Declaring peace: some considerations

by Rajiva Wijesinha

The recent spiralling of LTTE violence and murder suggests that, despite Prabhakaran's pronouncements on Hero's Day, they want a resumption of hostilities.

At its simplest, they may think that such provocation would cause someone in what might be termed the governing coalition to press for war. Had anyone associated with the President made some such suggestion, one can imagine the exaggerated response of the international media, which has so conclusively characterized Mahinda as a hardliner.

Even more insidiously, the LTTE may have imagined that killing soldiers would lead to elements in the armed forces reacting violently. After all the great myth of the separatist cause, launched by JR in his infamous speech of July 28, 1983, is that Sinhalese react violently, with attacks on civilians, to any act of hostility.

Fortunately, as national responses since 1983 to more and more brutal acts of terrorism have made clear, the Sinhalese as a race, are not so nasty, nor so silly. Certainly the military establishment, in stating that they would not allow themselves to be provoked into hostilities, made clear that that sort of strategy was no longer easily available to the LTTE.

However since, as the LTTE have proved so often, they only need to be lucky once, it is necessary also for the Government to rethink its short term strategy. The murder of Joseph Pararajasingham, for instance, could be the start to a concerted LTTE campaign to up the stakes.

In such a context, simply responding - or not responding - to LTTE initiatives will not take us forward. Rather, it seems to me that the Government must also engage in initiatives that will demand responses from the LTTE.

What form should such initiatives take? I believe they should focus on a weak point in the current LTTE strategy that has not been sufficiently highlighted. Most people are simply not aware that the LTTE walked away from the peace process early in 2003, well before Chandrika reasserted herself. But it is her actions, culminating in the election of 2004, that are alleged, and often believed, to have caused the breakdown of the talks.

Yet what really happened is that the LTTE withdrew, citing two reasons in a very well argued letter of Anton Balasingham's. He claimed the then government was not seriously addressing the question of structural reforms, and that, despite much aid being available, nothing was done for rehabilitation of the people of the North and East who had suffered during the war.

On this second issue, I have often argued that he was right. The idiocy of appointing Bradman Weerakoon to be in charge of reconstruction was followed by the SIRHAN comedy.

Initially I thought this indicated that Ranil was sillier than I had thought, when I voted for him at the end of 2001. Later, when I realized how his proposed ISGA played straight into Tiger hands, conceding domination of all units in the North and East to the LTTE, I began to think he was actually very cunning, and that the whole business was based on a strategy of giving the LTTE everything they wanted, at any rate until they had elected him President.

Chandrika however intervened at that stage, and the rest is history. But it would still be instructive to look at what Ranil left out, since that may be the key to initiating reforms that even the LTTE would find it difficult to oppose.

Most importantly, what he ignored completely, essential for unity whether you have a federal state or a unitary state, or anything else, is ensuring that the periphery and the minorities are adequately represented in the central government. The central government will necessarily be majoritarian without that, which increases resentment at the periphery, and allows for the evocation of international sympathy.

One way of strengthening the role of the periphery at the Centre is with weighted appointments to high office, ceremonial or otherwise. That lay at the heart of the suggestion, in the proposed 2000 constitution, of a couple of Vice-Presidencies for minorities. But that smacked of artificiality, whereas what we need is a post that has stature, even though the actual power it wields may be minimal.

That perception, I believe, lay at the heart of the risk the LTTE ran in assassinating Lakshman Kadirgamar. Even though there was widespread condemnation at the time (except in the drawing rooms of Colombo which try to hold the JHU or the STF responsible), it was soon forgotten. In any case it has had minimal impact as compared with altered international perceptions had Mr Kadirgamar been our Prime Minister today.

I believe therefore that it would have been immeasurably in the national interest had Mahinda looked for a suitable figure amongst the minorities to be Prime Minister.

However, given that this is not encouraged by the Constitution, it is understandable that the idea did not occur. But I would suggest that even now the government think of developing a consensus around a constitutional amendment to the effect that the President shall appoint as Prime Minister a person of a race and / or religious persuasion different from his own who will command the confidence of the house.

I believe this would not be opposed by any serious political party, since under this Constitution we have not really had as Prime Minister any politician with considerable national following such as to aspire to the Presidency in time. Apart from at the end of Chandrika's Presidency, the only real exception to this was Premadasa, who got the post when the constitution was not properly understood.

And Ranil's being catapulted to the post, when his national stature was limited, has proved my point in that he has thus far failed to build up such stature.

Of course, given the disaster of D B Wijetunge's ascendancy to the Presidency, there must be stronger safeguards about the succession, if a sudden vacancy arose. I do not mean by this that an incumbent Prime Minister should be debarred from becoming President, but it should be by virtue of a national election, as in France if there is a sudden vacancy. Certainly it would be unwise for anyone acting in the post to be eligible to be elected to it by a limited electorate which is politically malleable.

The French model indeed gives us other initiatives that President Rajapakse might consider if he is to throw the ball into the Tiger court, demanding reactions from them, instead of waiting passively while they attack and lay their traps at will.

Another provision, which we can see in most countries in the world that have stable democratic systems, is the creation of a second chamber of parliament.

Such second chambers have a different composition from that of the first chamber. In most cases they are based on regions, in many in a manner that gives extra weight to areas that, on a majoritarian system, would seem peripheral. Thus the American and the Australian Senate grant equal representation to all states, the German and the Indian are composed on the basis of the different state legislatures. The exception to this general rule is the second chamber of the United Kingdom, the House of Lords.

Though now adjusted, that chamber was a bastion of hereditary privilege at the time that our more influential theoreticians developed their political convictions. Added to that was the fact that the Sri Lankan Senate of the Soulbury Independence Constitution was probably the silliest Senate that ever existed. Half of it was selected by Parliament, which meant it reflected the composition of Parliament.

The other half was in effect nominated by the Prime Minister, which meant it strengthened his position, instead of being the most important of the checks and balances which limited the power of his office.

The result was that the idea of a second chamber is excoriated in most textbooks.in common use in this country. Students criticize it on the basis of notes dictated to them in Advanced Level classes. Unfortunately few students, and fewer legislators, have looked at any Senate apart from the Sri Lankan one that was so ignominiously abolished even before the 1972 Constitution was introduced. And so the myth that a second chamber is undemocratic persists. Yet all experience shows that a second chamber that is not a rubber stamp of the first has a vital role to play on behalf of the people at large with regard even to the very basic business of scrutinizing legislation.

It also, as is seen in the influence wielded by the American Senate, monitors appointments by the executive leadership to judicial and quasi-judicial and even prominent executive positions. This is something we need to think about regulating more carefully, now that the Constitutional Council set up by the 19th amendment has proved so chaotic, both in its composition and in its recommendations.

And most importantly, it raises the profile of the provinces at the Centre. A small chamber, of directly elected individuals from the different provinces, would allow for the emergence of significant representatives of all areas who could play a vital role at the Centre. The prestige of the position would be enhanced if they were instrumental in approving the nomination of judges of the Supreme Court, of Permanent Secretaries, of even the heads of the State Media institutions.

In some of these cases, a two thirds majority could be required, with the proviso that, if this were not obtained for three successive nominations, a simple majority would suffice for someone to be appointed to a limited tenure of office.

To be continued