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| Tuesday, 12 October 2004 |
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Politics | |
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| National consensus vital to resolve ethnic problem - Minister by P. Krishnaswamy Under the present historically crucial period, all political parties and communities should unitedly strengthen the hands of the UPFA government so that a national consensus on resolving the ethnic problem could be achieved, Minister of Constitutional Affairs and National Integration, D. E. W. Gunasekera said yesterday. He was speaking as chief guest at the inauguration of Dr. N. M. Perera Memorial lecture series held at the Mahaweli Centre. The Minister said that his Ministry has launched a campaign to get the people's mandate for constitutional reform and lasting peace. Late leftist leader Dr. N. M. Perera had correctly prophesised on several imminent adverse outcomes of the 1978 Constitution and, therefore, the book '1978 Constitution as seen by N. M.' will also be part of the campaign, the Minister said. Refuting senior lecturer M. T. Thamil Maran of the Colombo Campus who spoke earlier, Minister Gunasekera said that as far back as 1936, much before the Federal Party came to the political scene, Dr. N. M. Perera and Philip Gunawardena passed a motion in the State Assembly seeking official language status to both Tamil and Sinhala and it was untrue to say that the leftist movements had forsaken the cause of the Tamils. It was the second generation of the Tamil political parties that aligned with the leftist parties, he said. The Minister recalled that he translated into Sinhalese speeches of Tamil leaders Amirthalingam and Dharmalingam at Kalawana in 1981. Consultant to the Ministry of Constitutional Affairs and National Integration Dr. Jayampathy Wickremaratne, PC said that the notion 'if the language problem was resolved in 1955, the current situation would not have come about' is not correct. The problem may not have aggravated to the current level but would have emerged in a milder form because it is a struggle for political power based on ethnicity which is a common phenomenon throughout the country, Wickramaratne said. A similar situation is now emerging in the Eastern province and the central hill country plantation areas, he said. In the 50s the leftist movements took a strong position on the language issue. N. M. said that 'there should be parity of status to both the Tamil and the Sinhalese wherever they may live'. There is pressure on the government from all sides to resume the peace process. But the question is that resumption of talks on the LTTE's interim solution proposal should be part of the broad-based final solution, he said. Although Thamil Maran who spoke earlier said that the Federal Party and the Tamil Congress supported the leftist movements, the fact remains that they opposed progressive legislations including the paddy lands act, taking over the schools, nationalising petroleum installations and removing foreign military bases. They were not progressive political parties but they were reactionaries at times, he said. Senior Lecturer of the Faculty of Law of the Colombo campus Thamil Maran said that the first legislation enacted in 1946 deprived the working class Tamils of the hill country of their franchise rights. It was a good opportunity for the leftist political parties to have unitedly opposed it. There were several other opportunities for the leftist parties to unite with the Federal Party. After 1972, the minorities were forced to lose confidence in the leftist parties, he said. Prof. Ranjith Amarasinghe, of the Peradeniya Campus, and Damma Dissanayake, lecturer on political science at the Colombo campus also spoke. |
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