A GIFT?
As per the news reports, we hear that
members of a TNA (Tamil National Alliance) delegation told some
visiting Indian MPs that they want an extra-constitutional
mechanism that is an interim administration for the north and
the east -- which is of course an obvious way of saying that
they want a separate state, and the creation of a stepping stone
for that.
This has prompted various responses, including a rather
god-fatherly one that states that this position is a gift that
is given to the Sri Lankan President because it is a rejection
of the 13th Amendment.
Rational people would have to say that this is not a
rejection of the 13th Amendment, it is a rejection of all sanity
and good sense. That brings us to the crux of the problem which
is that the 13th Amendment is so hard to implement for the
simple reason that the regime is dealing with a bunch of
irrational people that are fixated on extra constitutional
methods that quite clearly reject the existential reality of the
Sri Lankan unitary state.
These TNA MPs are people who have been known LTTE quislings.
They deal in the currency of hate speech and palpable untruth,
bandying about words such as genocide at the drop of a hat. How
could any responsible regime risk the 13th Amendment with a
political entity led by people such as these?
Of course the reader would have to prepare for the invariably
unreasoned arguments stemming from that blunt question. The 13th
Amendment, the armchair political pundits would say, is the
compromise solution - the little something that can be given
compared to the entire farm that the loud and trenchant TNA
leadership wants.
This is akin to saying that if the fox is invited to the
outside perimeter of the chicken coop, the animal will stop
salivating about the chickens inside, and will moreover be so
good as to leave this feathered kind alone. The fact remains
that the continually unreasoned Tamil Tiger like attitude of the
TNA leadership has virtually foreclosed any options of a
responsible effort on the part of the government to work towards
the full implementation of the 13th Amendment -- plus or minus.
It is eventually the decision of the elected government of
the people to implement or abrogate the 13th Amendment, and that
will be a political decision that will not be informed by
anything that's written in these spaces. But, the regime's
options - predicament if you will - can be empathized with.
Here we are, gradually coming out of a disastrous thirty year
old conflict, after which, the nation before all other
considerations, is beholden to the literally thousands of
soldiers who perished in the war effort - and the people who
with unstinted faith backed these soldiers to see the bitter
armed campaign to a finish. The pundits are telling all these
people in effect to forget these sacrifices, and let the fox
into the perimeter of the chicken coop, with a protective fence
that's gossamer thin, offering a delectable view of the
chickens?
"I don't think so," would be how the answer to that would
have been written into a made for TV comedy script. One look at
Suresh Premachandran of the TNA who told the visiting Indian
delegation that he would like an extra-constitutional interim
arrangement would make enough people realize that the quantity
they are dealing with is not versed in the art of rational and
reasoned compromise.
A responsible political process cannot be initiated when the
regime has to deal with persons that have not remotely proved
their bona fides. People, and not only processes count. Could
Mandela have worked with P. W. Botha rather than with de Klerk?
In short it is unlikely that the people of a country would
readily countenance handing on a platter, what was protected by
one of the costliest wars in human terms. Premachandrans may
want to dream on about their Eelam without firing a shot - but a
dream it will remain. |