SOVEREIGN RIGHTS AND ALL THAT

The new UNP constitution for the country did not have any takers, not even among the dyed-in-wool and emulsioned UNP types, but then this seems to be precisely the reason party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe has to go about touting the document. Now, he is on papyrus screed mode, trying to etch in hieroglyphics -- and in the most syrupy lyrical terms -- the virtues of the new green constitutional document.

Wickremesinghe has written to a national weekly last week, what may be called in objective terms an apology for his new constitutional proposals, after he found them being lambasted in familiar quarters.

The introduction -- or rather the rationale for -- his narrative is that it is the UNP which won the sovereign rights on behalf of the people, by engaging the colonial rulers and suing for independence. It is therefore the UNP and his predecessor leadership in the party that secured the people's sovereignty, and as a result, it is as the current UNP leader, his moral obligation to foster those sovereign rights of the people.

Who may disagree? After all, they will remind themselves that it is Ranil Wickremesinghe that did so much for the sovereign rights of the people during his tenure as the Premier by getting his Ministers to speak on national television to offer apologies on behalf of the LTTE for liquidating scores of our valuable intelligence operatives that served the country during the war. His Ministers said 'Well, they worked for us, they were killed, so what?'

Then, Ranil Wickremesinghe did much to 'secure the sovereign rights of the people' by signing a ceasefire agreement with the portly Mr. Velupillai Prabhakaran. Mr Velupillai signed the document with glee, and Ranil Wickremesinghe is said to have hardly looked at it as it was vouchsafed for by the Norwegians.

Ranil Wickremesinghe also ensured the sovereign rights of the people by ensuring the raiding of a deep penetration unit facility in Athurugiriya and rendering that extremely powerful and potent stealth operation immobile. The unit had been so successful that they were said to have been on the verge of eliminating Wickremesinghe's ceasefire co-signatory!

Who could of course forget Mr. Wickremesinghe's now celebrated attempt at protecting the sovereignty of the people by allowing the importation of powerful transmission equipment to be used by the Tamil Tigers, ignoring regular customs channels and all regulation inspections. This was done of course through the agency of the Norwegians whose interest in Sri Lankan sovereignty is almost the stuff of legend!

With this record of working in the interests of a sovereign uncompromised Sri Lanka, Ranil Wickremesinghe's further incursion into the area of protecting sovereign rights through the new constitutional document is positively touching!

On top of all this, Mr. Wickremesinghe has also been clamouring recently for the return of the 17th Amendment to the constitution while staying mum about the amendments that are being proposed to the 13th. Wickremesinghe after all was a strongman of sorts in the governing UNP that made the 13th Amendment the law of the country, and he should know with what respect to the cause of the 'sovereignty of the nation', that piece of legislation was introduced.

But yet at this moment, he is more vocal about the 17th Amendment than the 13th Amendment or its repeal in parts, and that must be in the interests of the sovereignty of the Sri Lankan people, perchance?!

Small wonder then that his lofty allusions to sovereignty aside, there is more than a healthy dose of skepticism to put it mildly as far as Mr. Wickremesinghe's new constitution is concerned. It would be much better however that he helps with regard to the new amendments proposed in Cabinet to the constitution (13-A), and as far as these are concerned he can make a genuine move in support of the proposed changes that will change people's perceptions about Mr. Wickremesinghe's fealty to the idea of the sovereign rights of the Sri Lankan people.