History of the conflict and what this country could have been
K. Godage
Other countries have made vast strides in development
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The question has often been asked as to where Sri Lanka would have
been or looked like had we settled our so-called ethnic problem years
ago. Let us examine the first effort: it took the form of a Pact between
Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike and the chief of the Federal Party, SJV
Chelvanayagam and was referred to as the B-C Pact. It was signed on July
26, 1957.
At the commencement of negotiations the PM informed the Federal Party
that he was not in a position to discuss a federal constitution or
regional autonomy or any step that would abrogate the Official Language
Act.
The Prime Minister suggested an examination of the Government's draft
Regional Councils Bill. The Federal Party reiterated its stand for
parity but in view of the position of the PM on this matter they came to
an agreement by way of an adjustment. The FP wanted recognition of Tamil
as a national language and as a language of administration in the
Northern and Eastern provinces in addition to Sinhala and English.
In terms of the Pact the Northern Province was to form one regional
area whilst the Eastern Province was to be divided into one or more
areas.
Regional Councils were to have powers over specified subjects
including agriculture, cooperatives, land and land settlement,
education, health, fisheries, housing, social services, electricity
distribution, water schemes and local road networks. The definition of
powers was to be made in the Act.
The Central Government was to provide block grants to Regional
Councils.
In April 1958 the Federal Party launched a Satyagraha campaign
against the introduction of the Sinhala letter SHRI on vehicle number
plates and this provoked the Sinhalese and an abrogation of the Pact was
demanded.
On 9th April after a huge demonstration of monks and others in front
of his residence Prime Minister Bandaranaike announced that the
Satyagraha campaign launched by the FP had made it impossible for him to
implement the terms of the Pact in the way that he had contemplated.
It would be recalled that Tamil citizens were attacked by mobs and it
took the intervention of Sir Oliver Goonetilleke, the Governor General
to restore order.
The next effort to arrive at a settlement came in 1965. Prime
Minister Dudley Senanayake and the Federal Party leader SJV
Chelvanayagam. met on the March 24, 1965 and agreed on some issues which
concerned the Tamil speaking people. Prime Minister Senanayake agreed
that action would be taken by him on the following lines to ensure a
stable Government.
1)Action will be taken early under the Tamil Language Special
Provisions Act to make provision for the Tamil language to be the
language of administration and of record in the Northern and Eastern
provinces. Senanayake also explained that it was the policy of his party
that a Tamil speaking person should be entitled to transact business
throughout the island.
2) Prime Minister Senanayake stated that it was the policy of his
party to amend the Language of the Courts Act to provide for legal
proceedings in the Northern and Eastern provinces to be conducted and
recorded in Tamil.
3) Action will be taken to establish District Councils in Ceylon
vested with powers over subjects to be mutually agreed upon by between
the two leaders. It was agreed however that the Government should have
the power under the law to give directions to such Councils in the
national interest.
It should also be recorded that Chelvanayagam had stated that as the
Sinhalese people were opposed to devolution to Regional Councils, the
District could be the unit of devolution.
4) The Land Development Ordinance will be amended to provide that
citizens of Ceylon be entitled to the allotment of land under the
Ordinance.
Prime Minister Senanayake also agreed that in granting land under
colonization schemes the following priorities would be observed in the
Northern and Eastern Provinces.
a) land in the Northern and Eastern Provinces should in the first
instance be granted to landless peasants in the district.
b) Secondly, to Tamil speaking persons resident in the Northern and
Eastern Provinces
c) Thirdly to the citizens of Ceylon, preference being given to Tamil
residents in the rest of the island.
This agreement was rescinded even before the ink dried. It was dead
in the water on account of what had been agreed to, re the subject of
crown land.
It had been agreed to amend the Land Development Ordinance in such a
manner as would have shut out the Sinhalese from the Eastern Province.
How the PM came to agree to the wording of indent (4), which curiously
read "The Land Development Ordinance will be amended to provide that
citizens of Ceylon be entitled to the allotment of land under the
Ordinance".
The "citizens of Ceylon" meant Tamil speaking people and Tamil
speaking people only. How the PM came to agree to this is still a
mystery for he should surely have known that the Eastern Province had
been a part of the Kandyan Kingdom and that Sinhalese had for centuries
inhabited the province.
The almost 100 archaeological sites prove that the Eastern Province
was never a part of any traditional homeland which should be the
preserve of the Tamil speaking people. It does seem that PM Dudley did
not have the same knowledge of the Eastern province as did his father.
The very structure of that negotiation was flawed for the PM should
never have agreed on a one and one meeting with the Federal Party
leader, he should have been supported by a team and the demands further
negotiated.
It was indeed a lack of experience and the absence of experienced
mediators that sadly put paid to that effort. There is good reason to
believe from what has transpired subsequently that Chelvanayagam could
have been forced to compromise on his demand for an amendment to the
Land Development Ordinance.
That effort in 1965 was perhaps the closest we came to a negotiated
settlement. After 1965 there was no attempt to arrive at a negotiated
settlement till the Indian Government intervened and talks were held
between the GoSL and the LTTE in Thimpu Bhutan but that effort too
failed.
In the period after that with the Indian Government climbed on board
and 'Annexure C' was proposed and it took four years for a formula for a
settlement to emerge; that was in 1987 and that was an agreement not
with the LTTE but between the governments of India and Sri Lanka.
The 13th Amendment to the Constitution to devolve power was effected
as a basis to resolve the conflict but the LTTE rejected the solution
and also the opportunity to have the Amendment improved upon to make the
devolution meaningful and a reality.
It was only in 1990 that another effort was made during the Premadasa
Presidency but it became clear that the LTTE, which had emerged after
decimating all moderate Tamil leaders was not committed to finding a
negotiated settlement.
It indulged in a treacherous Pearl Harbour type attack on the forces
and broke the ceasefire agreement. The LTTE also murdered in cold blood
640 policemen who surrendered to them on the orders of a naive
Government on promise of safe passage by the treacherous LTTE.
Its goal was uncompromisingly Eelam. President Kumaratunga was the
next to make an effort to find a solution. She unfortunately went into
it without drawing on our previous experiences with the LTTE and also in
an unstructured manner, sending friends who were absolute novices to
negotiate with the LTTE; she quite naturally floundered badly.
But to her credit it should be said that she sought to amend the
Constitution to reach out to the Tamil people and to address their
grievances in 1995 and 1997 but no consensus could be reached in the
South and those two attempts also floundered.
She next took the issue to Parliament and the two principal Southern
political parties met over 40 times and formulated amendments to the
Constitution to address the problem.
This was in the year 2000 and in that year President Kumaratunga was
re-elected for a further five years as President. She had sought to tag
along a provisional clause to the agreed amendments to the constitution
to stay in office till her second term expired.
The UNP did not agree and torpedoed the whole effort. This was an
irresponsible act and in hindsight this is affirmed. Her next effort
took the form of a Parliamentary Committee headed by that amiable and
honourable politician of the old school, the gentleman Mangala
Moonesinghe.
That report too could not be made the basis of legislation. The next
effort at direct talks with the LTTE came about in 2002 with the Ranil
Wickremasinghe administration. This was the only structured attempt at
negotiations on the part of the Government of Sri Lanka.
It was indeed a whole new approach. The Government entered into a CFA
which was unfortunately flawed because the so-called 'honest broker' was
not wholly honest but partial to the LTTE. A Government 'Peace
Secretariat' was established to support the talks, the government put
together a peace support group comprising of the US, the EU and Japan,
with India supporting the process from 'behind'.
The Government agreed to a monitoring mechanism of the CFA, held six
rounds of Talks with the LTTE, was able to get the LTTE to commit
themselves to exploring a federal solution within a united Sri Lanka.
The core support group backed the process by holding a pledging
conference in Japan where a sum of 4.5 billion US Dollars was pledged
for post conflict reconstruction.
The LTTE which had been virtually dragged into the process by Norway
and the international community was the reluctant party from the very
beginning.
It violated the CFA over 3,800 times, brought in arms shipments with
impunity. The LTTE also decimated a Military Intelligence Wing
assassinating 43 personnel.
It used the CFA to entrench itself in Government held territory on
the pretext of doing 'political work'. It took over territory (Manirasakulam
and subsequently the Mavil Aru Anicut and cut off water to thousand of
acres paddy land).
It reneged on its agreement to establish a committee to study
de-escalation and to reduce the High Security Zones. It reneged on its
agreement to form a committee headed by Prof. GL Peiris and the late
Balasingham to address the core issues and finally pulled out of the Sub
Committee established with an LTTE nominee as Chair, for reconstruction
and rehabilitation in the war ravaged areas of the North and East, after
US Dollars 70 million had been pledged by the international community
for this effort.
The above stated facts should be more than adequate to prove that the
LTTE has never been interested in a negotiated settlement; what has been
particularly unfortunate in this context is that the EU and other
members of the peace support group have been parroting their call for a
negotiated settlement despite the fact that all the evidence points to
the fact that the LTTE is NOT interested in any negotiated settlement
but only in the establishment of a separate state by the force of arms
and by resorting to naked terrorism.
This provokes me to indulge in an exercise to see what Sri Lanka may
have been had Governments in Colombo resolved this problem many years
ago before the advent of Prabhakaran and his LTTE or what Sri Lanka
could yet look like in 2020. |