Post-War Dilemmas of Sri Lanka: Democracy and Reconciliation by S. I. Keethaponcalan

Author:S. I. Keethaponcalan [Keethaponcalan, S. I.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Law Enforcement, Democracy, National, Campaigns & Elections, Political Ideologies, Peace, Political Science, World, Reference, Political Process, Political Freedom, American Government, Asian, General, Human Rights
ISBN: 9780429602252
Google: FNSNDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-03-14T12:41:58+00:00

4.2 Political concession

The Sri Lankan Tamils believe that a political solution, over which they had fought for more than half a century, is fundamental to ethnic reconciliation. There will be no reconciliation without conflict resolution was the Tamil position (Keethaponcalan 2015). However, the government was not prepared to concede much in this sphere. The Sinhala nationalists argued that conceding on the devolution of power would betray the armed forces, who were sacrificing their lives to protect the territorial integrity of the state. The basic premise of this argument was that they did not fight to give the Tamil region devolution of power (Sahadevan 2012). Moreover, the government believed that the existing provincial council system devised through the 13th Amendment to the constitution was more than adequate to meet minority grievances in the North-East (Kumar 2014). Articulating the government’s position on this issue, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa maintained that “the existing constitution is more than enough for us to live together … I don’t think there is any issue on this … Devolution wise I think we have done enough. I don’t think there is a necessity to go beyond that” (quoted in Sahadevan 2012, 83).

At times, President Rajapaksa talked about what was called the “13th Amendment plus,” which meant strengthening the powers of the provincial councils without altering the system too much (Kumar 2014, 134). This was a promise Rajapaksa made especially to India because, during this period, India was pushing for a concrete devolution-of-power scheme for the Tamil regions (Pinto 2015). India, in fact, assisted with the war efforts on the premise that Colombo would devolve powers after defeating the LTTE (Keethaponcalan 2011). Rajapaksa, though, was not serious about moving beyond the 13th Amendment and the provincial councils, and desisted from taking any meaningful measures in this regard.

However, in order to alleviate international criticism, Indian pressure in particular, the government instituted a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) in 2013. On June 21, the Speaker of the Sri Lankan Parliament, Chamal Rajapaksa, announced the formation of the PSC to find a political solution to the ethnic conflict although the mandate of the PSC did not specifically mention the conflict or the need for conflict resolution (Sahadevan 2012). The official stated objective of the PSC was “to recommend and report on political and constitutional measures to empower the people of Sri Lanka as one nation.” The PSC was to include 19 members representing the governing coalition (the United People’s Freedom Alliance – UPFA) and 12 members from the opposition ranks. Nimal Siripala de Silva, one of the Cabinet Ministers in the UPFA government, was appointed Chairman of the PSC, which solicited proposals from political parties, the general public and civil society organizations. The PSC also conducted about a dozen meetings with no concrete outcomes.

One of the major problems the PSC encountered was the TNA’s decision not to participate in the PSC process. The TNA refused to participate on the grounds that the PSC was merely a delaying tactic by the government (Talpahewa 2015). The TNA criticism was not without basis because the PSC was an all-party body.

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