‘Issue of implementing it wasn't even raised at Sushma-Rajapaksa meeting'
An English newspaper in Sri Lanka has claimed that no discussion was held regarding devolution of powers to States when a delegation of Indian MPs met President Mahinda Rajapaksa on April 21, and when he met the leader of the delegation for an unscheduled meeting on April 20.
“The Sri Lankan government on Monday strongly denied a statement attributed to Indian Opposition Leader Sushma Swaraj, that her delegation had received an assurance from Mr. Rajapaksa on his commitment to the 13th Amendment, and his readiness to go even beyond it,” the newspaper, The Island, reported on Tuesday.
This is an exact replay of what happened with External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna in January 2012. Soon after Mr. Krishna met the President, the Indian side released to the press a statement, which said the President had agreed to the implementation of the 13th Amendment (which grants some powers to the provinces) as a means to cater to the hopes and aspirations of Tamils in the Northern Province. Then, too, there was no briefing from the government side. A day later, the government's preferred newspaper, The Island, quoting the President, said he had not discussed 13-plus with Mr. Krishna.
Now, it is Ms. Swaraj's turn. She met the President for an unscheduled breakfast meeting on April 20 and with the MPs delegation on April 21.
The delegation was here to study the ground situation, and was the outcome of a heated debate during the last winter session, on the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka.
Again, it is The Island that reported that the issue of implementing 13-plus wasn't even raised at the meeting between Ms. Swaraj and Mr. Rajapaksa. “GoSL sources said that President Rajapaksa had met the Indian Opposition Leader twice on Friday and Saturday, but such an assurance was never given.”
“During Saturday's breakfast meeting at Temple Trees, President Rajapaksa recalled how India had forced the 13th Amendment on the then Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayewardene. Saturday's meeting was attended by the entire Indian delegation, along with Indian High Commissioner Ashok K. Kantha, now engaged in a stepped-up campaign for the full implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, sources said,” the newspaper's Page 1 story said.
At a press conference at the end of the visit of the MPs delegation to Sri Lanka on April 21, Ms. Swaraj was asked of the President's assurances on the political solution. This was her reply: “The President himself spoke of the 13th Amendment. So it isn't a question of a Minister saying or denying or confirming it. The President himself said 13th Amendment plus.”
Sri Lanka had promised devolution of powers to meet the aspirations of Tamils in May 2009 to Ban Ki-moon; in June 2010 to Manmohan Singh; in January 2012 to S. M. Krishna.
Mr. Rajapaksa is in South Korea on a four-day State visit.
Keywords: Sri Lankan Tamils issue, post-war rehabilitation, Eelam War IV, India-Sri Lanka relations, Sushma Swaraj, MPs visit
I find it very annoying why a delegation from the Indian opposition party had discussions with the Sri Lankan leadership,about internal affairs of Sri Lanka. Why have they made it their business to get any assurances from Mr.Rajapaksa on anything? Why is your paper reporting who said what and ridicule the leader of an independent sovereign nation? The population of Tamils in the major cities in Sri Lanka is 60%, living peacefully with the other races. The Tamils have set up their homes right throughout the length and breadth of Sri Lanka. How can there be Tamil enclaves or regions exclusively for them in the north and east of Sri Lanka? So any devolution of power, 13th amendment are all meaningless. The Sinhalese and the Muslims were chased out from the north and east and they have every right to go back there. The only solution is an equal distribution of people, to prevent a mono-ethnic tamil region. The selfish greed of the Jaffna tamils cannot and will not be tolerated.
Probably the Sri Lankan government has to rebuild the very basic
infrastructure viz. power connections, roads, bridges, telephones etc.
in the majority affected areas and international donors may be willing
to contribute for the same. India can help Sri Lanka by giving
assistance in our know-how on installation of telecommunication lines,
construction of roads and bridges etc. Sri Lanka can seek help from
Indian Railways not only for reopening of bunged railway lines in Sri
Lanka but also for creation of a railway network linking small towns
especially in north and east with the capital Colombo.
Let me recall the lecture made by our Finance Minister Pranab
Mukherjee well experienced in handling Indo-Lankan issues, when he
visited primarily to deliver the 4th Lakshman Kadirgamar Memorial Lecture on Saturday 14th November, 2009 prior to his darshan at the Sacred Tooth Relic of the Sri Dalada Malingawa Temple in Kandy, as programmed. He had advocated the people of Sri Lanka to make use of the defeat of terrorism and secessionism to permanently change the complexion of inter-ethnic relations for the betterment of the island nation. It will be important for everybody in the island nation to
realize that a Political settlement is not a ‘zero-sum game’. As a down-to-earth advice, he rightly cited India’s experience in managing multi-religious and multi-cultural societies. His speech gave thrust on democratic principles of devolution of power, equality for accessing opportunities and equal status before constitution that facilitated India to address divisive tendencies of all sorts.
Sri Lankan government and the island nation’s whole political band
must recognize their arduous need for national reconciliation while
the ball is in their court. India, particularly Tamil Nadu can hardly
interfere or prevail on whichever establishment by getting into their
shoes and initiate political maneuvering aiming providence for their
nation. Any primary moves from India will be construed only as
interference and will adversely make things worse in Sri Lanka! The
fact remains that there is no alternative for Sri Lanka to empower
itself to reach a moderate view on the issue to proliferate a
consensus approach that paves the way for an enduring solution to
ethnicity.
@Christopher:
If the 13th amendment or any other amendment will never come into effect, then
Rajapaska should spell it out clearly to the Indians, the TNA and the rest of the
world instead of beating about the bush with his PSCs and all such rubbish.
Rajapaksa has the power in his parliament today to remove the 13th amendment
from the constitution - what is he waiting for? As long as the 13th Amendment is
in the constitution of Sri-Lanka, the fact that it is not being implemented means
that the Sri-Lankan regime is going against the law of the land - it is they who are
in the wrong, not the TNA who want the constitution to be abided. If the Sri-
Lankan regime can pick and choose what it wants to be implemented in the
constitution, of what use is a constitution?
@Leela:
Where did you get that definition of 13A+ by Rajapaksa? Did he ever spell out that
his 13A+ meant what you defined? Did he spell that out to the Indian delegation or
the TNA? Has he ever spelled it out publicly? And when does "plus" ever include
"minus" in it? Perhaps it is this sorely foolish math that has got Sri-Lanka into the
place it is today where no one in the world believes them anymore.
There is absolutely no basis for The Hindu claim that The Island reported that no discussion was held regarding devolution of powers to States when a delegation of Indian MPs met President Mahinda Rajapaksa on April 21, and when he met the leader of the delegation for an unscheduled meeting on April 20. We stand by our story that President Mahinda Rajapaksa didn't assure the Indian delegation...what we reported on Tuesday was:The Sri Lankan government on Monday strongly denied a statement attributed to Indian Opposition Leader Sushma Swaraj, that her delegation had received an assurance from Mr. Rajapaksa on his commitment to the 13th Amendment, and his readiness to go even beyond it.” Anyone interested in this issue should read lead story of The Sunday Island April 22, 2012 issue.Interestingly, The Hindu refers to devolution of powers to states, in spite of administrative units in Sri Lanka being called provinces...
From the past experience power devolution is impossible in Sri Lanka since majority decides the government.
Only way to protect minoritiy Tamils from state terror is to consider for separate state. If international community does not understand this then Tamils are going to be subjected to structural genocide for 100s of years.
India should also consider the isolation of minority people from state terror as what they did for Pakistan-Bangaladesh. Else the island will be unstable for many years which is not good for India.
Sri Lanka is a Sovereign state and not a province of India.Sri Lankan majoirity people will never approve a 13Plus which includes police and land powers to provinces. The core issue behind 13plus is seperate state for tamils and UNHRC resolution is regime change. Neither one will be swallowed by majoirity Sinhalese and they are solidly behind the President who rescued Sri Lanka from terrorists who were trained and armed by the previous indian regime
Tharind!
So what is wrong with that? In any democracy the majority shall prevail. Tamils that currently living in Sri Lanka are about 7-8 per cent. Whatever happens, this 13th amendment or any other so called amendments shall never come into effect. It is better that the Tamils in Sri Lanka learn to live with what they have; the freedom and peace, without listening to Tamils from the Diasporas that insist on unattainable demands that they will not experience by living abroad.
Now does everyone understand why India voted against Sri-Lanka at the UNHRC?
All those in India who were complaining about India voting against Sri-Lanka
should finally understand - for the last 3 years since the end of the war, Sri-Lanka kept promising India that it would move forward on a number of issues but did absolutely nothing - in fact, did exactly the opposite - polarizing the tamils and Sinhalese and setting the ground for another insurgency. To add insult to injury, every time India sent diplomats to Sri-Lanka to get assurances from Rajapaksa, he would give these assurances to the Indian representatives and then turn around the next day and claim publicly that he said no such thing - implying that the Indians are liars. This is nothing new to the tamils of Sri-Lanka who have seen this for 60+ years now - it is not for nothing that the tamils finally decided that they had had enough and voted in favour of a separate state Eelam in the Vaddukodai resolution.
Indians must understand that (13A - (police powers + land powers) + Hindu Kovils + inland fisheries + what not) is President Rajapakse's 13A plus. But racists who love Bantuism demand 13A (unlimited) plus. Majority Sri Lankans however want no 13A. For them by experience even 13A minus minus is a white elephant. They want to strengthen
village and town based devolution to manage their own affairs not high flying Provincial Councils.
If only Indians understand that, Sinhalese never wanted 13A and LTTE proxy TNA rejected 13A when LTTE was a force to reckon and together LTTE and JVP brought pandemonium to the entire country perhaps Sushma Swaraj and co would understand why Premadasa had to ask IPKF to leave Sri Lanka soil in 1990.
The fact that Colombo continues to be evasive on the 13th Ammendment issue indicates that the change in India's stance at the UNHRC has not had the desired result. Colombo continues to rebuild Sri Lanka in the image of the Sinhalese Nation. If New Delhi continues to harass them on this issue, they will simply hold a referendum on the 13 Ammendment and let 70+% Sinhalese majority have the final say on the matter. A mandate from the public would cancel out the outcome of the UNHCR vote.
Indians must very clearly know that the 13 amendment was forced down on us by the Rajive Gandhi government. Highest percentage of Tamils live not in northern Srilanka and most of them live in other areas peacefully with other communities.For an instance in Kandy where I live majority of business houses are owned by Tamils and other communities and they all live together very peacefully. Even my rented house is occupied by a Tamil family. I don’t know what discrimination they face in this country. Politicians of the both side are responsible for aggravating this problem for their political gains. What Tamil people need is development, jobs, and to do things in their language in the areas they are in majority. Besides this Prabakaran was the first to start the ethnic cleansing in this country by forcing the Muslim and Sinhala communities to leave jaffna just giving 24 hour notice. Sinhalese have never resorted to that where they are in majority.
Again i am repeating that it has been customary for the past over 50
years to the Singalese leaders and their parties in the Island state to
gainsay or recant or abandon the solemnly signed agreements end or the
assurances or commitments. With such people enjoying a majority strength
and related voting power in parliament, it is impossible and totally
undesirable to compel the minority tamils to live in equal co-existence
Separate and sovereign Thamizh Eezham alone is the only solution.
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