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Guest Column

The three options before the Muslims and their implications
By Dr. H.M. Mauroof
It could be said that a near consensus is now available in the country for a political solution to the ethnic problem. Sharing of power is the underlying factor in this consensus.

The debate on how to share power has now graduated from a 'devolutionary' one to a 'federal' one, which is a qualitative upgrading. The present status of the process, and, the slow but steady shifts in the country's political constellations, seem to progress in a positive direction towards a successful solution irrespective of who retains power at the Centre. Devolution, federation or separation has never been a Muslim proposal, demand, need or requirement.

These have been the Tamil community's proposals and demands from time to time based on their aspirations, needs or experiences; and the Sinhala, community's responses to them. While the Muslim community welcomes a consensual settlement of the issue, its only concern is that its own position should not suffer degradation, not to speak of any upgrading.

In this context political restructuring of the Northern and Eastern Provinces under a federal arrangement must be so designed as to constitutionally ensure the rights of all the three communities; political, security (personal and property), identity, equality, access to land, water, jobs, education entitlements should be spelt out unequivocally.

To satisfy such Muslim needs three main proposals have emerged from time to time:
i] The Northern and Eastern Provinces be considered as two distinct and separate federal units.

ii] The North and East be formally in one federal unit but with inbuilt mechanisms to ensure the rights, privileges and duties of every community.

iii] Creation of a separate federal unit for the Muslims in the South of the Eastern Province.
For the following reasons it is the first alternative that has the greatest chance of success, from the Muslim point of view, both in the short and long terms:

(a) The Eastern Province is the only province in the country with an ethnic composition of almost equal proportions of all three communities; the Tamils constitute the largest single community followed by the Muslims and then the Sinhalese. Any two communities together will constitute a two-thirds majority.

(b) The preponderant majority of the inhabitants of the Province are farmers, and a vast majority of them are tenant and small-scale farmers whose holdings are intertwined; this demands co-operation amongst the communities.

(d) The Tamils of the Eastern Province are of a different social stock than that of the North. Until the LTTE's gun power overtook the province, the Tamil population of the Eastern Province, till the latter part of the 1980s, always had the fear of Jaffna hegemony.

(e) The chances of success of the peace talks through consensus among the three communities will increase manifold. The second alternative also has a reasonable chance of success provided:

(a) The Centre's powers to intervene in cases of discrimination are Constitutionally enshrined.

(b) Regiments of the Army and law enforcement authorities be established and be truly representative of the three communities.

(c) The rights of each community be defined and written into the Constitution. As far as the Muslims are concerned the bases for these are in documents (tabled in Parliament) and signed in India in April 1988 by the representatives of the LTTE and of the Muslims, and, in another document issued to the Muslims by the leaders of the TULF. This was when President J.R. Jayewardene asked the Muslims to negotiate their plight not with him but with the Tamil leaders who at the time were in asylum in Tamil Nadu.

(d) The federal system should be so designed that the different constituents within the federated unit must have meaningful representation at the centre.

(e) The Constitution should designate a date, as it had been done in the proposals submitted to parliament by the President with the 2000 Constitution, by which date the three districts in the Eastern Province are given the chance to vote at a referendum.

The third of the above-mentioned alternatives, much touted from time to time by the SLMC and some Muslims from the Ampara District, are fraught with two particular disadvantages that should really attract rejection by the Muslims of the East:

(a) When one takes the totality of the Muslim population of the Northern and Eastern Provinces, the proposed South East Province will clearly have lesser number of Muslims than in the rest of the North-East.

One remembers the fate of the millions of Muslims during the last half a century at the hands of chauvinists after the separation of Pakistan and today's Bangladesh from imperial India. Who is prepared to abandon the Muslims of Kattankudy, Eravur, Valaichenai, Mutur, Kinniya, Mannar, Jaffna etc., to be continued to be savaged as if what had happened to them in the last two decades, and even in the present post-ceasefire period, is not enough?

(b) Additionally the inveterate Sinhala chauvinist elements still left in the country are certain to twist this proposal to suit themselves and try to whip up communal forces in the rest of the country.

Muslims in the country, particularly those in the North-East who should vitally take the leadership, should debate these issues in public and urgently formulate a common stand. This stand should be sought to be articulated at the peace talks.
Also, these must be canvassed with the President, the Prime Minister, the leadership of the LTTE and with all the political and other forces in the country.
The writer is President of the National Muslim Movement

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