Tuesday, 07 June 2011 01:01

They say 13 is an unlucky number. Irrespective of numerology, 13th amendment [13th] to the Constitution was never rosy. Indo Sri Lanka Accord conceived the 13th- an Indian lasso to loop Sri Lanka off the saddle.

Genie of the 13th was released deceptively by an eerie spirit of India, at a ceremony the Defence Minister Lalit Athulathmudali declined to attend and in protest Mahinda Rajapaksa took to the streets.

The President learnt lessons on India and the 13th while in the opposition when High Commissioner Dixit at India House over reached his title with a regal show of arrogance in a stellar performance of an Ugly Indian, as the Indian Army held sway on our soil.

The timing is of the essence-Indian/Sri Lankan relationships during the 13th were at their lowest ebb-we were administered an unjust spanking by the Big Brother in the Orwellian mould, with the induction of the Indian Peace Keeping Force [IPKF]. An un-solicited foreign intervention- India’s next military visitation – after bifurcating East Pakistan into Bangladesh.

Mahinda Rajapaksa will not forget the events under the 13th that led the JVP to tunnel underground and commence a reign of terror. So much of unnecessary Sri Lankan blood was spilt in the South over the 13th associated with the Indian military invasion.

In Vadamaratchchi, Prabhakaran was cornered but not captured, instead set foot loose under Indian pressure that prolonged the war by another 22 years watched in silent disgust by Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, then a young officer at Vadamaratchchi. Defence Secretary learnt the importance of keeping India in a friendly neutral corner till the war ended and the designs India fabricates, with its on/off friendship.

Sri Lankan Armed Forces with their ego dented and shame inflicted, in dismay were compulsorily ferried from the North and East on Indian Air Force flights to be instantly replaced by the IPKF. It was a 24-hour red notice to quit after Sri Lankans helplessly watched with heads bowed the symbolic Indian airdrop of pulse and cereal in an un-erasable Indian diplomatic howler.

Sri Lankan Forces may crawl on their  bellies but with heads held high. Indians shattered the pride of our Forces with a show of ‘jawan arrogance’.  So many Indian soldiers lost their lives and were maimed for life in Sri Lanka to uphold the 13th. To the Indians, life is cheap. Sri Lankans know the true face of India with its warts and moles.

LTTE turned its guns on the IPKF and accused India of war crimes (none cared to make it an issue?) and in retaliation assassinated Rajiv Gandhi and Gamini Dissanayke co-authors of the Indo Sri Lanka Accord, the pace maker for the 13th. The 13th was piloted in Parliament by Lalit Athulatmudali and he was killed by the LTTE.

Its impact made Indians reverse their stance, as Prabhakaran and Pottu Amman stand accused of murder. If not for the Indo Sri Lanka accord/13th and the IPKF, Rajiv Gandhi would have been alive with Prabhakaran as the Indian whip to lash Sri Lanka.13th never achieved its purpose of taming the LTTE with a merged North/East Provincial Council. LTTE treated the 13th with such disdain; they did not bother to recognize its existence.

The fallout made India remain passive as the Sri Lankan Forces drove deep into the Wanni. Notwithstanding General Elections and Tamil Nadu’s cousins concern expressly registered neither the voters nor the Central government bent to pressures.

An unforgettable factor was the political writ of the white lady in an Indian sari playing a pivotal role in avenging the death of a husband. Prabhakaran by his inadequacies in understanding politics of the sub-continent eliminated Rajiv Gandhi.

Never has so much blood been spilt on a piece of legislation force fed on Sri Lanka by way of an Indian punishment for a disliked former President. The waste of public funds and proliferation of public office created by the 13th brought no ethnic harmony but instead created a further rift.

UNP will push the government to a 13 + situation hoping it will alienate its traditional Sinhala Buddhist base that lost so much of its blood to save the country from fragmentation. UNP has no plan B to achieve that result; their trump in hand being not  delegating police and land powers-forgetting their Minister G.L. Peris on the advice of Ranil Wckremasinghe conceded a federal structure in the Oslo Declaration.

At the time it was thought a major victory for  Sri Lanka by the UNP government that LTTE rump were sent globe trotting to study forms of government. Such was the idiocy that prevailed.

The Indian strategy for Sri Lanka is formulated by the Foreign Office in New Delhi with insights from the High Commission in Colombo through their diplomatic and RAW agents. Frequent visitors to India House at Thurstan Road are sources with close connections to the NGO community agitating for internationalizing war crimes. The mood at the local High Commission can be gauged from the company they keep.

The supporters of the 13th are a handful outside the TULF presently doing the circuit with the begging bowl. The Indian Tamil leadership in the plantations does not want the Chief Ministers vested with Police powers. Those who are for the 13th are the fast disappearing tribe in the Old Left true to their principles, NGO community with foreign funding, backing lost causes on a command from abroad and the elite that live on calories picked on embassy crawls.

If the concurrent list is deleted all the power shared between the centre and periphery reverts to the provincial administration in addition to the land and police powers conceded by statute. Will Mahinda Rajapaksa a man with a sense of history with his hand on the pulse of the people; never known to sell but rather save the country, be dragged by the force of an Indian Indirect Intervention, to make him undo all the good done?

India is playing for pride with their brain (less) child, the 13th after spilling much Sri Lankan and Indian blood. Is the intent to wield the stick to extract concessions on trade or commerce? Is it to win over Tamil Nadu by being coy to the TULF? Is it to keep all its neighbours weakened with thorny domestic issues?

India is living up to its true nature-is the box to tick. If so, do they want a friendly or angry nation at its border? In Sri Lanka there is no query on the sincerity of any other neighbour.

http://print.dailymirror.lk/opinion1/46197.html

Regime blues and the political realities pertaining to the Chelvanayakam Option

Tuesday, 07 June 2011 01:01

Coalition politics took centre stage the moment Proportional Representation became operational (with the 1989 General Election).  From that moment, both major parties, the United National Party (UNP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) could think of going it alone.  Since then scrambling to put together a coalition has preoccupied leaders of both parties.  Winning was difficult. Maintaining parliamentary majority was tough.  Horse-dealing, consequently, is not a one-off thing.  It is part of the political daily-grind.

Not every coalition is alike, even those led by the same party.  Chandrika Kumaratunga’s People’s Alliance, led by the SLFP was pro-federal and ever ready to play ball with Anton Balasingham as well as other Eelamists (closeted and otherwise). The United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), again led by the SLFP became staunchly anti-federal and refused to be swayed by the fairy stories regarding ‘Negotiations with the LTTE’ once Mahinda Rajapaksa took over that party.  The United National Front, led by the UNP under Ranil Wickremesinghe was the political heir to Chandrika’s PA.  Both were played by the minority parties.  The UPFA under Rajapaksa was different in that the minority parties and other coalition partners had to fall under his agenda umbrella.

All coalitions are made of politicians and they are by nature swayed by considerations of expediency.  They will stay or go depending on their assessment of popular support for the person or party they side with or abandon.  This is why all leaders need to be extremely alert to shifts in key constituencies. Let’s hold on to this idea for a moment. Let’s move to today-reality.

Today, the Rajapaksa Regime could be said to be under siege.  A manifest reluctance to get the institutional flaws corrected and indeed an overzealous drive to cause further fissures that exacerbated already existing gaps in transparency and accountabiliy appears to have blown up in the regime’s face.  Many have argued for a long time that domestic mechanisms to ensure law and order, transparency and accountability across the board are necessary for regime-longevity. Not all of them were motivated by regime-hate or a preference for a different political arrangement if not a political order.

The principal movers and shakers in this besieging are those who a) want to punish the President for ensuring that preferred the outcome of the conflict did not come about, b) see him as an obstacle to constitutional amendment that favours the Eelam project (current ‘agenda-moment’ focusing on the Chelvanayakam Option of ‘A little now, more later’, and therefore the legitimization of Eelam-boundaries via the 13th Amendment or ’13 Plus’).  Ideally, he would be encircled by those who have a democratic quarrel with him but also are averse to conceding to the Eelam Project which Prabhakaran fought for, killed and destroyed and yet could not win for it.

Now while it might appear that regime-change would make things easier for the devolutionists, the truth is that getting things down in paper requires a strong and not weak regime.  The weak coalition or one which is made of small-party tail wagging the big dog, e.g. the UNF and PA will, as history has shown, trip on the streets.  Both the PA and the UNF had power, were backed to the hilt by Eelam-leaning interests in the international community. They had, in the process of ‘getting there’, ditched the majority community. They were both unceremoniously ditched in return.

Today, the Rajapaksa regime has the numbers in Parliament but that’s an equation that’s amenable to radical alteration at a moment’s notice, especially if regime-popularity is seen to have eroded to a point where electoral defeat is a distinct possibility.  The window of opportunity, therefore, is closing fast on both the Rajapaksa regime as well as those fantasizing about getting the Eelam agenda on the road once again via the 13th Amendment.

There was a time when dhal-drop could make way for troop-landing and constitutional amendment (ref the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987).  That’s a no-no as of now.  What is possible is to frighten the regime about political debacle by waving the threat of international sanction and thereby get it to grant constitutional concessions to the Eelam Project.  This is why India is currently silent on moves against Sri Lanka orchestrated by elements that have found common ground with the Eelamists.  They are more interested in putting in place a US-friendly regime (led, hopefully, by Ranil Wickremesinghe or even Basil Rajapaksa) than about resolving alleged grievances through devolution. India or rather the Congress Party stands to gain because the Tamil Nadu vote can thereafter be canvassed from a position of strength.

It is no coincidence or surprise that among the strongest and uncritical defenders of the Rajapaksa regime are strong supporters of devolution. There is Dayan Jayatilleka, an unabashed articulator of Indian interests, Rajiva Wijesinha, whose knowledge of the conflict is amply demonstrated by the fact that he reduces it all to the Language Act and Standardization, and G.L. Peiris, who sees nothing wrong in the 13th Amendment.  All three have benefitted from the largesse of the regime.  All three are known to shift loyalties at the drop of a hat.   The first two are ideologically committed to devolution and this commitment overrides regime-loyalty.  All three would readily barter devolution for regime-preservation and would no doubt do their best to convince the President that his political future is dependent on giving into the Chelvanayakam Option in return for an easing of international pressure.

Mahinda Rajapaksa is no fool but even the politically astute can slip.  He would do well to keep in mind that his political worth will drop to zero as far as these people and indeed those who he believes would back off if he devolves power.  In the end his political future is inextricably linked to how he is perceived by his constituency, i.e. those who brought him to power and those who supported him to the hilt when the business community and the big players of the international community were doing their best to stop him from eliminating the LTTE.  If he thinks these very same forces would back him after he gave into these pressures, he would be sorely mistaken.

Today, he cannot say ‘unitary’ and expect ‘wow!’ from the electorate.  Today’s ‘unitary’ has to be accompanied by a radical change in direction as far as general economic policy is concerned.  Today, he can still stand up to international pressures, but his strength as always will be his constituency. They will back him or ditch him, based on their perceptions about whether or not he is ditching/backing them.

As for political coalitions, they are made for reconfiguration.  This too, he should keep in mind.