Wish to retain the 13th Amendment-Sunday, 23. December 2012

The serpent of communalism is back on the street with its fangs darting. Those who thought that they could ignore devolution and work as they wished got a severe slap on the face by the decision against the Divineguma. All such rallied around the impeachment, understanding that as a battle for the unitary state. They correctly understood what is challenged by the ruling against Divineguma is the majoritism unitary state in Lanka. However, the mass uprising to defend the chief justice and the rule of law shattered their simplistic hopes. Like the heroes of the A-team, the chauvinist conspirators in this country, once fallen, in the second round came prepared for their frontal attack. A-team in children’s stories may do wonders in the second round. But I doubt whether the Simple Simons of the Sinhala majority could get away with murder this time. They have prepared to enter the arena to dismantle the 13th Amendment over the heads of the Lankan intelligentsia. The Executive Council of the Organisation of Professional Associations of Sri Lanka (OPA) has come out with their draft of the impeachment motion and the 13 Amendment to the Constitution.
Past president of the OPA and current chairman of the National Issues Commission, Karunaratne Parakrama, said that the government should stop the impeachment motion brought against Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake. At the same time, they want to repeal the 13th Amendment. He said though they work for the government, that does not imply they support every move of the government; we are very happy to hear that. Also, commenting on the impeachment, he said it is the procedure that matters the most and there should be an independent inquiry on this matter. That agreed, I believe, with what Mahinda suggested.

A visible threat
However the real ideology of these professionals came out when they spoke about the 13th Amendment. Speaking on the 13th Amendment, Parakrama said that there are certain provisions in the amendment which are valuable and salutary and should be retained with necessary amendments to the Constitution. But they say the 13th Amendment is a threat to the sovereignty and independence of Lanka. Apparently, there is a visible threat to the very identity of every citizen of Sri Lanka and hence the 13th Amendment or any such laws should be rejected!
I am amazed as to how these professionals came to such conclusions. Did they go through an analysis, social or political, thorough enough to make such a sweeping statement? Because the committee that produced the LLRC report, loyal servants of the state of Sri Lanka, came out with their document after going through a mass of evidence, both written and verbal, from people of all communities and all social layers, that states the very opposite to these professionals. LLRC accepts present devolution as valuable and proposes going beyond that, consolidating what is gained from the 13th Amendment. In that context, I doubt the professionalism of the OPA pundits but I am very certain about their ideology because I can smell rotten fish from miles away.

Formed a front
However we are fortunate; while such conspiracies are going on against the 13th Amendment, I see that some sections within the government coming on to our side of the battle field. Opportunist left parties that were wagging their tails to the master all these years say that they will not support any bill to abolish the 13th Amendment. Already, these parties combined with small national liberation parties have formed a front to protect the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. The parties are the Communist Party of Senior Minister D.E.W. Gunasekara, Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) of which the leader is the Minister of Traditional Industries and Small Enterprise Development, Douglas Devananda, Ceylon Workers Congress leader and Minister of Livestock Development, R. Thondaman, Sri Lanka Muslim Congress leader and Justice Minister Rauff Hakeem, Provincial Councils and Local Government Minister A.L.M. Athaullah, Lanka Sama Samaja Party’s (LSSP) Prof. Tissa Vitarana and Democratic Left Front (DLF) leader and Minister of National Integration, Vasudeva Nanayakkara.
It must be noted that the battle for devolution in the present form started not with the Indo-Lanka Agreement but several years before that. It started in 2006 with President J.R. Jayewardene appointing the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) to find a political solution to the national problem. After a long drawn-out process a final report was submitted to the president in August 2007. The devolution proposal came out of that effort. The 13th Amendment is an achievement and it cannot be given up unless better power sharing is given in the form of an expanded devolution of power.