Parliament

Battlefield defeats reversible but not written agreements: JVP
By Chandani Kirinde, Our Lobby Correspondent
The 17th Amendment to the Constitution which was passed with an overwhelming majority in the House in 2001 for the laudable purpose of setting up several Independent Commissions which were seen at the time as a remedy for all the ills plaguing the government sector.

But today the Constitutional Council -- the body entrusted to appoint members to the Independent Commissions -- is itself defunct with the Government and the main Opposition UNP blaming each other for failing to name the nominees.

Now at last these two parties have finally reached consensus on this matter and named their nominees to the CC but another sticking point has surfaced to delay the CC from being constituted.

As Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake told Parliament last Tuesday, the other smaller parties are yet to name their single nominee to the CC and unfortunately the law does not provide any ways of circumventing this problem.

The one person, in addition to the nine others, has to be nominated upon agreement by the majority of MPs belonging to political parties or independent groups other than the ones the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader belong to.

The Premier said that under the law, neither he nor the Opposition Leader has the power to summon the smaller parties and ask them to name their nominee but Mr. Wickremanayake and Mr. Wickremesinghe would anyway try to do so during the coming week in a bid to break the deadlock and thereby set up the CC.

The issue of the CC was brought up in parliament by Kurunegala district UNP MP Dayasiri Jayasekera as an adjournment motion. He said the Government was going ahead and transferring police personnel at its whim and fancy securing appointments for government supporters at a time when the Police Commission was defunct.

JVP MP Bimal Ratnayake who spoke on the motion said it was the UNP which set a bad precedent by transferring police officers loyal to the party to preferred stations before the Police Commission was first set up.
“This is the reason why people lost faith in the Police Commission”, he said adding that it was time the Government restored the credibility of these institutions.

Many UNP MPs voiced concern that because of the non-functioning of the Police Commission, the police transfers by the government would adversely affect UNP supporters during the upcoming local government polls.

With parliamentary sittings curtailed during February and the expected flurry of political activity ahead of the upcoming local government elections, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) boycotted the February 14 sittings and the Government used this opportunity to extend the state of emergency. Later the House was adjourned till March 7.Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake said emergency regulations were needed for a further period as there had been no let up in the violence in the north and east and said at least 36 persons have been killed in the past month and more than 100 attempted murders had been reported.

The UNP MPs also spoke in support of the extension of the emergency but expressed fears that the emergency regulations might be used against their party supporters during the polls.

Nuwara Eliya district MP Renuka Herath sworn in last month said there were reports that the Government was planning to rig the polls to gain control of all of the local councils and said the election would not be free and fair if this kind of activity occurred.

Mrs. Herath also referred to the scheduled talks between the Government and the LTTE and said her party while being fully supportive of the talks, rejected criticism of the ceasefire agreement by the JHU and the JVP MPs.
JHU parliamentary group leader Athuraliye Ratana Thera said they were still skeptical about the LTTE’s true intentions as it was clear the militants were preparing for war while pursuing talks. “We know from past experience that talks are only used by the LTTE to fool the Government and become stronger militarily. We hope this government will learn from past mistakes and not be fooled by the LTTE again”, the monk said.

The JVP it seems has tilted quite a bit from its hard-line stance on talks with the LTTE. The party’s parliamentary group leader Wimal Weerawansa put a positive spin to the LTTE decision to resume talks saying it was brought on by the polices of this government.

He said the LTTE’s decision to go to Geneva instead of Oslo too was a victory for the government. Mr. Weerawansa however once again used the debate to castigate the UNP for the ceasefire agreement which he said bestowed international recognition on the LTTE.

“Defeats suffered in the battlefield can be reversed but what is given away through agreements is difficult to take back”, he said. House leader Nimal Siripala de Silva said the government had no intention of extending the emergency any longer than it was necessary and said the law would not be used to tamper with the elections in any way.

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