Sri Lanka's lucky number

"The main fear is that the process wouldn't stop there. If the Thirteenth Amendment were implemented, its critics argue, more would be demanded. Then would come federalism and perhaps even secession."
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By Kath Noble

(July 22, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The campaign against the Thirteenth Amendment has been moving at top speed for the last couple of weeks. A whole lot of people who ran out of things to shout about when Prabhakaran snuffed it in that muddy swamp have latched onto the issue, trying to make opposition to its implementation seem like a natural extension of the war. Politicians have been making their usual speeches. Monks have been on the streets, distributing leaflets claiming that the Thirteenth Amendment would undo the victory that so many Sri Lankans died to achieve. Commentators have been stuffing the newspapers with their fears, bombarding us with the idea that something awful would happen if it were implemented.

The only actual debate that I have seen, meaning an exchange of reasoned opinion on both sides, has been played out in these pages between Malinda Seneviratne and Dayan Jayatilleka. At the end of it, one of them, whether for this or some other reason, lost his job. But reviewing the words traded in the process, I believe that the other lost the argument.

An unfortunate amount of space was taken up with the international relevance of the Thirteenth Amendment, discussing whether implementation was necessary to keep India on side and whether having India as a friend was really so crucial to Sri Lanka. I'm sure that there are many people who would take Dayan's word for its importance, given that he has spent the last two years marshalling support for this country in Geneva, and with great success, but I don't think that we need to be so presumptuous.

Whatever one believes, there is no getting away from the fact that the Government has promised the Thirteenth Amendment to many people on numerous occasions. The statements issued after the recent meetings with India and the United Nations Secretary General are just two of them. Similar undertakings have been entered into with China, and I remember hearing Douglas Devananda speaking on behalf of Mahinda Rajapaksa at a United Nations conference telling all one hundred and ninety something member states loud and clear that the Government was fully committed to implementation.

I don't suggest that it would be impossible to retract these statements. Sri Lanka wouldn't have much credibility next time it wanted help from other countries unless it could demonstrate that it had come up with a better idea in the meantime, but maybe it won't need any support in future. Isolation doesn't sound very appealing, especially when Prabhakaran's diaspora backers are so desperate for an opportunity to spend all the money that he collected, but we could always hope for their conversion to democracy. Boosting the domestic security apparatus still further would be another unattractive option.

If the Thirteenth Amendment were truly going to bring disaster on the country, I agree that it would be sensible to just accept the consequences, however nasty. I haven't come across a sensible argument demonstrating that implementation would risk anything much, that's all.

As for showing that the Government had found a more effective option, I don't mean as Neville Laduwahetty has proposed that it would be enough to hold a referendum. Given that the whole point of the Thirteenth Amendment is that Sri Lanka isn't accommodating Tamils sufficiently, a no vote by a simple majority isn't going to convince anyone. Neither would it be persuasive to suggest as Malinda does that Sri Lanka needs to do a bit more study of the problems. Frankly, if you haven't looked into it by now, you aren't going to. Any alternative that the Government put forward would have to be concrete, and available immediately.

I say that this focus on the Thirteenth Amendment's relationship with foreign policy was unfortunate because of its history. Everyone remembers India forcing the agreement on Sri Lanka, and any indication that they were doing the same again would naturally be disturbing. This has been a conflict of three decades, let's not forget, and one in which foreign nations have played an unhelpful part on several occasions. The recent efforts of a number of European countries to persuade the United Nations to intervene in the final battle with Prabhakaran, interpreted by many people as an attempt to prolong matters still further, served to enhance opposition to any proposals with international connections. The heated debate that generally follows suggestions that the Thirteenth Amendment must be implemented to satisfy other countries only distracts attention from the real issue.

It is what happens in Sri Lanka that is most important. The Thirteenth Amendment was introduced to try and solve problems in this country, and we should be looking at the implications for people here in deciding whether or not it should be implemented.

The least convincing of the points made against the Thirteenth Amendment is that it simply hands over powers to politicians. Obviously it does, and there is no guarantee that people involved in politics at a lower level would be any more interested in the fate of their voters than Members of Parliament or the President. However, the narrower the gap between the public and their elected representatives, the more likely they are to be responsive to needs, if democracy is allowed to work as it should. Shortcomings that we have witnessed in practice over the last few years are no proof that the system itself is fundamentally wrong. Flaws must be corrected, to ensure that Provincial Councils have sufficient funds and the policy space to function as was intended.

This is a general objection to devolution, in any case. Other such arguments have been put forward, most notably with regard to the cost, presumably because of the introduction of another layer of expensive bureaucracy. This might be a perfectly reasonable basis on which to oppose Provincial Councils if not for the fact that Sri Lanka has one of the largest public services in the world, on a per capita basis, with a Cabinet to match. A little slimming down at the centre would allow for capacity to be built at the periphery without any extra money being spent.

I'm sure that none of the most enthusiastic campaigners against the Thirteenth Amendment believe that these are key issues. They are simply ways of attracting more people to their cause, capitalising on frustration with politics in general and the Government in particular. That is a global phenomenon.

The problems that the Thirteenth Amendment was intended to address are about Tamils and how they are accommodated in Sri Lanka, as mentioned above. There are a number of well known grievances. Aspirations are there too.

I believe that Malinda is basically right in wanting to solve these without reference to territory. As he says, only half the Tamil population lives in the North and East, and there are many things that can be done to make Sri Lanka the kind of state in which all communities feel equally empowered. Change is already underway. As regards language, for example, Tamils are being recruited to the Police and Security Forces, while Government employees are now required to study Tamil to gain promotions. These developments are very positive, and I hope that one day they will bear fruit and we can talk of a genuinely inclusive Sri Lanka. This is a small country, and if it can be truly united, so much the better.

There is also sense in the argument that as the country develops and people's circumstances improve, their aspirations will change. The North and East have suffered from decades of neglect. If schools and hospitals can be improved, irrigation systems restored, roads upgraded and jobs created, that will help.

The problem is that this all takes time. More significantly, an awful lot of people have no confidence that it will ever happen effectively. Some grievances have persisted because of the conflict, so one could reasonably expect them to improve quickly now that it is over, but not all. Language, to use the same example as above, has been an issue for decades. It was technically resolved by making Tamil an official language in the Thirteenth Amendment, but this hasn't translated into practice. We all know it. Whether it is incompetence or unwillingness that has prevented action matters very little to a person who isn't able to communicate with officials whose salaries he or she is paying. Many things can be blamed on Prabhakaran, but not this.

This is why the Thirteenth Amendment is relevant. As I think Dayan said, if Tamils aren't given political space at the centre, they will look to the periphery, to areas in which they can form a majority or at least a significant voting bloc. They will be able to affect change there, unlike in the country as a whole, so things are far more likely to happen. If they are successful, Tamils living elsewhere may return too. They can weigh up the options, depending on what politicians in Provincial Councils and in Parliament deliver.

I don't think that this has anything to do with the concept of a homeland. We don't need to review who came from where and how long they stayed in what kind of numbers, pledging fealty to whom. History doesn't matter. What is proposed is to hand over some of the governance of particular areas to bodies made up of the representatives of people who live there. The reform is very limited in scope.

The main fear is that the process wouldn't stop there. If the Thirteenth Amendment were implemented, its critics argue, more would be demanded. Then would come federalism and perhaps even secession. However, this assumes that none of the changes that both Malinda and Dayan want to see happen will materialise. If they did, not only would no community feel the need to request additional powers, they wouldn't get any serious recognition for their claim.

What really disturbs me about the campaign against the Thirteenth Amendment is the fact that none of the participants seem to be in the slightest bit concerned about the impact of deciding not to implement it. The ordinary man on the street may not know what it's all about as yet, but he soon will. This long conflict has polarised society and many people have lost confidence in the state, whether for genuine reasons or due to propaganda. Dumping the only reform of its kind in a generation would be big news, and it could become a rallying call for the disaffected. There will be plenty of those for some time to come. That is surely the last thing that Sri Lanka needs at this historic moment, with Prabhakaran no longer around to prevent it moving forward as a nation.

Kath Noble is a freelance journalist based in Colombo. She may be contacted by email at kathnoble99@gmail.com.

-Sri Lanka Guardian