Our Constitutional Council (CC) is the product of an extremely rare moment in our post-independence political history at which legislators of all hues arrived at a consensus. Unfortunately its efficacy has been retarded by undue haste and amateurish handling in creating it, as shown by its shaky existence. While the CC has suffered the lack of labour and concentration of a Cesarean birth, its proposed reform is struggling to be born for a long time in a select committee of Parliament.

A CC is basically a French idea. The French Constitutional Council (Conseil Constitutionnel) was established by the Constitution of the Fifth Republic in 1958. The idea of a CC is alien to common law countries headed by the United Kingdom. …

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It is hard for those who have no access to the camps in the North to form a realistic opinion on the plight of the over 65,000 refugees who are supposed to bestuck in an ‘event horizon’ inside them. While the authorities paint quite a rosy picture of it, their detractors seek to discredit the claim. Assuming that the truth is half way between them, I wish to offer a few suggestions on how to improve the ground situation, depending on my past experience of working for the displaced in the North.

The main complaint is about the conditions in the camp. The tents in which the refugees are housed are reported to be too small, too low and uncomfortable. The …

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The question posed by Groundviews, “What is the most important issue facing the peoples of Sri Lanka in a ‘post-LTTE’ context and how can the State address it?” is very complex. It is hard to answer it succinctly as requested. Besides ‘post LTTE’ is a debatable presumption and limiting the focus of addressing it to the State, appears to exclude the principal actors, the People, from the dramatis personae. Finding an issue in the singular is difficult in a scenario in which both political and economic issues are equally important.

Be magnanimous
The motive power behind the war against the LTTE was the ‘Dutugemunu’ frame of mind. I believe that the most productive response to the emerging situation is that the State …

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I have read An alternative grid map of political opinion serving the best interests of Sri Lanka posted by C A Saliya on March 18, 2009 in the Groundviews in response to Dayan Jayatilleka’s The grid map of political opinion in Sri Lanka appearing in FEDERALiDEA on March 10, 2009.

Saliya opines,

“It it is not convincingly justified why the pro-devolution cause cannot be productively served from anti-military standpoint. In fact it is contradictory to promote devolution of power while endorsing pro-war military mentality which can easily be misinterpreted as a military solution.”

Much as I agree with Saliya’s viewpoint, it has to be pointed out that it loses its relevance at this stage when the military initiative is supposed …

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Now that the armed conflict of the LTTE is supposed to be approaching its end, it behoves those concerned with the future of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, to reflect seriously on the options available to redeem their future. In that context, the speech delivered at the seminar organized by NIPU on December 21, 2008, by Sumanasiri Liyanage on“Reformist Perspective on Constitutional Change“, assumes relevance and significance. The text of the speech has been reproduced in Groundviews on February 10, 2009.

The Incrementally Progressive Approach
Liyanage sums up his preferred option for the Tamils as follows; 

‘My submission here is if the advocates of pluralist democratic constitutional order adopt a strategy of gradual and incremental …

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There is no doubt that our ethnic conflict is the worst scourge that has bedeviled this nation since Independence. An incisive and objective look at the calamity would reveal that it is being prolonged by misconceptions born of prejudice, parochialism and rivalry.

Perhaps the initial mis-concept is the impulsive assumption that the conflict has to be settled by a grant of concessions from one sector of the nation to another. There can be no ‘grantors’ or ‘grantees’ among ethnic groups in a nation. Once a community is inside, it should automatically be entitled to all privileges of citizenship. These privileges are inbuilt and non-negotiable. What is negotiable is only synchronization of interests.

In the national context, fundamental rights do not depend on …

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I wish to draw wider public attention to the following extract appearing in “A short note from the Vanni” written by “Witness” and appearing in the Groundviews on September 30, 2008:

“The people now staying at Vattakachi and Tharmapuram areas are requesting to announce these areas as “safe zones” for the civilians. Food and shelter are desperately needed, as people are suffering without anything to eat and nowhere to rest.”

I can visualize the pathetic situation vividly as I personally watched a similar scene in 1996 when refugees marched back to Jaffna from Kilinochchi. Unfortunately, the above revelation has failed to attract sympathetic attention to the miserable plight of the refugees in Vanni today. Instead a barrage of comments …

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For all intents and purposes, the All Party Conference (APC), has been a waste of time by playing for time, all the time. Periodic boycotts and exits of parties based on their factional agendas have indirectly helped the procrastination, supported by the lack of political will and courage on the part of those in authority.

Now at last there appears to be a ray of hope arising from the emerging political climate based on the state of the war and the performance of the respective political parties at the recent provincial council elections, not to mention international pressure.

It was reported in the papers recently that the APC had made up its mind to implement the Thirteenth Amendment and was writing to …

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When we were being initiated to English under the Free Education Scheme, our teacher used to ask us to, “Hurry up and go slowly.” This command made us laugh, for by then we knew enough English to see the seeming paradox.

Sixty years later, I do not laugh at the words any more. I see their wisdom particularly in relation to the resolution of our ethnic conflict. They seem to indicate the way to put an end to this cancerous problem.

“Hurry up” implies urgency, commitment and absence of prevarication. The ethnic problem has dragged on for 60 years after independence and there has never been a dedicated commitment to resolve it. Dilly dallying has always been the order of the day. …

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Now that the government appears to be fighting the war to a finish, it behoves concerned members of our civil society to put their heads together to evolve an optimum Peace Package that could win over as many contenders as possible in our ethnic dispute.

Once I blamed a Tamil friend of mine who is a leading professional, for not taking an active part in the search for a solution to the ethnic impasse. He was despondent and thought it a waste of time to get involved with a problem that no government after independence has had the guts to get to grips with. According to him, all of them have been intimidated by the threat of a highly inflated vociferous …

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It would be short-sighted to dismiss out of hand, the current offer of the LTTE of a ‘cease-fire’.

Apart from anything else, it will create the impression that we were hell bent on the war regardless of its pathetic consequences to human life and rights - an impression that would further erode our standing internationally. On the other hand accepting the offer would infuriate the proponents of ‘fight to a finish’, who appear to be the mainstay of a government in crisis. This dilemma calls for an ingenious response that neither rejects nor accepts the offer.

To ‘cease’ is to ‘stop’ but to ‘hold’ is to ‘pause’. Pausing the on-going battles for a brief period of a month cannot harm the …

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by Somapala Gunadheera

Off and on, I write short stories, never anecdotes. But now I have to oblige Sanjana. He wants stories about our ethnic riots, the one that raged before he was born and the other when he was at school. Therapists say that anecdotes have a healing effect on ethnic wounds.

My experience about the 1983 riot was brief. Then I was the Chairman of the Ceylon Steel Corporation at Athurugiriya. Towards mid-day, I heard that Tigers had invaded Colombo and people were running away helter-skelter. The Aturugiriya Police had blocked the road opposite their station and were in battle array.

Later it transpired that the beginning of the turmoil was the sighting of a Tamil victim of the riot hiding …

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Most of what I reveal below has been lying concealed in my notes and diaries deposited in the Government Achieves. I have decided to focus on them out of my belief that they may throw some light as we grope through the darkness covering our arduous trek towards national reconciliation. Read between the lines with insight, they may perhaps point the way to peace and prosperity.

I started my career in the then Ceylon Civil Service in 1957 as a Cadet in the Jaffna Kachcheri. My thoughts of Jaffna are nostalgic, prompted by the happy life I led among a hospitable, and peace-loving people, nurtured in the best traditions of a noble culture. I always looked forward to returning the ample …

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