Akuressa attack and after

By N. Sathiya Moorthy

(March 16, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) Once again, Sri Lanka has reacted with resilience. Unlike the Eighties, whose baggage still haunts the nation, once again in recent years, the ‘Akuressa attack’ on a Milad-un-Nabi procession has failed to trigger communal violence of any kind. It is a lesson for pro-LTTE groups and otherwise concerned sections of the international community that continues to see ghosts where none may now exist.

Once again in recent years, it is the LTTE that has to take the blame for targeting civilians, of yet another communal hue. By targeting a Muslim community festivity in the Sinhala-majority South, the LTTE has alienated both communities all over again. The ‘Akuressa attack’ would not make the slogging population of Sri Lankan Tamils feel comfortable in their adopted homes, particularly in West Asia. Nor would it make LTTE sympathisers in South-East Asia and elsewhere feel more welcomed.

LTTE sympathisers could refer to the Tamil civilian sufferings in the Northern war-zone to justify the ‘Akuressa attack’. If the LTTE were to be trusted, the Tamil civilians are in the war zone by choice. If the rest of the world is to be believed, they are being held hostage, as human shields. Neither argument would suffice. Either way, no argument of the kind would hold.

Ahead of the Akuressa attack, President Mahinda Rajapaksa had claimed credit for taking the national Milad-un-Nabi celebrations to the southern Matara district. He drew attention to his despatching a group of Ministers to the rally. Men died before the eyes of these Ministers, who suffered injuries. And after Akuressa, the Government has clamped down on public functions, including those for the Tamil and Sinhala New Year’s Day in mid-April.

In his Milad-un-Nabi message, President Rajapaksa also reiterated the Government’s resolve to rehabilitate the large number of Jaffna Muslims whom the LTTE had forcibly evicted from their homes in 1990. Better or worse still was the LTTE massacre of Muslim worshippers in a Kathankudy mosque, also in 1990. Whatever the LTTE’s intentions and whatever its instructions for the suicide-bomber, the ‘Akuressa attack’ has prised open past wounds, whose scars alone remained.

The first job thus before the Muslim clergy and polity now is to calm the community, which naturally feels upset and threatened all over again. The divisions within the Muslim polity in the country do not help matters, either. In its turn, the Government needs to reassure the community. So should the moderate Tamil polity, always wanting the Muslim community to identify itself with them.

It is in this background that the Government needs to look at the informal discussions, reportedly initiated at its instance, on the full implementation of the Thirteenth Amendment. The Muslim concerns, which had added weight to their demand for a separate political unit to call their own, may have been revived overnight. It would imply that similar concerns, yet to find a political expression in the case of the Upcountry Tamils, too could not be allowed to fester until prised open.

Devolution goes beyond the Muslims, Upcountry Tamils, Sri Lankan Tamils, or even the North and the East. It is these communities and Provinces that might be at the centre of the ongoing discourse, but the benefits are there for every Sri Lankan to reap. For the JVP to continue playing spoil-sport would only help sideline the party even more in the electoral politics, where it never had a national presence but is also continuing to lose its regional presence.

Events of the past decades might justify the need for dividing the ‘Police’ powers between the Centre and the Provinces, for effective enforcement, as is being mooted now. If changes are to be effected to the ‘Thirteenth Amendment model’, then the ‘American system’ provides for devolving Police powers down to the Pradesiya Sabha. Neighbourhood constabulary would make even minorities within minorities feel that much participatory and secure.

On the ‘Land’ issue, likewise, the current discussions indicate that acquisition powers would devolve on the Provinces while distribution rights should remain with the Centre. All along, this has contributed to charges of ‘Sinhala colonisation’. Adopting the ‘Indian model’, where ‘non-locals’ are barred from owing land in most parts of India’s North-East, and also in States such as Jammu and Kashmir, could be a way out.

Province-based population figures should be the guiding-point for land distribution, and Provincial Governments should be the approving authority. Census figures hold the key, and it is there that a compromise on cut-off year needs to be arrived at. Proportionate representation should also be the governing principle for admissions to centres of higher education and recruitment to Government jobs. Hiccups remain over the Centre ‘taking over’ Roads, Education and Hospitals even after the advent of the Thirteenth Amendment. A multi-layered devolution strategy would ensure that not only the Provinces but also the People and the Nation too do not lose out on development.

The ‘Akuressa attack’ might have been a message of LTTE’s disapproval against the induction of renegade commander, Vinayagamurthy Muralitharan, alias ‘Col Karuna’, as a Minister in the Rajapaksa Government. It could have also been against the ruling TMVP’s weapons’ surrender under Eastern Province Chief Minister, Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillaiyan. Or, it could have been against both.

The two events have lessons to teach. At this late hour, the LTTE can learn both from the estranged Eastern duo as to what mainstreaming could mean for the community that it seeks to protect and secure in every way. The Sri Lankan Government, for its part, can be logical about timing any weapons’ surrender by the LTTE, if it came to that, basing it on the TMVP’s experience – and its own experience with the TMVP.

The writer is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), the Indian policy think-tank, headquartered in New Delhi. This article originally appeared on Daily Mirror, Colombo based daily. -Sri Lanka Guardian