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Even before the ink had dried on the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in 1987, a storm of protests had gathered to howl in Lanka’s southern and western skies against its implementation in full as posing a lethal assault on Sinhala supremacy.

But apart from setting up the facade of hollow provincial councils in each of the nine provinces, all governments have stopped short of fully implementing the 13th Amendment. This has been the crucial demand of all Tamil parties as a way of addressing the just grievances of the Tamil people.

But the manner in which the 13th Amendment was forced down Lanka’s throat by India after first invading Lanka’s airspace with its now infamous ‘parrippu drops’, had so bitterly wounded the pride of the Sinhala psyche, that anything flowing from the Indo-Lanka Accord and the 13th Amendment was intransigently held as being against the majority interest.

For 37 years this chauvinistic rhetoric has been relentlessly drummed into the collective conscience of the majority race, that even a hum of implementation was enough to launch a thousand protests. Despite India’s insistence and despite local Tamil clamour for its full implementation, no government or Sinhala political party has harboured a death wish to be mortally flayed by even whispering assent to granting full powers to provincial councils. Some excuse has been concocted, some reason has been devised to peddle the issue and postpone implementation to a future date.

But last Sunday, during a five-day visit to the Northern Province, Sajith Premadasa, in the course of opening in Kilinochchi the 225th computerised classroom under his ‘Sakwala’ programme, declared in the heartlands of the Tamil people his intention to activate the 13th Amendment to meet the just grievances and aspirations of the Tamils. Unlike some Sinhala politicians who say one thing in the north and something else in the south, he said, he would repeat this announcement in the rest of the provinces as well.

It was a brave declaration, indeed, for a Sinhala candidate aspiring for the presidency to have made. Five years ago, when slowly dying cinders of racial fires lit during Mahinda Rajapaksa’s regime acted against Tamils as well as the Muslims, and racist slogans were used as the battle cry to bring another Rajapaksa to power on a 6.9 million Sinhala wave, it would have been a suicidal declaration for any Sinhala candidate to have made full implementation an issue at the starter’s gate of a presidential race. He wouldn’t have survived the starter’s whistle and would have been condemned to the knacker’s yard to pasture.

JAFFNA POW-WOW: Sajith meets TNA leaders with Eran in Jaffna to discuss the implementation of 13A

But much water has flowed under all bridges between Dondra Head and Point Pedro. Five years, during which Sri Lanka’s economic debacle equalled Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims in the dust of bankruptcy, seem to have made the majority race realise in common adversity, that their SLPP leaders had done naught but beat a racist drum and blow bigotry’s bugle to gratify their own sordid lust for power. In pauperised dust, they found the stark evidence staring them in the face: the high cost of being led astray by wolfish politicians raising the communal flag.

Last Sunday in Kilinochchi he made the bold declaration which he had first made during his speech at SJB’s May Day rally in Colombo this year. At a school in Kilinochchi, to an audience of teachers, parents and students, he announced what the Tamil people have long awaited to hear from a presidential hopeful.

ANURA KUMARA: Follows suit the next day

He said: “I didn’t come here today to gather either Sinhala or Tamil votes into my bag. Unlike other political leaders who say different things at different times, I will clearly promise that we will implement the 13th Amendment in full in the North, in the South, in the West, in East, in all the nine provinces of the country. We announce this to the public. We will not retreat from implementing the 13th Amendment.  It is there in our statute books. By breathing life to it, the people’s political rights, economic, religious and cultural rights will be given.”

“At the slightest mention of 13A,” he continued, “some look away, some pretend not to hear, some completely change the subject, some run away in fear, and some feel ashamed. I must say that all of them are political opportunists. But, I will say again that we shall definitely implement the 13th Amendment and, especially with India’s support and the support of other  governments forthcoming, we shall, giving pride of place to the ‘oneness of all,’ hold our hands together like children of the same mother, and rebuild this country.”

The following day in Jaffna, at the opening of his ‘Sakwala’ programme’s 229th digital classroom, Sajith Premadasa, with TNA MP Sumanthiran in attendance, said—after reiterating the same 13th Amendment declaration—“that after 15 years of the 30-year war ending, no government has made any effort to reap the rich rewards of peace.”

He said: “After emerging from the war which had left the North-East devastated, no leader took the initiative to hold an international aid conference. To those who ask what aid conference now when the war finished 15 years ago, I say to them, come to the Jaffna district, come to the Kilinochchi district, come to the Mannar district, to Mullaitivu and Vanni, or go to the war-ravaged East and become aware of the surviving people’s tears and anguish yourself. I promise the northern people today that we will hold for the North-East an international aid conference, and by making the North-East the hub of development, develop the entire country as well to blossom in prosperity.”

His words would have seemed like honey poured down TNA ears. The following day the TNA top brass in Jaffna issued him a special invite to have a discussion with them. Attending the meeting with SJB’s Eran Wickramaratne, Sajith was welcomed by Sumanthiran and introduced to other TNA members present. In the course of the discussions which dealt with full implementation of 13A in depth, TNA members pointed out, decentralising power to the provinces would be rendered useless if financial rights were also not vested in the provincial councils, to which Sajith agreed.  He said it would be included in SJB’s manifesto.

Hard on the heels of Sajith’s groundbreaking declaration, the JVP leader Anura Kumara manifested within 24 hours in Jaffna, beating on TNA’s office door with his version of the 13th Amendment. Having ruled out fielding a candidate themselves, the TNA, true to its decision last week to hold talks with all three candidates before deciding whom to support, duly auditioned Anura Kumara Dissanayake for the prospective role.

Emerging after the private meeting, Sumanthiran told reporters what has transpired behind closed doors. He said, with the JVP leader beside him: “During the discussions with Anura Kumara, he admitted that the Tamils should have the right to decide on their requirements. He also admitted that the provincial councils had failed to provide solutions to the problems of the Tamil people.”

Suddenly Jaffna has become a political fiesta, with more politicians in the offing. The President is tipped to come this week to join the list of ITAK and other Tamil suitors. SJB’s Sajith was correct in gauging the nation’s mood and temper. With the JVP validating his judgement, with their chorus, it is a shame 60,000 men, women and children had to be killed in vain during the dark days of JVP’s reign of terror and killings over their violent opposition to anything that flowed from the Indo-Lanka Accord signed in ’87 which included the 13th amendment’s Provincial Councils.

The only glitch to blacken this bright prospect of communal harmony is what JVP’s senior politburo member Lalkantha told a YouTube interviewer recently. When asked if the JVP was sorry for the atrocities committed in the ’87 era, he replied: “Why should we be? It was part and parcel of the rebellion and had to be done. We did it yesterday, we’ll do it today and do it tomorrow.”

Namal Rajapaksa, who has been prevented by recent SLPP’s chauvinistic history from visiting the north and reaching out to the Tamil people, warned, while eating sour grapes, “the TNA leaders and the Tamil community must beware of politicians who change their policies to grab votes.”

As if the shrewd Tamil leaders and the even shrewder Tamil people needed a southern tyro to teach them how to suck eggs.

Oh, lucky Musk to get $50b gift from Tesla shareholders Some are born to riches. Some have riches thrust upon them.  Some are just born lucky with the Midas touch that, no matter what they touch, it turns to gold. On Thursday, Tesla shareholders, including Elon Musk, voted in favour of giving Elon a thumping gift of 50 billion dollars in appreciation for services rendered. In fact, they had voted in favour for the same resolution but a killjoy minority shareholder had filed action in a court in Delaware, in which Tesla is incorporated. The judge, siding with the minority shareholder, had ruled against those in favour. ELON: Windfall bonus “Hot damn, I love you guys,” he told a crowd of enthusiastic shareholders who had gathered in Texas for the firm’s annual meeting after they had voted again for the 50 billion dollar gift package to Elon Musk. But whether he can reap his 50-billion-dollar bumper harvest as yet, depends on more killjoys joining the list of objectors. But Musk would have chosen to base his firm in the state of Texas only because Texas State laws approved such deals. Philanthropic Elon – whom JVP’s financial whiz kid Sunil Hadunnetti described, when he learnt of Musk’s plans to bring Starlink to this country by the end of this year, as “We don’t need fellows like Elon Musk who is an economic assassin come here and plunder”—says he will use the unexpected 50 billion dollar windfall to build a university in Texas dedicated to science and technology. SHEHAN: Over the moon Last week in Sri Lanka’s Parliament, State Minister of Finance Shehan Semasinghe disclosed the amount of debt the country owed the rest of the world. He said external debts amounted to USD 37 billion, including outstanding external debt installments amounting to USD 5.5 billion since April 2022. Imagine, Elon Musk, currently the world’s richest man with a 208 billion dollar fortune and a Tesla windfall of 50 billion dollars to boot; and Sri Lanka’s State Minister of Finance Shehan Semasinghe, understandably, over the moon on Thursday early morning, announcing that the IMF—‘stressing the importance of seeking comparable, transparent, and timely completion of restructurings with external private creditors consistent with programme targets’—had finally released 336 million dollars to a grateful Lanka. All those meetings he would have attended, all those pleadings he would have made, all that tension, all that worry he would have long endured, all that to receive a measly sum of 336 million dollars into a paupered Lanka’s begging bowl which he carried. This paltry sum to help a nation of 22 million rise from poverty must seem like loose change, the world’s richest man—boosted by a further windfall of 50 million dollars—carried with him in his pocket for urgent use. Shehan will be forgiven if, he in his nightly sleep, fervently prays to be allowed next time to go to Texas as the President’s plenipotentiary; and there, over a casual breakfast with Elon Musk, gently touch his philanthropic heartstrings to come to the rescue of 22 million people from the sewers of abject poverty with a small but meaningful fraction of his 200 billion dollar wealth, assuring him he will be eternally blessed and his place in heaven assured. At least, it will be better and more promising in its results than visiting Washington and grovelling for a mere tuppence.