By Nayana
At the end of a week that saw the commemoration of the birth anniversary of the late J.R. Jayewardene, one is constrained to remember the salient features of his rule which have left a lasting impression on this country’s political life.

There is a convention in polite society that one does not speak ill of the dead, and polite news bulletins have listed "the executive presidency and the liberalised economy" as the main innovations for which this veteran politician will be remembered.

However it could also be said that too many people have died in Sri Lanka for the conventions of polite society to matter very much, and we hope readers will bear with us if this column makes a few blunter comments, not with a desire to be vindictive but because many of our present problems can be traced to the legal and political legacy of "J.R.".

His eleven year rule marked the end of fair and peaceful elections and, as indicated in succesive though belated reports of the Elections Commissioner, open flouting of election laws and State-condoned violence against political opponents became the order of the day. The promotion of police officers found to have violated fundamental rights set the mood for a Force that continues to regard fundamental rights judgments against its officers as an irritant rather that a matter requiring any serious reforms.

Judicially sanctioned witch-hunting was introduced with the Special Presidential Commissions of Inquiry Law of 1978, though it must be said that its use was short and swift compared to the protracted versions of more recent times.

However, while the "Old Fox" got away with these tactics against a shell-shocked opposition and an apathetic middle class in the south, the country had to pay dearly for his folly in using the same tactics (violence and electoral gerry-mandering) with a communal bias against the Tamil populations of Jaffna and Colombo.

It was under the Jayewardene government that Tamil militancy grew from a few gangs of pistol-toting "boys" to a level where large parts of the Northern Province became no-go areas for the security forces. It was his government, by systematically closing down state banks and police stations that were attacked, instead of defending them, which abandonned the population of the North to the militants.

This legacy of political violence is with us still, having claimed thousands of lives along the way including, ironically, some of the most able leaders of Jayewardene’s own party. This in turn brings us to the topic discussed in last week’s column, namely whether a peace settlement of the Northern Ireland kind is achievable in this country.

In Britain, Ireland and indeed all western democracies, politics between the mainstream parties is peaceful and violence only comes from the extremes. In Sri Lanka, as we know, violence appears to be endemic at all levels of politics. Even a candidate at a cooperative society election was shot dead recently. This crucial factor distinguishes our situation from that of countries such as Britain, Canada, Belgium and Spain which have recently tackled separatist or sectarian problems by constituional means, with varying degrees of success.

This is not to say that ideas from such places are not relevant, but it must be remembered that the constitutional arrangements in those countries could only be built on an existing foundation of mainstream democracy. In Sri Lanka we still have to build that foundation, and any attempt to build constitutional superstructures without it is likely to end in collapse.

It must also be remembered that in none of those countries has the separatist conflict escalated to the level of a large-scale war for territorial control as in Sri Lanka. Thus it did not impinge on the lives of people in the greater part of the country. For instance, one reason why political consensus was easy to achieve between Labour and Conservative governments over the Irish question in Britain may have been because both parties knew that success or failure in Northern Ireland would not make or break a government, in a country where voters were more pre-occupied with the state of the economy or the National Health Service.

In Sri Lanka the magnitude of the problem has become such that any government that can restore peace will probably "have it made" for at least another six years. In short term politics this is a powerful disincentive for an opposition to cooperate with the government. (This is why J.R. Jayewardene’s act of exacerbating the ethnic conflict rather than trying to solve it may prove irremediable, because his was the only government that could have solved it unaided by the opposition, thanks to its five-sixths parliamentary majority.)

However, for these same reasons it could also be said that the onus was on the government, if it was genuinely keen on solving the problem through consensus, to have held out an olive branch to the opposition, at least till a constitutional settlement was in place. Despite the setting up of a Parliamentary Select Committee, political tactics outside Parliament have hardly been reminiscent of an olive branch.

The Northern Ireland Agreement has received more publicity in Sri Lanka than any other recent internal peace settlement, and perhaps deservedly so, since it seems to be working and, despite the presence of a foreign mediator in the form of American Senator George Mitchell at the peace talks, was essentially a home grown settlement.

Its most salient feature, however, is that it was a particular solution geared to meet the special needs of a particular province. Is this therefore a confirmation that asymmetrical devolution is the answer? It is certainly the solution applied by the British Government which, like its Sri Lankan counterpart, is committed to the idea of all round devolution, but has put in place markedly different devolutionary arrangments for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

On the other hand, one can also ask the question: What is our "Northern Ireland"? Is it, for instance, the North-East, or is it in fact analogous to the whole of Sri Lanka? If one leaves aside the separate agreements entered into between the governments of Britain and the Irish Republic as being inapplicable to our essentially internal situation, it may be relevant to consider such measures as power-sharing, cross-community voting and parity of esteem as having a dual relevance both to centre and province.

The fact that general democratic values must be an integral part of any devolutionary arrangements is highlighted by one comprehensive statement in the Agreement in regard to the police: "The participants believe it essential that .... the police service is professional, effective and efficient, fair and impartial, free from partisan political control; accountable both under the law for its actions and to the community it serves; representative of the society it polices; and operates within a ..... criminal justice system which conforms with human rights norms."