The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) last week rejected a call by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse to participate in a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to discuss “the national question” which is a euphemism for the ethnic Tamil imbroglio. . The committee is another attempt by Colombo to claim that it is seeking a “political solution” to the island’s protracted civil war that ended with the defeat of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009.
Last year the UNHRC endorsed a US proposal requesting Colombo to investigate human rights violations and grant limited powers to the island’s north and east. As part of its “pivot” to Asia aimed against China, the US is seeking to undermine economic and political relations between Colombo and Beijing.
The TNA is hoping to use this international pressure to secure the interests of the Tamil minority in the island nation. As well as refusing to participate in the Parliamentary Select Committee, the TNA meeting decided to reject the government’s current survey of casualties, injuries, and property damage during the 30-year of civil war. The survey is part of a report by the Sri Lankan government for the UNHRC.
On December 28, leading TNA parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran told the media, that his organisation will “push for an independent international probe” into war crimes when the UNHRC meets in March. The TNA, he said, will also brief foreign diplomats in Colombo.
The TNA had won the first ever elections to the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) held last September. The government of Chief Minister C. V. Wigneswaran wants devolution of police and land powers to make provincial governance effective and meaningful. But Rajapakse, who depends on political support from Sinhala parties and groups, is unwilling to devolve even limited powers.
Wigneswaran has sought land and police powers under Sri Lanka’s 13th Amendment to the Constitution. Colombo made clear, in defiance of the Constitution, that it was unwilling to grant these powers. The NPC passed a resolution demanding that military governor G.A. Chandrasiri be removed and be replaced with a civilian governor. This was rejected by Colombo.
These developments are fuelling the concerns of the local Tamils who are apprehensive that they are being bypassed.
Parliamentary Select Committee, PSC, was set up last June to counter India’s insistence that Colombo should implement the 13th amendment, which was part of the 1987 Indo-Lanka Accord between the two countries. Concerned that the civil war in Sri Lanka would destabilize the region, India sent military “peacekeepers” to northern Sri Lanka under the Accord to disarm the LTTE. Colombo enacted the 13th amendment setting up the provincial council system that devolved limited powers.
The 13-A, as the amendment is known, has remained a dead letter as the Accord broke down, India’s IPKF withdrew and the war resumed, with the north and east under the control of the military. In the wake of the LTTE’s defeat, the Rajapakse government rejected implementation of the 13-A though it held NPC elections last year.
The PSC is an effort to deflect international pressure. Sinhala extremist parties, including Jathika Hela Urumaya, which is part of the ruling coalition, and the opposition Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, have refused to participate in the PSC, claiming, falsely of course, that it was established to devolve power to Tamils.
The refusal of the TNA to take part in the PSC highlights the on-going standoff with the Colombo government over a power-sharing arrangement between the Sinhalese and Tamils, and the deepening geo-political rivalries with which it has become intertwined.
– Adopted from S. Jayanth’s post on wsws.org
