Towards a consensual solution

Once again, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has stressed the need for a consensual solution to the national question and this is perfectly in order. As he explained to newspaper Editors yesterday, this is not his ‘personal problem’ but one that affects the whole of Sri Lanka. Accordingly, the solution should be on the basis of talks that involve the totality of the local polity.

He was also emphatic that previous Presidents held talks over the issues affecting our communities with only some selected sections and this, he said, was a fundamental limitation in such exercises. Consequently, they could not arrive at that all-important national consensus which is an essential ingredient for the durability of these solutions.

These observations are of particular importance to parties, such as the TNA, which have been fighting shy thus far of opting for the proposed Parliamentary Select Committee process which would bring together all the political actors who should figure in working out a solution. Past experience with wide ranging and widely inclusive talks of this kind may be deterring the TNA and others who share its views from joining the talks but we cannot see an alternative to fresh talks on these lines, if a consensual solution is to be found to the conflict.

It should be plain to see that the totality of our polity needs to speak with one voice on a solution, if it is to prove practicable and viable. Beginning from the late fifties of the last century, all attempts at working out solutions to the conflict proved unsuccessful because there was no countrywide agreement on the solutions on offer. Sinhala and Tamil leaders who had the perspicacity to solve the problem by political means were repeatedly prevented from doing so by what seemed to be hard line opinion among both the communities in question.

Accordingly, it is vitally important that broad agreement is reached first on a solution that is worked out on paper.

There is a lot of hard work to be done, therefore, on the issue of working out a solution. There needs to be wide ranging talks involving all sections of relevance. But this process is bound to be prolonged and somewhat painstaking, if we are to be guided by past experience, and there would need to be guarantees that the effort would be result-oriented and practicable, if it is to win the necessary support.

Besides, there may need to be guarantees that the talks would evolve within a definite time frame. If such guarantees are given by the state the possibility is great that the talks would be given a try by those who are having reservations about working out a solution to the national issue.

However, once these guarantees are given, it would be foolish and highly counter-productive for those who have been shunning the PSC process to keep away from it. If a negotiated solution has been evading us these long decades it is because all shades of opinion have not been taken into consideration in formulating a solution.

It stands to reason that all relevant parties must, therefore, sit together and have a meeting of minds on the issue if a basis is to be laid for a viable solution.

Therefore, we urge that all relevant sections come to the talks with open minds. Having preconceptions about the talks could only have the effect of undermining the negotiations.

Discussing anew with fresh and open minds is the way out. Meanwhile, it is of the utmost importance that true statesmanship and magnanimity be brought to bear on these talks.