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SLFP presidential candidate-JVP agreement justifies division

The agreement between Mahinda Rajapaksa, the SLFP presidential candidate, and JVP has implicitly justified division of Sri Lanka.

Sri Lankan government, southern intellectuals, and even some at the international level accuse the LTTE for not publicly announcing that they are giving up their armed struggle and their demand for a separate state. Even at the Oslo meeting in 2002, LTTE only agreed to study a possible solution incorporating internal self-determination and it did not agree to give up the armed struggle. LTTE, however, has at several instances elaborated the reasons for its refusal.

The latest turn of events in the south has justified the reasons given by LTTE.

Tamil people definitively expressed their view, through the 1977 parliamentary elections, that a separate state is the only possible solution. If Tamils are to step down from this position, what will it be? Tamil and Sinhala states must set up their own respective governments and then they must come together to form a joined central government. That is the step below complete separation. LTTE agreed to explore a solution that is even below this which is to consider internal self-determination. This was a historic turn of events.

The UNP government of that time also agreed to consider an arrangement of internal self-determination within Sri Lanka. Even the President and later her governing party, while criticizing UNP’s moves always asserted that peace will come only through power sharing.

After all this, what is happening today?

What has Mahinda Rajapakse, who is considered to be the most likely President for the next six years done? He has turned everything upside down by signing the agreement with JVP whose support is likely to make him the next President.

By signing an agreement with these chauvinistic parties to consider only solutions within a unitary Sri Lankan state he has ruled out all chances for power sharing. His action has also demonstrated that the southern politics that behaves as if they are ready for power sharing could revert to its usual oppressive measures at anytime.

What does it mean when the next President of the country signs an agreement that any solution must be within a unitary state, when it has been crystal clear for sometime that it is not possible to find a solution within a unitary state structure.

Has not Mahinda Rajapakse demonstrated to the Tamils that asking for their rights is not going to work and they must take it instead. His actions has further strengthened the Tamil resolve that if a just solution is not found based on internal self-determination then Tamils have the right to seek external self-determination by setting up a separate state. One person who showed his pleasure for Mahinda Rajapakse’s signing of the agreement is Douglas Devanada, the Secretary General of EPDP and a Minister. Devanada’s slogan for a long time has been “combined government at the centre and self-determination in the districts. There is nothing wrong with this slogan.

What we do not understand is that how this is possible under the agreement signed by Rajapakse and JVP that emphasized a unitary central government.

12 September 2005

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