Lankan devolution package fate uncertain

“It is clear from this statement that the UNP is playing the role of the traditional opposition in the island when it comes to making concessions to the Tamil community,’ said a prominent Member of Parliament of the ruling coalition who wished to remain unnamed.

It is believed that the statement issued by the party detailing its objections to the new draft Constitution that embodies these proposals, was done at the behest of hardliners within the UNP.

When the draft is presented to Parliament on Friday, the Government will attach with it the objections of the UNP as well as the Tamil parties, and the proposals will once again be discussed and debated, this time, by all members.

Chief among the UNP’s objections are that Sri Lanka must remain a unitary state and that the north and east must be separated by statute. Tamils have traditionally regarded the north and east as their homeland and have demanded that they be merged. Some Tamil parties have agreed that a separate Muslim-majority province can be set up in the south-east, but that is as far as the Tamils are prepared to give in on this issue.

Some Tamils politicians who regard the devolution proposals in their present form as `unsatisfactory’ are of the view that the UNP’s objections even to this watered down version of their demands spells the end of the road for any reforms.

“The message from this statement is that the UNP is prepared only for decentralisation, not devolution. There can be no meaningful devolution if Sri Lanka retains its unitary character,’ said Suresh Premachandran, secretary-general of EPRLF, a Tamil party that played a prominent role in the aborted implementation of the 1987 Indo-Sri Lanka Accord.

However, others were cautiously optimistic. “The hope is that over the next two or three months, it may be possible to isolate the issues on which there are differences between the two main political groups, and then the Government and the UNP can engage in intensive discussions on these issues in order to iron out differences and arrive at some kind of consensus,’ sid TULF member of Parliament Neelam Thiruchelvam.

However, more than talks between the two main parties, the point for concern in the Government is whether UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe can bring to heel the hardliners within his party.

Political sources said Wickremesinghe mindful of the international pressure on Sri Lanka to find a quick solution to the long-drawn out ethnic conflict and eye on the minority vote-bank, favoured a more conciliatory approach to the Government’s proposals, but has so far been overruled by the hawks in the party.

“It all now hangs on the UNP leadership’s ability to assert itself,” said the source.