UNITE FOR UNITARY
If the newspaper reports are correct, about eighteen or more members of the UNP will join the government, and at least five of them will be sworn in as cabinet ministers. However, these calculations can be nullified, and until the somersault takes place nobody is in a position to predict what would happen, with certainty. The political situation in Sri Lanka is fluctuating so rapidly depending on both internal and external forces, implying that neither the national forces nor the non national forces have been able to claim victory. However, the general trends are clear and could be easily identified.
The politicians and the political parties are merely the agents of the political forces, and for some time the struggle has been between the national forces and the non national forces. Since the parivasa anduwa (probationary government) days the national forces were gaining in strength until the presidential elections saw Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse emerging the winner. The election of Mr. Rajapakse was a victory of the national forces, and it is very likely that the non national forces spent many a nights designing a strategy to defeat the President as well as the sandhanaya government. The JVP by not giving the government, the full support that they could have given, may have helped the non national forces unconsciously.
Since the day one after the Presidential Elections Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse had to be courageous to take steps to attack the LTTE, knowing very well that the LTTE had a strong support externally including the support from the USA and other western provinces, the Tamil diaspora, and the NGOs. The Sinhala majority voted for Mr. Rajapakse, and they were keen to see that the country remained a unitary state, and defeat the LTTE militarily. There were threats of economic sanctions, agitations by the NGOs, the official Christian and Catholic churches and the various international bodies against "violations of human rights", allegations of the violation of the "ceasefire agreement" by the LTTE, TNA, UNP and the "international community" that the President could expect. Had the JVP decided to join the government listening to Mr. Nandana Gunathilake and the majority of the political bureau of the party the hand of the President would have been strengthened. However, apparently the central committee of the JVP had decided to go against the wish of the political bureau, probably for the first time in the history of the party, and the national forces were weakened within the government as a result. It is an irony that the JVP that held portfolios in the Chandrika Kumaratuunga government (parivasa) decided not to do so in the Mahinda Rajapakse government which is more nationalist than the former was.
As a result of the JVP not joining the government, the President had to look elsewhere for support, and the non national forces within and outside the government began to apply pressure. Had the JVP joined the government there was the possibility of sending the Norwegian facilitators and the SLMM monitors home, tearing the so called ceasefire agreement. If the government had to listen to the non national forces it is the fault of the national forces that could not come together as a team to defeat the former. The President was elected on Mahinda Chinthana that emphasised a unitary state. However, it did not mean that all the leaders of the sandhanaya were for a unitary state, and the federalists were waiting for time. Gradually the federalists took the upper hand even though some of the parties that advocated federalism, such as the LSSP and the Communist Party do not have any elected members in the Parliament. The MPs and cabinet ministers from these parties are from the national list, and they are functioning in those capacities, simply because the national forces had elected the President on his Mahinda Chinthana manifesto. It is another irony that parties that have no support at all in the country, and that do not represent more than most probably some ten thousand die hard Marxists and other "ideologists", trying to dictate terms to the national forces, forgetting conveniently that they have been appointed by a President who has been elected to maintain the unitary state. It has to be emphasised to all the "sudu nelum", "thavalam" campaigners and others that Ms. Chandrika Kumaratunga was replaced, not so much because the constitution did not give her the opportunity to contest for a third time, but due to her federal policies and the resultant "package" engineered by Dr. G. L. Peiris and others.
The Sinhala people, for nearly sixty years since the establishment of the so called Federal Party, its official name being Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi or Lanka Tamil State Party, have resisted Federalism, and for about thirty years the bogus concept of Tamil homeland in the Northern and the Eastern Provinces, and separatism, and the Federalists should at least realise now that there is no way that they would achieve their ambitions. It is because there is no basis for federalism in this country, and the claims for federalism and separatism are based on myths. The majority of the Sinhala people whether they vote the SLFP, UNP, JVP, JHU, MEP (not many people vote the LSSP and the CP, not to mention the archaic Trotskyite three wheeler parties, if I may borrow a term coined by Mr. Anura Bandaranaike) are against Federalism, as could be verified by conducting a referendum. However, the leaders of some of these parties are Federalists, and it is they who attempt to hoodwink the Sinhala people after becoming cabinet members ironically through the back door on the vote of the very same Sinhalas.
The strategies of all the Federalists have failed so far, including making use of the APRC and the Panel of Experts, ( I would not divulge more on the APRC and the Panel of experts at this stage, as I am a member of the former), and they are bound to fail in the future. The President has been forced to obtain the support of some Federalists as a result of the JVP not joining the government, but it is up to the national forces to be vigilant on the activities of these Federalists both inside and outside the government. Dr. G. L. Peiris and others who are apparently about to join the government, should realise that they cannot go against the wish of the people who elected the President on a unitary manifesto. The Packages, Apex bodies (in Sinhala they are called Koota Mandala), ethnic enclaves etc., should not be even studied. They are dead horses, which people have rejected over and over. It is a waste of time even to think of reviving those concepts albeit with different names. The average Sinhala person may not be able to differentiate between old wine and new wine but they cannot be fooled by new bottles or even by old bottles for that matter.
When there were discussions between some UNPers and the government some time ago, due to internal politics within the UNP, it was clear that the "international community" did not like it, as probably they thought that it would strengthen the hands of the President, and subsequently the national forces as well. They immediately worked towards the MoU between the UNP and the SLFP, which was in effect an extension of the infamous Lium Fox agreement. Probably the "international community" thought that they could force a federal solution through the MoU and were working towards it. It has to be recalled that one of the conditions in the MoU was that the UNP could be represented by two members in the APRC, while each of the other parties are entitled to only one representative. This condition was enforced probably to accommodate the two factions within the UNP, but the participation of the UNP in the APRC was welcomed by the Federalists in general.
The MoU between the UNP and the SLFP was a defeat for the national forces, and the indications were that the Federalists were going to use all the fora to achieve their ends. However, the internal politics of the UNP had deteriorated to such an extent, even with MoU the division within the party could not be resolved. What the westerners cannot know is the mind of the Sinhala people, and whether the latter are educated or not in a western sense, the Sinhalas have a logic of their own. This logic does not tally with the western Aristotelian logic, and very often cannot be changed even with an Oxbridge education. Even a western Science or Mathematics education will hardly change the mind of the Sinhala person, which is to our advantage, though we may not produce any Nobel Prize wining Scientists or Field medallists in Mathematics. The westerners who cannot understand the mind of the Sinhala person may call it irrationalism, but we should not be bothered by western rationalism.
If the eighteen or more members of the UNP join the government it would be the end of the MoU between the UNP and the SLFP, and to that extent, the Sinhalas could be happy. However, the "international community" would not keep quiet and the Sinhalas should be as vigilant as ever. The community would try to use the Federalists in the government, who would be strengthened by the joining of the UNPers. If those UNPers who join the government think that they can change the wish of the Sinhalas by supporting the President then they are mistaken. They should be joining the government to help the President to maintain the unitary state and not to impose a federal solution that the Sinhala people have rejected time and again.
Professor Nalin de Silva
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