Moving beyond restoration

What do the Tamil people really want? This has been an all-consuming question for decades and indeed has come close to consuming the country several times. Its danger and importance has placed this question in the limelight yet again as the debate on power devolution intensifies.

Even as journalists were preparing their headlines announcing the possibility of the 19th Amendment reaching Parliament as early as next week, President Mahinda Rajapaksa was in the north opening new airports and highways and reassuring the Tamil community in their own language that “everything destroyed during the war will be restored”.

He recapped the commendable rebuilding work, opened a People’s Bank branch and even allowed a small child to drink from a cup held by him. The orchestrated visit was lavishly captured by the media with lengthy space given for the massive development work being done by the Rajapaksa administration with even Government-affiliated Tamil ministers on hand to provide extra bouquets of praise.

However, there was little talk on the important aspect of power devolution, demilitarisation, human rights, investigations on disappearances and abductions or even a broad pledge of security for the Tamil people of the north. Free and fair elections or the 13th Amendment and the chance to govern themselves were all pointedly absent from the rhetoric that skipped nimbly over these all-important snags for the Rajapaksa Government.

Implementation of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), high security zones and even resolving the sensitive land grabbing issues ahead of the elections were blithely ignored. It was as if the problems faded into the palmyrah shadows before the effervescent spin of the Government. But it is unlikely they will stay that way.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), which is already on a visit to India, will no doubt return with all fists swinging if the Government does move ahead with its plans to dilute the 13th Amendment, as is becoming increasingly evident. Moderates around the world watch with dismay as the Sri Lankan Government prepares to run-roughshod over all its previous promises and possibly lay the foundations for a fresh conflict further down the line by suppressing a political solution as vehemently and short-sightedly as it can.

With the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) essentially in the bag for the Government, there is increasing evidence that even India’s interests in power devolution is losing steam. President Mahinda Rajapaksa underscored this point by telling a top Indian delegation last month that a political solution cannot be a “Rajapaksa-Sampanthan deal” and had pushed the discussion away from the 13th Amendment towards a PSC forum.

The fact this statement comes after the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the UNP refused to join the PSC is important. It appears that the Government’s intention is to push ahead with the PSC regardless and if it cannot get the TNA on board, then undermine the importance of the main Tamil party’s participation.   

These developments are disheartening because they mean that the Tamil community can only hope for material gain from the Government provided they toe the line they are given and fail to address the main causes of the conflict that blighted Sri Lanka for generations. In restoring only what existed before the war, will President Rajapaksa get the same result?