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Being prepared

It is all to the good that the government is pressing on with its recruitment drive to enlist 15,000 more soldiers despite a degree of optimism on the possibility of a negotiated peace with the LTTE. Lt. Gen. Srilal Weerasooriya, the Army Commander, is on record saying that peace will not be possible without crushing the Tigers. While all Lankans of goodwill hope that this will not be the case, sensible people will agree that deferring necessary recruitment in the expectation of peace will be absolute folly.

Obviously the whole country is war weary after nearly two decades of blood letting. From the look of things, this is also true for the military as well as the LTTE. But now that the northeast monsoon is gradually subsiding, it is reasonable to expect an escalation of military activity on the northern front. After the Wanni debacle, the forces have repulsed LTTE effort at regaining Jaffna despite a continuation of the "unceasing waves" strategy. It is reasonable to assume that the Tigers have taken substantial casualties in the siege against Elephant Pass in November and December and would probably not want to turn on the heat for the present.

Although a peace euphoria has enveloped the country following the UNP commitment to support President Kumaratunga’s constitutional amendments for whatever reason, it is necessary that the country realistically views the unfolding developments. It is extremely unlikely that the LTTE will settle for anything less than a merged northeast and even senior members of the government privately concede that this will remain the Tigers’ bottom line. While it is entirely within the bounds of possibility that the LTTE will climb down from the separate state extreme, it is most unlikely that they will compromise on a merged northeast. The implications of this must be fully understood and studied in depth before any final decisions are taken.

The constituents of the People’s Alliance are now studying the draft package as presented in October 1997 and are busy "filling the gaps," in the words of one party leader. The Muslims of the east naturally have their own concerns and how far they would be willing to compromise remains to be seen. Mr. Ashraff and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress will naturally like to see a Muslim majority region in what is now a part of the Eastern Province; and previous discussions examined the possibility of Sinhala majority areas like Ampara in the east being linked to the Uva Province. Although these matters had been intensively discussed previously, there is no doubt that the same ground will be covered once again. The process is likely to be faster this time round if Prof. G. L. Peiris is to make sure that the two month deadline he has set can be met.

It is also necessary to examine the UNP position that if the current effort which they have agreed to support with reservations fails, as they think it would, then the PA should assist a future UNP government to implement its own formula. There is no unscrambling scrambled eggs once the cook has done his work. If, as Mr. S. L. Gunasekera points out in an article to this issue of the paper, the package stands as it was, then it would not be possible to take away anything conceded to a region with whatever parliamentary majority without the consent of the region concerned. Undoing what is done at a later stage or taking back concessions that have been granted will be well nigh impossible. That must be clearly understood by everybody.

Let us not forget the fate of that referendum that was to be held in the Eastern Province to test the views of the people there to the temporary North-East merger implemented under the terms of the Indo - Sri Lanka agreement. Although the Indian backed Northeastern Provincial Council of Chief Minister Varatharajah Perumal did not survive long and the area had since been administered by a governor, that referendum was never held or even attempted. Good intentions, however piously professed, will be sacrificed at the altar of expediency, in such matters. There is already talk of testing the will of the people in the different districts of the Eastern Province by referenda. But whether this will actually be attempted or not only time can tell.

While the harsh rhetoric that followed the presidential election is now muted, post-election incidents continue. The political parties, both victors and the vanquished, are acutely conscious of the parliamentary elections that must be held by August. Whether it will be possible to achieve a southern consensus on the constitutional proposals on which the government’s peace efforts hinge within the next two or three months and thereafter present them to the LTTE before the next round of elections remains a wide open question.

The President has not yet formally responded to the UNP offer although ministers like Prof. Peiris and the left constituents of the PA have warmly welcomed the new climate of co-operation. It will not be too long before Lankans can see whether the new constitution in the making will scuttle the executive presidency as promised or only prune some of its powers; what adjustments will be made to proportional representation that remained in the October 1997 draft despite the President’s repeated description of the system as "bizarre;" and, most importantly, whether we are going to have the three independent commissions to ensure that the malpractices that were all too evident at recent elections do not get institutionalised.

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