The Indian hand again

The APRC (All Party Representative Committee) like the proverbial mountain has laboured and delivered a mouse. After 63 sittings and more than one and a half year's deliberations, it has produced a set of proposals -- in just five pages -- that clearly, were prompted by the President.

Already, the proposals have been termed a "political fraud" by those who speak for the LTTE.
The fact that the APRC ran out of steam -- and ideas -- was patent. And the Government, playing ventriloquist, got the APRC to fall back on the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, when most of those in power and place today were wont to brand its local co-architect, former President J.R. Jayewardene a "traitor" for its introduction back in 1987.

Just like the former President then, it seems that the incumbent has been arm-twisted into revisiting that controversial piece of legislation. It was at India's imprimatur then; and one suspects this time too, that the Sri Lankan Government is sticking to a by-product of the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement of that momentous year -- 1987.

Diplomatic circles firmly believe that India may want to regain the pre-eminent role it once played in Sri Lanka's internal affairs in the bad old days of not so long ago when it nurtured and nursed a full-blown ethnic conflict in its southern neighbourhood as part and parcel of the Indira Gandhi Doctrine to destabilise its neighbours; a role abandoned after suffering a bloodied nose when Indian troops were sent in to rein in the evil forces it had unleashed.

The statement issued from New Delhi on this week's APRC report calling it a "welcome first step" was a give-away that India supports one of its own documents being on the table as part of a negotiated settlement - a document that suits India's national interests best -- ending the demand for a separate Tamil state in Sri Lanka that could have a ripple effect on its soil on the one hand and diluting the power of the Central Government in Colombo on the other.

The 13th Amendment to the Constitution came with its twin-sister -- the introduction of Provincial Councils; and long and bitter have been the debates on the effectiveness of PCs to the system of government in this country. Within 20 long years, they have proved to be the most miserable failure in administration.

If Parliament is bad enough with its shaky coalitions and inability to be of real value to the people they represent in their legislative duties; their oversight of public finance and public enterprises -- the PCs have been nine replicas to an even worse degree.

The Provincial Councils today are proven failures, riddled with political in-fighting and corruption, serving neither man nor beast; only benefiting the Councillors therein and the political parties they represent.

The parties that opposed the 13th Amendment and the PCs have joined the carnival, so to say, at the ordinary citizens' expense in the guise of 'power-sharing', a drain on the meagre resources of what is left of the public purse; only duplicating and complicating governance. The refrain of the International Community to grant 'power-sharing' to the North and East has its own merits, but whether Provincial Councils as envisaged in the 13th Amendment is the answer is the burning question.

By way of administration and economic development, the PCs are total failures, retarding both on the way. But if the Government has no escape from the IC (International Community) and India, then at least spare the 'south' this 'white elephant' that was thrust upon the country, at least halving the problem their introduction created.

The ultimate test of any system of government is whether it works well for the ordinary people. Not whether it works for political leaders and their party cadres -- or for India and the International Community.

Some of the APRC proposals such as the implementation of the Official Language provisions of the Constitution, i.e. the recruitment of those proficient in Tamil to Ministries, Departments etc., and the recruitment of sufficient policemen to serve in police stations where Tamils live etc., are matters of day-to-day Government business for which 63 sittings of a high-profile committee were not required.

To say that the APRC proposals are a sham is not an understatement, but if the Government was forced to come up with some document for power-sharing -- and it has India's tacit approval for the moment -- then, so be it.

The question is whether Provincial Councils are the price this country and her people must pay at the altar of 'power-sharing'? And that too demanded by those who will not have to live with the consequences.