A mountain of labour produced an
APRC mouse!
 The
local response to the APRC proposals mirrors the contempt with which it
has been received. The major opposition party, the United National Party
(UNP) rubbished them as a ‘farce’ and the dominant Tamil Party, the
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) called it a ‘fraud’ while leader of the
Upcountry Peoples’ Front (UPF), P. Chandrasekaran, a Minister in the
government, dismissed it as a ‘mockery
After much hype and more hyperbole, the proposals of the All Party
Representative Committee (APRC) were unveiled last week, as they were
handed over to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, ostensibly for
implementation ‘with immediate effect.’
The process itself involved 63 sittings over a year and a half and
fourteen political parties at its conclusion - there being more at the
inception with some of them opting out at various stages. But did a
mountain of labour produce a mouse? Judging from the proposals that have
been published, it certainly appears so.
The Committee report is unabashed about it too. It candidly acknowledges
that a ‘consensus document’ is in the process of ‘being finalised,’
expressing hope that it would be ready in the ‘very near future.’ It
does, almost in the same breath, qualify that, by saying that
implementing this consensus document would ‘of course take time, once a
favourable climate is established.’
This then, is not the real thing. The APRC report takes pains to
elaborate that the ‘final’ basis of a solution to the national question
would ‘of course require amendment of the present Constitution, and in
respect of some Articles, approval by the People at a referendum.’ What
are being proposed now are some interim arrangements until that
watershed is reached.
What of the proposals itself? There is nothing sensational there either.
The APRC has merely decided that until the ‘final’ proposals are
formulated, the government should do its utmost to devolve powers to the
maximum under the 13th amendment to the Constitution which was enacted
by then President J. R. Jayewardene, to give effect to the infamous
Indo-Lanka Accord in 1987.
In identifying areas where devolution of power has not been given full
effect and in making recommendations to overcome this shortcoming, the
APRC report attempts to camouflage the underlying reality - the current
recommendations do not go even as far as J.R. Jayewardene’s 1987
Accord, which allowed for the ‘temporary’ merger of the Northern and
Eastern provinces.
This is of course not the APRC’s fault, its defenders may argue. The
Supreme Court has already ruled that the two provinces need to be
de-merged. Nevertheless, the APRC does not for a moment mention the
possibility of re-merging them and studiously refers to the conditions
in the two provinces separately. It is indeed a clever constitutional
sleight of hand.
The Supreme Court, after all, arrived at its verdict after considering
facts before them within the parameters of the present constitution. The
APRC readily acknowledges that the Constitution needs change.
Theoretically that leaves room for the merger issue to be revisited.
One could of course give the APRC the benefit of the doubt and claim
that this is an issue that would be looked at when the ‘final’ solution
is considered but there is nothing that emerges from the present APRC
proposals that offers hope that this will be attempted.
The danger here is that even moderates in the Tamil community felt that
a merger of the Northern and Eastern provinces were a sine qua non for
any basis for a permanent settlement to the ethnic question. The armed
struggle for separation continued despite the North and East being
‘temporarily’ merged for almost twenty years.
To believe that this issue would merely go away when a ‘final’ solution
is attempted would be naive at best. It is more likely that it would
cast aspersions on the sincerity of those attempting to arrive at the
‘final’ solution, if indeed the merger is swept under the carpet under
the guise of a Supreme Court verdict.
The local response to the APRC proposals mirrors the contempt with which
it has been received. The major opposition party, the United National
Party (UNP) rubbished them as a ‘farce’ and the dominant Tamil Party,
the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) called it a ‘fraud’ while leader of
the Upcountry Peoples’ Front (UPF), P. Chandrasekaran, a Minister in the
government, dismissed it as a ‘mockery.’
But perhaps, the most damning sentiments came from Batty Weerakoon,
leader of the Lanka Samasamaja Party (LSSP) whose party colleague Tissa
Vitarana heads the APRC. Weerakoon described the proposals as ‘eyewash’
and predicted that it will not find acceptance with the Tamil community.
That begs a question: if the APRC proposals are merely a reiteration of
the need to fully implement the 13th amendment, if they do not seem to
gain acceptance from the major political parties and if they are not the
‘final’ solution, why bother with these reforms at all?
It is in the answer to this issue that reality should sink in. The
Rajapaksa government has, for some time now, been badgered and brow
beaten about providing some kind of political answer to the ethnic issue
to supplement its military adventures against the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
So far, while some of the military thrusts have been successful, the
score on the political front has been zero. As the going got tough for
the Rajapaksa regime, the APRC got going. Hence the APRC’s ‘interim’
solution.
If indeed these ‘interim’ proposals are meant to buy time until a far
reaching and more acceptable solution is evolved, then the APRC
proposals will at least be worth the paper it is written on. But the
danger is that the signal sent out through these proposals is not
encouraging - they seem to say ‘autonomy at provincial council level,
don’t dare to ask for more.’
If that is the message that is conveyed through the interim solution
suggested by the APRC, then it defeats the purpose of the entire
exercise of the government: that of convincing the world at large that
it is sincere in its intentions to moot a political resolution of the
ethnic issue.
The final verdict will of course have to wait until evolution of the
‘final’ proposals of the APRC. But, after the proposals published this
week, Tissa Vitarana and his committee must now realise that no one is
waiting with bated breath anymore.
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