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13th Amendment and non-TNA Tamil concerns
From the sidelines
With the prospect of a Northern Provincial Council (NPC) election in September gaining ground, the debate on the 13th Amendmentseems to grow increasingly fraught, both at the intellectual level and in the political arena.
While the public is familiar with the nature of the opposition from the Sinhala hardliners within the ruling coalition, there are other arguments against the 13th Amendment that are less well known.It becomes apparent that opinions for and against do not necessarily converge along communal lines.
Different views have been expressed. Some are calling for outright rejection of the Provincial Council system and others show tentative readiness for the NPC election on condition that land and police powers are removed from the Council while still others want these powers withheld for the time being. The call for a referendum on the 13th Amendment is also gathering strength.
It should be a matter of concern to the UPFA coalition that Tamils who support the Government have expressed reservations about the 13th Amendment or aspects of it, in the wake of statements about the election from authoritative government sources. The most recent of these was by cabinet spokesman Anura Priyadarshana Yapa who told reporters at the weekly cabinet press briefing that the NPC election would be held in September under the 13thAmendment as it now stands (meaning, there will be no constitutional amendments to remove police and land powers).
Jaffna district MP Douglas Devananda whose Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) is a vital UPFA ally, has said in an interview with the ‘Daily Mirror’ that while he supports the setting up of the Northern Provincial Council (“It is my dream”), the devolution of land and police powers”can be held back for the time being until better understanding is created among the communities over the matter.”People in the South will be suspicious if these powers are given, while people in the North will be suspicious if they are not, he observed.
Arun Tambimuttu, SLFP organiser for the Batticaloa district said that provincial councils had failed to address the national question. Tamils for Sri Lanka’, a group formed by Tambimuttu, ‘calls for a referendum on the 13th Amendment. He told the ‘Daily News’in an interview that the problems of large numbers of Tamils living outside the Northern Province had been neglected.
“Today, more than 400,000 Tamils are living in the Nuwara Eliya district while 100,000 people live in Ratnapura. Kandy district has a Tamil population of over 150,000. Over 95,000 Tamil people live in the Badulla district. Matale and Puttlam districts have a Tamil population of over 50,000 each,” he said.
Tambimuttu believes that a Sri Lankan national identity should prevail over ethnic identity, and that the province as a unit of devolution undermines that project.
Vinayagamurthy Muralitharan (‘Karuna Amman’)also from Batticaloa,is SLFP Vice President, Deputy Minister of Resettlement and a National List MP.Though he has not commented on the NPC election recently, he has from time to time made statements indicating that land and police powers are not a priority.In an interview with ‘The Nation’ last year he questioned the necessity for these powers for provinces, arguing that Tamils and Muslims are free to join the police force. The TNA’s demands should not be considered to be the demands of the Tamil people,he said.
What all three of these politicians have in common, apart from the fact that they are all Tamil, is that they are all diehard opponents of the LTTE. Devananda, a former militant himself, has survived some 10 assassination attempts by the Tigers. The parents of Tambimuttu, whose father was a TULF parliamentarian, were both gunned down by the LTTE. Muralitharan became the LTTE’s arch rival when he broke away to form the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP), and then joined the government.
Reading between the lines of the sentiments expressed by the Government’s Tamil representatives and allies,it is possible to discern an uneasiness over the prospect of a TNA-dominated Northern Provincial Council which is likely to emerge from the election. The home base of both Tambimuttu and Muralitharan is in the East. The TNA has a number of Opposition seats in the Eastern Provincial Council, while the UPFA members are mostly Muslims and Sinhalese. So here again the non-TNA Tamils are ‘under-represented.’
An outcome of the Northern election is likely to be that the TNA, the one-time proxy of the LTTE and a political formation that is yet to categorically renounce the LTTE’s separatist-terrorist project, will consolidate a territorial power base in the North. It should be understandable if non-TNA Tamils within the Government,who uphold the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of the state,are worried about a tilt in the balance of power in the Tamil polity likely to result from the Northern election.There should be some attempt to address their concerns if the election is to advance the objectives of reconciliation.
Some would argue that there should be no cause for complaint because an election’s result must be respected by all contesting parties regardless of whether they win or lose. That’s the nature of electoral politics. But the fact remains that the rationale for introducing the 13th Amendment in the first place, and for devolution of power to the provinces, was to provide a political solution to Tamil grievances. So the possibility that divisions may be exacerbated is of concern.
One way in which these tensions could be reduced is if the TNA categorically renounces the LTTE and its separatist project — now sustained mainly overseas by the Tamil Diaspora. Such a move could help remove suspicions among non-TNA Tamil politicians as well as among non-Tamils generally.
In contrast with the ‘maximalist’ policy of the TNA, Devananda’s approach to the issues presented by the 13th Amendment seems eminently pragmatic:
” ….. We can start with the meaningful implementation of the Constitution. I am not asking for the sun and the moon. What I ask for is a practical step. ………. If you demand the pound of flesh at once, you will not get it at once. You should not be adamant in your demand. You get whatever possible initially. That is practical with daily life as well.”
It could be argued that the mainstream political parties, the SLFP and the UNP, are partly to blame for this polarisation between TNA and anti-TNA political formations that have come about, because they have allowed their Tamil vote bases to erode over time. This is because they have repeatedly adopted a policy of ‘outsourcing’ to allied communal parties the task of attracting minority votes.
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