Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution and Thimpu demands

By S Akurugoda

(August 04, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) As per a media report, Prof. Tissa Vitharana, the Chairmen of the APRC is expected to present his final proposals based on 13th Amendment (plus) to President very soon. As far as we ( the general public) is aware, also according to the media reports, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has had requested his ministers few weeks ago to refrain from making any statement on the political solution to the press at this stage as he is to take-up the issue of political solution after the next presidential election. Hence the above statement of Minister Vitharana, said to have been made to the press, is somewhat questionable.

However, we have been witnessing various proposals from the so-called APRC to solve ‘an unidentified problem’ since its inception. The first set of proposals, apparently made by the so-called experts of the "three wheeler" parties had jeopardised the very objectives of the formation of the expert panel when the notorious ‘majority report’ prepared to satisfy the requirements of the pro-LTTE INGOs and other foreign interests were published in foreign news papers before it was known to the ruling circles. Prof. Vitharana made another unsuccessful attempt to promote his own proposals based on a Federal system as those of APRC, after his failure to promote the so-called ‘majority report’ due to the strong objections made by the parties who worked hard to elect President Rajapaksa and subsequent withdrawal of JVP, Hela Urumaya and MEP from APRC. The solutions coming from a person who believed once that the country was already divided, the war against LTTE was un-winnable and hence any solution should be acceptable to the LTTE is also questionable.

According to a news item appearing in Asian Tribune dated 31/07/09 under the heading “Sri Lanka No Platform For Anti-India Activities: Rajapaksa’ , President has spoken of his continued adherence to the 13th Amendment as a starting point. “I have openly spoken about the 13th Amendment as a starting point. It is acceptable to India and it has been accepted in Sri Lanka”.

Rejoiced Dayan Jayatilake (DJ), apparently in his official capacity as the consulate of Sri Lanka to the United Nations Office at Geneva, is circulating a similar statement said to have been made by Dr Palitha Kohona on the same line.

After failing to get the JVP’s support to run the government, President Mahinda Rajapakasa had to look for MPs in order to secure the numbers in the parliament. Although the President was elected with a clear majority to lead the country according to the pledges he made under ‘Mahinda Chinthanaya’, his party (SLFP) has only 57 MPs in the parliament and he has had no other alternative other than compromising his ‘Chinthanaya’ for survival. All hardcore federalists led by Rajitha Senaratne surrounded the President and pledged their support and managed to direct his ‘Chinthanaya’ towards 13th Amendment (plus).

After these people moved into the government, President declared, for the first time, in ‘Walk the Talk’ program on NDTV that “the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord offers the best solution” and appointed Dayan Jayatilake to UN office at Geneva as his representative. DJ (known better by some quarters as the Sri Lankan apparent spokesperson for RAW) , made use of this golden opportunity to maximise his campaign to achieve what he could not achieve by joining hands with Vartharajah Perumal few decades ago.

The sinister motive of those opportunists is to start with 13th Ammendment for the time being. They know very well that whatever the President proposes as a so-called solution, at this stage, will be blindly accepted by the people. They are aware that implementation of 13th Amendment is the beginning of implementation of the Thimpu demands (distinct nationality, traditional homelands, self-determination) as claimed in the following statement of Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi to the Indian Parliament on July 31, 1987.

" The Agreement meets the basic aspirations which have animated the Tamils’ struggle, namely, the desire to be recognised as a distinct ethnic entity; political autonomy for managing their political future; and appropriate devolution of governmental power to meet this objective, the recognition of the Northern and Eastern Provinces of Sri Lanka as areas of historical habitation of the Tamils and the acknowledgment and designation of Tamil as an official language of Sri Lanka.

The Agreement constitutes the Eastern and Northern Provinces of Sri Lanka into one administrative unit with an elected Provincial Council; and a Chief Minister. Powers would be devolved... to ensure a full measure of autonomy to the Provinces in Sri Lanka."

On August 2, 1987, Rajiv Gandhi told a public meeting in Madras that "The Agreement secures everything that the Sri Lankan Tamils had demanded, short of breaking Sri Lanka’s unity. In fact, it goes well beyond the initial demands of the Sri Lankan Tamils. Under the Agreement, approximately one-third of Sri Lankan territory will be made into a single province where the Tamils will have a clear majority. They will have regional autonomy comparable to State governments in India ... " (‘Thirteenth Amendment plus ... a look at probabilities’ by Foxwatch – Sunday Island dated 19/07/09).

Whatever said and done by those who promote 13th Amendment as a starting point, the above declared reality of the treacherous Agreement and the resulted 13th Amendment to the Constitution would have known better by Rajiv Gandhi, the Indian PM, than anyone else since it was the Indian civil servants who were instrumental when drafting the Agreement.

While addressing at the ceremonial opening of the Fourth Session of the Sixth Parliament on 19th May this year, President Rajapaksa said that there are only two communities in this country. One is the people who love this country. The other comprises the small groups that have no love for the land of their birth. Those who do not love the country are now a lesser group.

The said two communities were quite visible during the last presidential election. Those who love the country supported the candidature of Mahinda Rajapaksa while the other group were openly supporting the opposition candidate, Ranil Wickramsinghe.

It is very unfortunate if the candidate chosen by those who love the country is now committed to an undisclosed third party, due to the influence of those small groups that have no love for the land of their birth, to implement the concepts of traditional homeland, knowingly or unknowingly, paving the way for the gradual disintegration of the country on racial basis.

If the sinister motive of those opportunists succeeds, in decades to come, it will be the future generation who will have to face the consequences since any attempt to reverse such move would be disastrous.

-Sri Lanka Guardian