 2000 to present) have not made any effort whatsoever to re-educate the Sinhala population to accept the necessary confederal structure as the basis for a political settlement. Both claimed to seek a negotiated settlement with the LTTE. But neither Sinhala leader has endorsed a federal structure, which is the absolute minimum condition to begin constructive negotiations.
The SLFP (then part of the Peoples Alliance coalition) liberally used the terms “Centre”, “Region”, “Capital Territory” and so on in its 2000 Draft Constitution. This jugglery with words was manipulated to dishonestly project the Draft as a federal alternative. The duplicity is underlined by the fact that the Draft deliberately dodged using the term federal and it did not contain any powers whatsoever that could be even remotely federal.
The UNP is no different. It has cried hoarse about achieving “peace” since 1977 but the party never endorsed federalism, never used the word federal in any of its policy declarations.
But Kumaratunga and Wickremasinghe claim their respective parties would, if voted back into power in April, work towards a negotiated solution. Would they?
The acid test is simple. In the coming elections, is either party seeking a mandate from the Sinhala people explicitly for federalism as the minimum indispensable basis to re-commence negotiations with the LTTE?
Is either party actively preparing the Sinhala people to accept confederalism as a possible outcome of the negotiations?
If the answer to these two questions is “yes”, that is the only credible indication that for the first time in more than five decades the Sinhala leadership has shed its anti-Tamil phobia. Only then will Tamils and the LTTE take seriously the Sinhala politicians’ exhortation of “peace”.
Up to now the answer to both questions is a clear “no”. The SLFP and UNP have made no attempt whatsoever to popularise federalism among Sinhala people and to psychologically prepare the Sinhala polity to accept self-determination by Tamils. The Sinhala people are still not willing to accept a federal structure. TAGOT’s soundings on the ground confirm this conclusion.
In fact, at the outset of the current election campaign many public opinion polls indicated that the Sinhala people overwhelmingly supported the newly formed United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) a coalition essentially between the SLFP and the JVP. They did so because they believed that Sandanaya – the popular name for UPFA – would be “tougher” than the UNP when re-negotiating the Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) with the LTTE. The massive outpour of grief among Sinhala people during the December 2003 funeral of the (Sinhala) Buddhist monk Rev Soma Thero was attributed by many observers to the growing sense of insecurity among the Sinhala population. Their insecurity is the direct result of the SLFP/JVP propaganda that the LTTE’s proposal for an ISGA is the blueprint to smuggle a separate Tamil State through the treacherous Trojan horse of federalism.
It is crystal clear that “peace” campaigns for almost a decade by successive governments and NGOs in Sri Lanka have not spelt out in real terms the federal basis of peace to the Sinhala people. The UNP’s 2004 election manifesto, “The UNP Work Programme for the Nation”, is proof enough. The document again resorted to the time-tested duplicity. It dodged using the word federal. Instead it pompously declared the intention to achieve a “political settlement of the ethnic question…in accordance with the principles set out in the Oslo Declaration, the Tokyo Declaration and the statement by the Tokyo Co-Chairs” (page 3).
TAGOT must emphasise that without the commitment of the Sinhala people to a federal alternative, peace will always be a mirage. Neither the SLFP nor the UNP has made any attempt over the past five decades to prepare the Sinhala people to accept at the very minimum a federal alternative. The situation remains the same today.
In short neither party is capable of negotiating a viable political settlement with the LTTE.
TAGOT is convinced that, if the current conditions persist, whichever Sinhala party comes to power in April will revert again to a military solution to crush the Tamil National Movement.
The hopes for a negotiated settlement are now in the hands of those enlightened Sinhala individuals and organisations who agree that the introduction of a federal structure must be accepted as the minimum condition for negotiations. The task facing them is not an easy one and it is complicated by two new factors.
First, about 280 (Sinhala) Buddhist monks are candidates in the forthcoming elections under the ultra Sinhala party Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU). This means a large and aggressive section of the Buddhist clergy has formally entered the political arena. Their goal is to convert Sri Lanka into a Buddhist theocracy. It is tempting to draw comparisons with Iran where Muslim clerics have a strangle hold over the parliament. TAGOT hopes the enlightened Sinhala individuals and organisation will induce the Sinhala electorate to decisively reject the JHU.
Second, senior officers of the armed forces and the leadership of both the SLFP and the UNP are fully aware that the LTTE has and is building the institutions, infrastructure and defence capabilities that could be the basis for power-sharing within a confederal structure. The Sinhala State’s reaction would be to deploy the military to dismantle these “illegal” parallel structures – “illegal” in the eyes of the State – or to insist that they must be incorporated into the State in the name of “unity”.
Following the recent expulsion of former Col. Karuna, the State assumes the Tamil National Movement has weakened and so it is more confident now of imposing its will on the LTTE. The Sinhala military and/or political power centres no doubt find it almost irresistible to fish in troubled Batticaloa waters to exploit the Karuna factor to demoralise the LTTE. If the Sinhala leadership attempts this Machiavellian ploy it can forget about re-building trust and forging peace with the Tamil people for long time to come.
It is reasonable to assume that Tamils and the LTTE will not allow the Sinhala State to either dismantle or assimilate their institutions, infrastructure and defence capability. They were built through great sacrifices and are the repository of fledgling Tamil power that is essential to secure and defend the national rights of Tamils.
Can the enlightened Sinhala individuals and organisations convince their military and political leaderships to accept the de facto parallel structures in the NorthEast Province and to compel them to give de jure recognition to the structures within a confederal framework?
The Action Group Of Tamils (TAGOT)
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Dr S Sathananthan Ph D, Secretary