Respond to President's unity call

THE Mahinda Chinthana promised to take Sri Lanka to a new era of consensual governance and unity. Today, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has taken some bold initial steps to take Sri Lanka along this never-traversed path in national development.

As pointed out by the President at the 'Deyata Kirula' celebrations in Weerawila on Sunday, the JVP, JHU and the UNP and other parties have joined hands with the Government on taking Sri Lanka into this brave, new future.

In other words, as the President said, we are seeing an end to confrontational politics - a factor which brought us decline and ruin over the years. Confrontational politics and opportunistic politics are two sides of the same coin in the Lankan context.

How the two major parties of Sri Lanka - the SLFP and the UNP - have been striving to outdo each other with power considerations on their minds, particularly in relation to efforts to end our conflict, is now familiar terrain.

In this sphere it is political opportunism which has been ruling the roost, with one party disposing what the other party has been proposing. Every well meaning effort at resolving the North-East conflict has proved futile on account of this species of cut-throatism between our major political parties.

As a result, the conflict has remained unresolved and the country has hardly made any progress towards national development.

However, the Mahinda Chinthana envisages consensual governance as an important step towards national unity and progress.

This is the reason why President Mahinda Rajapaksa has reflected profound patience in forging unity and consensuality among all the political parties of the South in his efforts to take the country forward.

Unity is strength. This is the President's guiding vision. It is this vision that underlines the current all party exercise aimed at resolving the conflict by political means.

This is a meeting of minds among parties and sooner rather than later, hopefully, we would be having the long sought - after.

Southern consensus on the National Question, now that the UNP too has joined the APC process. This is a prized result of consensual governance and Mahinda Chinthana has made it possible.

Such exertions are in tune with President Rajapaksa's perspective that the legitimate grievances of the Tamil people must be met. Indeed, their rights must be granted and they need to be differentiated from the LTTE, which is today spurning the President's hand of unity.

As pointed out by the President, the LTTE and the Tamil people could not be tarred with the same brush. While the LTTE needs to be militarily contained, as long as it insists on taking Sri Lanka along the path of destruction, the Tamil people per se need to be empowered and integrated more and more closely into the Lankan polity.

This would happen to the degree to which legitimate Tamil aspirations are met through a consensually-evolved political solution.

As for the LTTE, they are perfectly entitled to join the political process as long as they renounce their armed rebellion along with the absurd Eelam demand. As long as they do not do this, the State is obliged to deal with them militarily.

The President underscored this position when he said that he loved Sri Lanka and that he would "never bow down before any terrorist, invader or power bent on dividing the country."

Thus has the President re-iterated his policy position on most crucial issues facing Sri Lanka, in the plainest terms. It is now left for the rest of the Lankan polity to forge ahead as one man towards achieving the goals of national unity, peace and economic development.

Sri Lanka could, with these developments, be seen as being at an important cross-roads in its post-independence history.

We need to choose between the destructive brand of politics the major parties have been practising thus far, or confrontational politics and constructive politics which would ensure national progress.

What is desired is not an end to politics per se, which is essentially a good thing, but the shunning of confrontational politics which has stood in the way of national development. Hopefully, the major political forces would face this crucial challenge as one man.

We call on all political forces which are yet to join in the President's informal united front to achieve national development, to do so without further delay.

This applies in particular to the TNA, which is now faced with a golden opportunity to help in achieving a just solution, if it is really serious about it.

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