Parliament

Lengthy speeches, finger pointing, name calling and apportioning of blame were common features of four days of Parliamentary sittings last week, of which two were spent discussing the security situation in the north and east.

Despite all the talk, there was little sign of an agreement between the parties on how best to find a way out of the violent situation the country had been plunged into in recent weeks.

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), moved an adjournment motion on Wednesday to pay tribute to navy personnel who perished in the seas off Trincomalee while escorting the passenger ship the "Pearl Cruiser". The following day the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MPs, moved a motion to discuss the plight of civilians killed due to the escalating violence in the north and east while members of the security forces were blamed for being behind such incidents.

Two debates with very divergent views took place, but both days concluded with each side blaming the other with few ideas emerging on how to de-escalate the growing tensions in the country.

The JVP motion was moved by the party's Parliamentary group leader, Wimal Weerawansa who spoke for nearly an hour on the attempted attack on the "Pearl Cruiser" with 710 servicemen on board and aborted by the prompt actions of the sailors of the Dovra naval craft escorting it. However 12 Navy personnel died after their boat was rammed by a LTTE suicide boat.

Mr.Weerawansa, while paying tribute to the troops, said it was the LTTE leader Prabhakaran who was pushing the country towards war. "We don't want war, it has been thrust on us by the LTTE and the only way to stop this war is to stop terrorism."

He said an important issue that had emerged with the "Pearl Cruiser" incident was the debate that arose between the Government and the LTTE on the issue of the country's sovereignty after the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), said that the rebel group had no rights over sea and air.

"The LTTE says that the CFA has given them, sovereignty over sea and air in areas of the Tamil homeland which the Government has rejected. However the leader of the UNP Ranil Wickremesinghe is yet to make a statement in this regard. Does he agree with the LTTE stance or not?" Mr.Weerawansa questioned.

Both JVP and the UNP continued with their favourite past time of taking punches at each other.

UNP Kalutara district MP Rajitha Senaratna said that even though both the JVP and the JHU condemned the CFA, President Mahinda Rajapaksa himself in a recent interview said that he was committed to the upholding of the ceasefire and also considers the presence of the Norwegians a blessing.

"When the UNP signed the CFA, the JVP and the JHU were holding protests. They wanted to chase away the Norwegians but now they are quite," Dr. Senaratna said. He accused the members of these two parties of being "bala premie" and not "desha premi" as they claim.

"If we are to solve that problem, we cannot be greedy for power. We have to learn to make sacrifices," he said.

Constitutional Affairs Minister, D.E.W.Gunasekera said that not only do the Navy personnel who sacrificed their lives be paid tribute, for saving the lives of those on board the "Pearl Cruiser" but also for preventing an inevitable communal backlash that would have taken place had the LTTE succeeded in destroying the liner.

The TNA MPs on the other hand were in no mood to pay tribute to security personnel. On the contrary they directly accused them of attacking Tamil civilians or helping para military groups who carried out such attacks.

Opening the debate on the motion moves by them, the TNA Parliamentary Group leader and Trincomalee district MP R. Sampanthan, outlined the attacks on Tamil civilians carried out since December last year to date including the killings of five students in Trincomalee, the shooting of TNA parliamentarian Joseph Pararajasingham, and the recent killings of 15 civilians in Keyts.

"We have been given the customary assurances after all these incidents that investigations are being conducted but so far nothing has happened. We have met the President and complained directly to him but nothing has happened. If the government considers the people of the north and east as part of this country, it is their duty to protect them," Mr. Sampanthan said.

He alleged that several Tamil and Muslim civilians were killed in air attacks by government forces and these attacks were an infringement of international law. He said this has resulted in many hundreds of civilians leaving their homes and some even fleeing to India.

It was Deputy Minister of Labour, the inimitable Mervyn Silva who began the debate on behalf of the Government. With his oft repeated claims of being a descendent of King Dutugemunu, Mr. Silva dwelt on the historical aspects of the conflict and appealed to the TNA MPs to play an active role to bring about peace to the country. "Tell the LTTE leader to come out of the jungle and talk to us and we can work together," Mr. Silva said.

JVP MP Vijitha Herath, said it was the LTTE which first started driving away the Sinhala civilians from the north and east and he read out statistics from a 1981 census which showed there were more than 33,000 Sinhalese in the north. But today there were non living in these areas as they had been chased away by the LTTE, he said.

Most MPs agreed civilians on both sides had been killed in the violence. Mr. Sampanthan said he could not deny there were Sinhala civilians too who had been affected in the violence while the JVP and Government members also agreed that Tamil civilians too were affected in the same manner, more so than the Sinhalese.

However both sides were not gracious enough to share the blame over such killings, hence an end to such incidents in the future seems unlikely.