Political Column

For most Sri Lankan parliamentarians, both in the Government and in the Opposition, it is migratory season. With the bickering over a lengthy budget debate now over, they have spread out to various parts of the world on holiday. If voters in their electorates miss them, most happy are their security details. The occasion has come as good reason for them to obtain much needed leave. Thus, it is holiday season for them too.

However, in the dovecotes of power it is business as usual. Having won the budget debate with a resounding majority eventually, President Mahinda Rajapaksa was actively considering the prorogation of Parliament. Government sources dismissed accusations that the moves were intended multi pronged. One was to oust new political opponents like Wijedasa Rajapaksha (COPE Chairman) and Rauff Hakeen (Chairman, Public Accounts Committee) and replace them with Government nominees. Another was to allow two Parliamentary Select Committees, one to probe allegations of state fund transfers to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the other to go into the procurement of MiG-27 fighter jets from Ukraine, to lapse.

They insist that the prorogation was to make way for President Rajapaksa to make a fresh policy statement of his Government immediately after the ceremonial opening. Originally, plans were afoot to prorogue days ahead of the Christmas holidays. However, the idea has been dropped in the light of a more important factor - the extension of the State of Emergency. That will take place during sittings that will resume on January 8 next year. Immediately thereafter is the prorogation though it will be of a short duration. In this backdrop, speculation is rife that a Cabinet re-shuffle is on the cards. It sure will see new faces in old posts, and old faces in new posts.

Now that his Government has won a fresh lease of life with the abstention of the JVP during the final vote on the budget, Rajapaksa's focus of his policy statement, now taking shape, centres on the northern insurgency. He is to elaborate on his previously declared twin track approach of combating terrorism on the one hand and finding a solution to the 'ethnic issue' on the other. He has already made known to many a Colombo-based head of diplomatic mission that the All-Party Representative Conference (APRC) would come up with a new set of proposals within the next two months.

The head of a constituent partner of his Government spelt out a glimpse of what Rajapaksa envisions through the all-party mechanism. Cabinet minister Douglas Devananda, leader of the Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP) told the Foreign Correspondents Association (FCA) on Friday night that giving effect to and broadening provisions of the 13th amendment to the Constitution was to form the final political solution. An Interim Council for the North and East would be the apex body to which the Government proposed to vest full powers. It is not yet decided whether there should be one or two, one for the North and one for the East or whether it would be amalgamated, he said. Devananda said both the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP) were in favour of the proposal.

However, APRC chairman and minister Tissa Vitharane quickly dismissed Devananda's position saying that it was not an acceptable power sharing arrangement. The EPDP leader opined that the LTTE cannot stay away from accepting a political settlement. During local elections in the Wanni, this was the reasons why they fielded candidates though they were disqualified on technical grounds. That gave a few seats to the EPDP, and their members were elected unopposed.

If indeed there is an official pronouncement on these lines, it will no doubt cause more than just ripples. Barring some exceptions like the Government leaders, the JVP, the MEP and few others, there is a large section, especially in the International Community (IC) that has repeatedly opined that the provisions of the 13th amendment to the Constitution are too little too late. Some even say it is just as good as resurrecting the decades old proposal to establish District Development Councils, something the President himself had re-visited recently, but for some unknown reason not proceeded with. Moreover, they argue that even segments of the Tamil community who are staunch backers of the Government would find it difficult to support the move or argue in its favour.

However, that has not deterred Government leaders from laying the groundwork to set the stage for the new proposals. Though unusual, one such arm is the coterie of retired armed forces commanders. With backdated promotions making all of them four-star Generals or their equivalents from President Rajapaksa in their pockets, they are spearheading a campaign for what they call national unity. They want the support of all sections of the political firmament including civil society to support Government's measures to "eradicate terrorism" and "usher in a political settlement."

"If political parties do not see eye to eye, this will not happen," the former leader of the delegation of ex-Commanders, now Air Chief Marshall Pathman (Paddy) Mendis told Opposition and United National Party (UNP) leader Ranil Wickremesinghe. The team met him at the Opposition Leader's office at Cambridge Terrace this week.

To his credit, Wickremasinghe was both lucid and articulate in his arguments. In a lengthy discourse to the former Commanders, some of whom have fought the ongoing separatist war whilst others went out of office even before it had begun, Wickremesinghe first spelt out the history of this issue. Notable enough, what these military men tried to achieve then with their arms and ammunition failed. Now, they were seeking a new path of forging consensus, important enough, for the Government.

Wickremesinghe said long before the Commanders thought it necessary, he had fully appreciated the need for political parties to see eye to eye on the ethnic issue. Despite opposition from sections within his own party, he had extended his hand of co-operation to President Rajapaksa. Despite that, the President ended up welcoming some UNP dissidents for political gain. Now when he and his party were advocating a political settlement, they were all being branded as traitors, he told the ex-Commanders.

Striking a rather unusual note over Wickremesinghe's remarks was a former Commander of the Army, General Lionel Balagalle. He praised him for signing the Ceasefire Agreement of February 2002 and said Wickremesinghe had an important role even now. There was a mild diversion when Kotte parliamentarian, Ravi Karunanayake, a self proclaimed champion of democracy and media rights, told the former Commanders they should not speak about the discussion to any media.

"What we discuss here should remain within these four walls," he said referring to the conference room where the meeting took place. Wickremesinghe was unperturbed. So were the other MPs who took part in the discussion, like Sagala Ratnayake, Lakshman Kiriella, Lakshman Seneviratne, Kabir Hashim and UNP Chairman Rukman Senanayake.

The former Commanders thereafter had meetings with leaders of the JVP. They were very much in accord over the current approach of the Government towards the LTTE. In fact, the JVP expects the Government to abrogate the Ceasefire Agreement and fight terrorism. In an interview published on page 16 today, JVP leader Somawansa Amerasinghe said, "There is no ceasefire now. The Government is politicising the war. They wanted to use this to get the budget passed. We demand that the Government should abrogate the CFA. It has violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country. The Security Forces have liberated the East. Yet the CFA declares there are LTTE-controlled areas there. The military gains are meaningless in that situation."

Amerasinghe is also not happy with President Rajapaksa's remarks that he would ban the LTTE if they carry out further attacks. "At the moment, the LTTE is attacking. If he thinks he must ban because they attack, there is no sense in that. It is absurd. We cannot understand his delay in banning the LTTE" he said.

Meanwhile, Wickremesinghe's UNP is preparing for a direct action agitation campaign beginning next year. The JVP's about-turn last Friday over the Budget vote has taught them a bitter lesson in relying on the Reds to pull the chest-nuts out of their fire. The JVP's running with the hare and hunting with the hound policy has earned them some stick from a public that has started questioning their bona fides as a credible party. The fact that they said one thing but did another during the budget vote did them service at the end of the day, and a fair section of the voting public dismissed their stance as one of self-preservation.

Last Sunday, the UNP held its convention in Gampaha, a UNP cum Bandaranaike stronghold. There the party decided to endorse their decision taken at the Kandy convention, that direct action was the need of the hour.

Wickremesinghe in the meantime has come up with some Constitutional amendments, which he intends to put to others for discussion, but political analysts question whether the issues he keeps raising are irrelevant to the burning issues of the day, or are disjointed, or both. They point out that campaigns against a Buddhist monk-MP's Mercedes Benz or the foreign bank loan, issues as they are, were given priority over the year when more campaigns that have a greater bearing on the lives of the masses, and issues that the masses can relate to were relegated to the back-burner.

A parliamentary coup seems now forlorn, and a parliamentary election unlikely given the fact that individuals like the 17 UNP dissidents who crossed over and parties like the Ceylon Workers Congress have no qualms of entering Parliament on UNP votes, and sitting in Government benches.

But whether the UNP has what it takes for direct action, despite all the rhetoric is what needs to be seen. On the other hand, the JVP will undoubtedly breathe fire and brimstone in the coming year at least to redeem themselves in the public eye. The Rajapaksa administration seems to take all this in its stride. They are mastering the art of survival.

Prorogation coming next month