POLITICS-SRI LANKA: New Peace Package Seen To Hold Hope

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Jul 10 2000 (IPS) - A new structure of governance for Sri Lanka, proposed for the first time by the ruling and opposition parties, is a sound base for a political solution to the 17-year-old ethnic violence in the Indian Ocean island nation, said analysts.

Tamil Tiger rebels have rejected the new draft constitution that aims to make them drop arms and talk peace, but political observers saw strong signs of hope in the rare agreement between the government and its political foes.

Hammered out after nine weeks of closed door consultations between President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s People’s Alliance (PA) and the main opposition United National Party (UNP), the draft constitution was finalised over the weekend and is to be tabled in parliament next month.

“I think this is a strong base,” said Jehan Perera, media director at the National Peace Council (NPC), a Norwegian-funded peace group.

While pro-government media hailed the agreement as a step forward in the search for a political solution to the ethnic violence, a leading independent newspaper described it as a “mere election gimmick.”

The election of a new parliament is scheduled sometime between August and November and this would make it difficult to get legislative approval for the draft constitution, critics said.

The proposed constitutional revamp aims to devolve power on the country’s eight provinces, specially the northeastern region where the Tamil rebels want a separate home for Sri Lanka’s minority Tamil people.

Since 1983, heavily armed Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) cadres are battling government troops in the region where most of Sri Lanka’s 2.5 million Tamil people live. More than 60,000 people have been killed in the Tigers’ bloody campaign that has relied heavily on terror attacks on civilian targets across the country.

Rejectig the peace proposal, Anton Balasingham, the LTTE’s chief political advisor told a London-based Tamil magazine that there was no reason to support this one which fell far short of the government’s October 1997 proposals that were also rejected by the rebels.

Political analysts agreed that the new draft constitution had diluted the original proposals made by President Kumaratunga that were also not acceptable to the political opposition.

In the present proposal, key issues like the process of scrapping the executive presidency and reverting to the prime ministerial form of government, remain unresolved. Kumaratunga said these could be taken up at another meeting between the two sides after the government consults Tamil parties this week on the draft proposals.

The independent Island newspaper Monday pointed out that even moderate Tamil parties and hardline Sinhala groups had rejected the proposals.

There is not even enough time to get the proposals approved by the present parliament before its six-year term ends in August.

However, optimists noted that this was the first time Sri Lanka’s two main political parties had sat together and worked out a peace package.

“This is the key. Never before have both sides been that serious on this issue,” said Perera. “I think people should regard this as an interim constitution,” he added.

According to Perera, once approved by parliament, the draft constitution could form the basis on which civil society and even the rebels could give their opinion for modifications.

The new proposals have removed a main stumbling block to a political solution by providing for a devolution of powers from the federal government, he said.

“The unitary state concept is not there and this is courageous on the part of the UNP (to have accepted this),” he said.

The pro-government media too highlighted the fact of agreement between the government and opposition.

“Whatever interpretations the cynics…might like to attach…the very fact that the two main political forces in the country were able to talk on the vital national issue for several months…should hold out a great deal of hope for a country where this has been a rare commodity,” said the Sunday Observer.

However, peace activists, while praising the agreement on the draft proposals, complained of the “secretive” manner in which the talks were held.

“The problem with the new constitution is that the whole process has been secretive. I can understand keeping sensitive issues like devolution away from the public but what about tame subjects like the judiciary, police, public service?” asked Rohan Edrisinha, of the non- governmental Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Citing an example of how civil society could have helped, he referred to the inclusion of social, economic and cultural rights in the draft. Experts at his centre had lobbied with UNP leaders when they came to know that the opposition party had changed its mind on backing these rights.

The PA and the UNP had agreed to keep the contents of their talks hidden from the media. Only a very brief joint statement was issued after every meeting.

However, Edrisinha said that the secret talks could lead to other political parties questioning the legitimacy of the draft constitution, even if it were to be passed by parliament.

“In the past 10 to 15 years, constitution making in other countries has been through the consultative process and Sri Lanka should have followed these trends. There is a sense of betrayal that the UNP also agreed to secret discussions,” he added.

Meanwhile, analysts expected the government to continue with its two-pronged approach of keeping up military pressure on the LTTE even while putting together a peace package.