Peace beyond a Senate

The presence of Indian External Affairs Minister S. Krishna has brought the issue of power devolution to the limelight again and motivated the Government to present the idea of a Senate as a solution. The idea seems to be to establish a Senate with academics and officials to act as an advisory body for the Government and also to bridge the Central Government with the Provincial Councils.

The Government must be careful to ensure that the Senate does not end up as another group that supports the ruling party and gets bogged down in official agendas and biased loyalties. It is this slur that has tainted everything from the All Party Representatives Committee to the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission and even the Parliamentary Select Committee. Since the Government has a two-thirds majority in Parliament, many people will question why it is not used to devolve power to the north and east directly rather than establishing yet another political body that will not have the desired result of empowering the Tamil population.

Under these circumstances, it is likely that the Senate will be labelled as a ‘plaster’ solution and yet another delaying tactic by the Government. While the Senate idea was discussed by Cabinet Spokesman and Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella on Thursday, the Government has also mentioned the ‘13 plus’ option as a solution, leaving the public wondering exactly what the Tamil National Alliance and the Government will eventually pursue.

Whatever the path may be, the Government must realise that it cannot be divorced from the larger normalisation process, which includes measures that were recommended by the LLRC report. Even though the report expressly called on the Government to demilitarise society, there are indications that the Army is planning to form a company and bid for Government tenders, rebuild key sites in Colombo and even go to the extent of rehabilitating 1,000 National Schools on the request of the Education Ministry.

Even though the Government claims that armed forces are cheaper than standard companies, it is unclear whether they take into account the fact that Rs. 230 billion was allocated by the Budget to fund the Defence Ministry for 2012, clearly reducing the ‘profitability’ of using them as well as preventing local construction companies from receiving badly-needed contracts. The role of the Army is diversifying and infusing itself more into civil life and this is in direct contravention of the LLRC.

Integration measures such as recruiting Tamil officers into the Army, Navy, Air Force and especially the Police needs to happen so that minorities feel that they have a place at every level of public service. Funnelling funds towards language education, reduction of custody torture and deaths, forming an independent Police and armed forces as well as ensuring that the law is applied universally would result in a closer relationship between the armed forces and the people. Repeated incidents of people rising against inefficient investigations, crime reduction and unfair policies would also then lessen.

There are many other pertinent points in the LLRC, such as releasing the names of detainees to their families and making a stronger bid at establishing accountability that goes beyond the report for the Government to consider. Sri Lanka has already endured three decades of war and the highest powers of Government must work intensely to establish lasting peace.