‘We can fulfill our potential’ – Dayan Jayathillake

"The 13th amendment is over twenty years old on the statute books, but it has not been in practice for even a year in peacetime in either the North or the East, so how can anyone say that it has not achieved its desired objectives? It has to be tried out for a decent length of time for anyone to conclude that the experiment has not succeeded."
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By Nilantha Ilangamuwa

(August 29, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) “There was a major effort by some Western European states to secure a UN mandate from the Human Rights Council, for a War Crimes inquiry. These elements first tried to get a UN mandate under the guise of a humanitarian ceasefire and protection of civilians, to abort our final operations against the LTTE,” Dr. Dayan Jayathillake said in an exclusive interview with Sri Lanka Guardian in Colombo recently.

Here full text of an interview with Dr. Dayan Jayatillake;

Q:You have wide range of experience starting with your role in the North-East Provincial Council when the 13th Amendment was implemented. Has the Provincial devolution politically empowered the people of Sri Lanka and has it contributed towards genuine socio-economic progress in the country.

A: The Provincial Council system showed its potential with the performance of the Wayamba or North-West Council under the Chief Ministership of Gamini Jayawickrema Perera. Under his provincial leadership and during the Premadasa presidency, the Wayamba experienced a developmental mini-miracle, which shows that with the right local leadership the PC system can work wonders for a province and its people. In the North-East it did not work for two reasons: the LTTE was engaged in full scale war and obstructed the functioning of the Council, and the adventurist Vardharajaperumal administration of the NEPC was not willing to function within the 13th amendment, absurdly hoping that it could use the leverage of the IPKF presence to outflank the Tigers on the Tamil nationalist flank. The latter tendency was the very reason that I resigned from my Ministership in the NEPC, one year before Perumal’s lunatic UDI.

Q: Power sharing in the Eastern Province appears to be a sham exercise. Whilst the government is having the controlling interest in the day to administration, the elected members are frustrated that they are unable to exercise their powers. The government sources are saying that the elected members are unsuitable for good governance therefore they have take charge of the situations. Is this what we expect from the devolution?

A: Let’s face the facts. The main weakness of the Eastern PC is the split between two very capable and courageous Tamil political personalities, “Karuna” and “Pillaiyan”. This politically weakens the Tamils of the East and is open to manipulation by some elements. If these two personalities do not overcome this split, they will find that at the General election next year, the Tiger proxy, the TNA will raise its head even in some areas of the East.


Q:The 13th Amendment is over twenty years old now. It is proved that it has not achieved the desired objectives. How best the Provincial power sharing can be strengthened? Do you think foreign intervention like the Indian involvement in the 1987 is needed for this change? Also in your opinion what is the best power sharing arrangement Sri Lanka could adopt to resolve the conflict?

A: The 13th amendment is over twenty years old on the statute books, but it has not been in practice for even a year in peacetime in either the North or the East, so how can anyone say that it has not achieved its desired objectives? It has to be tried out for a decent length of time for anyone to conclude that the experiment has not succeeded. Provincial power sharing can be strengthened by first putting it into practice under conditions of peace and normalcy. Foreign intervention or involvement can only delegitimize any national institution. What is needed is the broadest international consensus in favor of the full and expeditious implementation of the 13th amendment, which after all, is part of our very Constitution and is something we have solemnly promised. Such an international consensus is different from intervention or involvement.

Q: The President has not clearly spelt out his position regarding a political resolution to the conflict. The APRC proposal is now in his hands and no one knows what he has done with it. Is he maintaining secrecy to let the rabbit out of his hat at an opportune moment?

A: I do not know the answer to that question but I do know that one hundred days have passed since our historic military victory and we have not yet followed it up with a political component which is necessary to reinforce that victory, and while we have lost time, the TNA which contested the 2004 elections claiming that the Tigers were the sole representatives of the Tamils, have made a comeback in the North. If our political process continues to delay or be inadequate, what is to prevent the Tamil voters from either boycotting in large numbers or opting for the TNA at the forthcoming parliamentary elections? If we had moved fast enough to implement the 13th amendment, which does not require any fresh mandate from the people, the Tamil moderates such as the EPDP and PLOT would have been stronger in the North than they are now, while the TNA would not be on the comeback trail, as it is today.

Q. The IDP situation is an eyesore for the government. The government is managing the situation without the full support of the INGO’s and in a transparent manner with the engagement of the opposition parties and the media. This is not a helpful situation isn’t it?

A: While the latest report signed by a group of expatriate Tamil personalities who visited the IDP camps (carried in DBS Jeyaraj’s Transcurrents) shows that the situation is not quite as bad as depicted in some sections of the Western media, we must ask ourselves whether we are doing the very best we can on this issue. How we would all have behaved had these been a quarter million Sinhalese of all ages behind barbed wire and armed guards, rather than a quarter million Tamils. The IDP issue is being looked after by an 18 person Task Force which is headed by a Sinhalese and initially had only Sinhalese members, though two Tamils were added later, at mid-level. Would we have put up with a situation in which a quarter million Sinhalese were behind the wire while their issue was being handled by a Task Force which was composed almost exclusively of Tamils? At least we should have the Social Services Minister, who is a Northern Tamil, as the co-chair of the IDP Task Force.

Q. There is war crimes cry against Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka too is preventing any access to find out the truth about its war efforts. Do you think Sri Lanka will be taken before the War Crimes Tribunal?

A: There was a major effort by some Western European states to secure a UN mandate from the Human Rights Council, for a War Crimes inquiry. These elements first tried to get a UN mandate under the guise of a humanitarian ceasefire and protection of civilians, to abort our final operations against the LTTE. They made this effort in Geneva from March 2009 onwards, up to May 14th, which was the date they were pushing for the Special session of the Human Rights Council. We fought hard and prevented that. Then they tried to punish us for destroying the LTTE leadership by pushing for a War Crimes inquiry at the UN HRC special session. We beat that by a dramatic margin, 29 to 12. Thus we not only prevented them from getting a UN mandate which they would have taken to New York as well as other places such as the international courts, we actually gave them a negative mandate; a mandate against that, by preemptively putting forward our own resolution and securing a handsome majority for it. I am pleased and proud of the role I was able to play in this, as the point-man, the man on the spot, in the trenches of our international frontline. As for whether there will be a renewed effort on this War Crimes issue and whether it will be successful or not depends entirely on the success of our foreign policy and diplomacy. Crucial to this is knowing who we are, where we belong , who our friends and foes are, building the broadest coalitions, keeping our neighbors --especially India-- on side by fulfilling our commitments, winning over world opinion, and not losing what Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton, Richard Falk terms the ‘legitimacy war’.


Q. Do you think South African type Truth and Reconciliation Commission will be a vital process to heal the deep wounds people have. Will it materialize in Sri Lanka? If this is not appropriate what could be done to heal the deep wounds?

A: A South African type Truth and Reconciliation Commission is a method of Transitional Justice. In South Africa there was a negotiated transition from minority rule to democratic majority rule. In Sri Lanka the principle of democratic majority rule was opposed from 1939 by the Tamil nationalists, and our war was to reunite the country by defeating the separatist military drive of a minority. It has nothing in common with the South African situation. Furthermore, Truth and Reconciliation Commissions and forms of transitional justice take place when there is a stalemated situation leading to a negotiated settlement of a civil war or violent conflict, and NOT when one side decisively defeats the other in all out warfare. The endgame at Mullivaiyakkal was hardly a negotiated transition at a roundtable conference! So this method is ridiculously unsuitable for Sri Lanka. Each society finds its own ways of catharsis and social accountability; of remembering, forgetting, healing, reconciling and moving on. So too will Sri Lanka. Methods that can be used are raising issues in Parliament, the media and the courts, and perhaps above all, through the arts.

Q. What was the real reason for your removal from the UN post? Is it because of your write up about the 13th amendment?

A: I do not know. It is odd if it were about the 13th amendment because Deputy Foreign Minister Hussein Bhailla, whom I have considerable respect for, confirmed in parliament the other day in response to a question by the JVP, that the President had on January 27th 2009, expressed to the Indian leadership, his intention to implement the 13th amendment without delay and to move further than the 13th amendment. We also know that the joint Indo-Lanka statement of May 21st 2009 and the joint statement of the Govt of Sri Lanka and the UN Secretary General of May 23rd 2009, contains a commitment to implement the 13th amendment. The latter statement refers to the President’s “firm resolve” to do so. Therefore, if I were sacked for this reason it is strange because I was only articulating and defending in the English language, the declared position of the Sri Lankan Government at its highest levels. I was arbitrarily instructed to relinquish my post, without even being given the standard three months to do so. I was given just one month. It was very embarrassing to me because even our adversaries asked me “is this the reward your Government gives you for your efforts and performance?” while our good friends and allies said “you should be given a high honor by your Government for having so successfully defended your country”. I was embarrassed not for myself but for the opinion that was being formed of the Government of my country.

Q. What is your vision for Sri Lanka? What advise you can give to each of the communities in Sri Lanka?

A: To the Sinhalese I would say we have achieved a great military victory of which we can be proud as a people. Our military-men have proved themselves contemporary Asia’s Masters of War. We must now be wise and prudent. We must not win the war and lose the peace. The USSR that Hitler’s best divisions could not defeat, and which broke the backbone of the Nazi army, fell without a shot being fired. That can happen if we lose the “legitimacy war”, the war to secure the moral high ground. There is no longer an enemy army to keep pointing to. The world is watching us without a Prabhakaran standing in between. Most countries of the world supported us to finish off Prabhakaran and the Tigers; not the Tamils. They will not stand with us if it seems we are bullying or oppressing the Tamil minority. We are no longer the underdogs; the Tamils are, especially the IDPs. We are being judged by how humanely we treat them. Our decision makers have a choice: are we going be like President Putin or President Bush? President Putin, a tough leader, smashed the Chechen separatist terrorist army, but quickly followed it up with a political process and wide local autonomy for Chechnya, which Moscow has stabilized through a local ally native to the area; not by large scale Russian military occupation, still less efforts at “Russification”. George Bush however won the war in Iraq but created a quagmire by not following it up with a successful political project. If we try to hold down the Tamils, they will pull us down too, and we shall both lose. We cannot force the Tamils to abandon their 70 years long effort to find some autonomous political space at the periphery. The wisest thing is to speedily implement the 13th amendment, before the island presents a picture of two utterly alienated communities, dead-locking each other.

As for the Tamils, my advice is to learn the lessons of triple, successive historic failures: federalist agitation, secessionist war, efforts at international intervention. None of these worked. A major war, a Thirty Years War has been decisively lost and there is no going home again to the old slogans. These slogans such as “internal self-determination” and “federalism” can be uttered but they will be ignored, while “facts are created on the ground”, altering existential realities. Far more prudent to seek the full implementation of the 13th amendment for which there is regional and international acceptance as well as a commitment by the President. Anything beyond that will lead to an endlessly repetitious reinvention of the wheel.


To the Muslims and Christians I would say, you can play a bridging role. The Muslims speak Tamil, while the Catholic and Protestant Christians span both Sinhala and Tamil communities.

To everyone I’d say “we have lost so much time; so many decades. Asia has taken off and we can catch up. We can fulfill our potential, or we can stagnate. We have come out of a long tunnel; let us not enter another one. Let us learn the lessons of the past. We have to share this small island on which we do not live alone. We have to coexist. We have to learn to respect each other’s distinct identities and give each other space. We cannot force togetherness or integration but if we cooperate and then unite, we can create wonders. Let us join Asia and the global mainstream. Let us not deadlock each other and isolate ourselves instead.

-Sri Lanka Guardian