Political Column December 10, 2006

On Wednesday, President Mahinda Rajapaksa armed himself with a tough Prevention and Prohibition of Terrorism and Specified Terrorist Activities laws under the State of Emergency to crack down on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
It was propelled by Tiger guerrilla leader Velupillai Prabhakaran's declaration that he would have no option but an independent state. It was fuelled by the failed guerrilla assassination attempt on his brother Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the Defence Secretary. He vowed that the fight against terrorism and national development would go hand in hand. Besides other reasons, some State officers, particularly in guerrilla-held areas had also asked for new laws so they could tell the LTTE they cannot heed some of the demands they are making.
Events moved at the speed of greased lightning after that Friday's abortive attempt on the life of the President's brother. A scheduled meeting of the Cabinet Ministers saw Ministers demanding stern action against the LTTE. The re-imposition of the ban was argued by some of them. On the sidelines, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) were long demanding the ban.
But now a year in power and in place, President Rajapaksa knows that he cannot allow indiscretions and he must temper his feelings with prudence and what he is permitted to do under the circumstances. The banning of the LTTE would automatically jettison the peace process, or what is left of it.
That same day, the President summoned senior officials of the Attorney General's Department to draft new laws that would give further powers to the Security Forces to stamp out terrorism, especially to flush out terrorists who have infiltrated into the capital city.
Initially, the decision was to strengthen existing Emergency Regulations, and to give life to the de facto moratorium on the use of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, that went into dis-use with the signing of the 2002 CFA (Ceasefire Agreement) between the then UNP Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and LTTE leader Prabhakaran.
By Saturday, it was agreed that there would be no ban on the LTTE, but that in a roundabout kind of way, anyone having involvement "with any terrorist organisation" would be caught up in the sweeping new amendments to the Emergency Regulations. For the first time, terrorism was defined under Sri Lanka law and the Government was straining to ensure that these new laws conformed to UN standards on combating terrorism and protecting national sovereignty.
As the weekend passed, the Government took one step back; it decided it would not yet re-introduce the PTA, banking on the new Emergency Regulations to provide the handle for the Forces to deal adequately with the crisis.
These laws were then brought before Cabinet once again on Wednesday and approved. Concurrently President Rajapaksa met Opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe and Colombo-based Ambassadors, first the Asian and West Asian envoys and then the Western Ambassadors, including the SLMM (Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission) representatives.
Wickremesinghe had advised Rajapaksa not to bring in media censorship by way of these regulations, something Rajapaksa assured he was not doing. He was also told to keep a tab on the deteriorating human rights situation in the country, and not permit these new laws to exacerbate the situation.
Solicitor General C.R. de Silva PC was designated the spokesman for the Government on these new regulations when the President met the foreign envoys, and he was called upon to defend them before some gentle questioning, particularly by the Western diplomats. The SLMM representative asked him about the implications of the new laws and whether they were obnoxious vis-a-vis the CFA. De Silva argued that the new regulations only related to the Public Security Ordinance and did not apply to the PTA which was linked to the CFA.
If Rajapaksa was resolved to give the LTTE a firm response, he seemed equally resolved to come up with a set of devolution proposals to settle the national question. That is what India and the rest of the IC (International Community) have been nagging him with. Last Saturday, the All Party Representative Committee earmarked to produce a set of devolution proposals was in session to hear what the experts had to say. It so turned out that the panel of experts Rajapaksa had named were divided on what form this devolution would take.
The major group had formulated a set of proposals that would, in some instances, go far beyond what then President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga had offered. This group compromises Dr. Nirmala Chandrahasan, Dr. Shivaji Felix, R.K.W Gunesekera, Asoka Gunewardene, Faisz Mustapha PC, Dr. A. Rohan Perera PC, Therese R. Perera PC, N. Selvakkumaran, Dr. K. Vigneswaran, Dr. Jayampathy Wickramaratne PC and. M. S. Wickramasinghe.
Highlights of these recommendations ranged from asking that Sinhala and Tamil be made compulsory subjects for all Sri Lankan students sitting the GCE O/Levels, to restrict the Cabinet to 24 members (1/8th of the number in Parliament) to forming Provincial 'Governments'
There were others who were piqued by the move. They broke away from this Committee and formulated their own set of proposals. That came to be dubbed as Committee B. This Committee B comprised senior lawyers H.L. de Silva PC, Gomin Dayasiri and Manohara de Silva and Prof. G.H. Peiris. Their report was a dissenting report which provided a critique of the original Committee which was dubbed Committee A.
The Committee A report was not entirely unanimous on all matters, and the report is studded with remarks that such and such a Committee member expressed his "concern" on such and such an issue. (Please see page 16 excerpts of the Committee A report).
Last Wednesday, the main report was discussed first. Senior lawyer RKW Goonesekera went over his proposals clause by clause. He called the country Republic of Sri Lanka with a merged north-east. There was no concurrent list - the report basically says that the Concurrent List (subjects and functions of Government that over-lap to the arena of Central Government and Provincial Administration authority) be deemed to be subjects and functions of the Provincial List. The President's power to declare a State of Emergency was restricted.
There was also a suggestion to give the Plantation areas to a separate Council under a separate administration etc.
Committee B has slammed this as a move by the Committee A members to create "ethnic enclaves" in the country, and was strongly arguing for the need to create a Sri Lankan identity with areas (Provincial Councils) based on grounds other than ethnicity. They said that all of Sri Lanka should belong to all communities living in Sri Lanka.
After the presentation was done last Wednesday, at the APC, JVP's Wasantha Bandara asked whether the main report was formulated after considering public representations. RKW Goonesekera said "yes, we took public representation into consideration", but Gomin Dayasiri rebutted that by saying that not a single letter that came from the public was opened except for one from the controversial INGO Berghoff Foundation which had been offering many solutions to Sri Lankan problems from military conflict to political solutions, with a heavy accent on federalism as the panacea for the country's problems.
LSSP's Scientific Affairs Minister Tissa Vitharana was to say these matters could be discussed further. Views were also expressed by former presidential (President R. Premadasa) Secretary K.H.J. Wijayadasa , who together with former Prime Minister (Prime Minister Sirima Bandaranaike) Secretary M.D.D. Peiris also sent in a rejoinder to the findings of Committee A - and Committee B.
They were quoted as saying that both Committee reports were prepared "hastily" and "are rather sketchy and not comprehensive". Then, they have proceeded to give their own analysis of some of the salient findings of the two Committee reports, which now makes it that Rajapaksa has three reports to content with for the present.
JVP's politburo met on Thursday and felt the Government was in a crisis. In anger JVP's own newspaper Lanka had described the RKW Goonesekera proposals as those of the Government's. The politburo said the proposals went far beyond what ex-President Kumaratunga had offered, and the party should oppose it tooth and nail. They said this was a move by the President to please the IC (International Community).
The JHU had also sensed much earlier that all was not well. They met Rajapaksa on December 4 to raise these issues. The President reached out to the telephone and asked the Temple Trees operator to get Minister Tissa Vitharana on the phone. He was not available. Then he had wanted Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera. He was contacted in Matara, and Rajapaksa asked if he knew what was happening with the Committee of Experts. Samaraweera was at a post-tsunami reconstruction ceremony where aid had come from Norway and where Norwegian special envoy Hanssen Bauer was to participate but was unable due to other commitments. Unfortunately, the Foreign Minister was unable to be of much help to the Head of Government.
When Rajapaksa asked whether a Foreign Ministry representative did not take part in the APC talks, the Foreign Minister replied in the affirmative and promised to check and revert. But Rajapaksa was impatient to find out and checked from elsewhere what developments were taking place with the Committee of Experts.
The Patriotic National Movement (PNM) had also summoned all its affiliate organisations for a meeting. They were discussing how to launch a protest. They said the Mahinda Rajapaksa Government had got stuck with the proposals and was not able to find a way out of the impasse.
That's another headache for President Rajapaksa now. The JVP-PNM-JHU combine is gearing to oppose any moves at devolving more powers than they think are necessary to appease the separatist cry for power-sharing. Rajapaksa might well look at the main Opposition United National Party (UNP) for a life-line.
The UNP is making passive noices from the sidelines. They are thanking their stars, or more pointedly, thanking Rajapaksa for having bailed them out of a situation when party rats were preparing to desert a wobbly ship and join hands with the Rajapaksa Government. The MoU they signed with Rajapaksa also helped them stabilise their own rudderless ship from crashing into the rocks at a time when a group was trying to veritably oust the party leader.
As a quid pro quo, the UNP had to give 'side-support' as the common party worker would say, to the Rajapaksa Government during the just concluded Budget debate.
It is a remarkable statistic for people to know. The country's main Opposition's front-line leaders made the following contributions during the entire Third Reading debate in Parliament, i.e. when the votes of the 40-odd Ministries were debated and their monies passed.
Leader of the Opposition Ranil Wickremesinghe (not a single speech); Milinda Moragoda (not a single); Karu Jayasuriya (once), G.L. Peiris (once), Mahinda Wijesekera (once), Rajitha Senaratne (twice) and Ravi Karunanayake did well speaking thrice, with one adjournment motion on Mihin Lanka. It would seem that President Rajapaksa will now have to content with a new Opposition - the JHU-JVP-PNM combine politically, and of course, the LTTE, militarily.