"Southern consensus": a necessary preamble

Notes for a New Sri Lanka by Malinda Seneviratne

Despite all the noises regarding electoral fraud made by Ranil Wickremesinghe and certain NGO personalities who are clearly upset about the results of the presidential election, the recent meeting between the UNP leader, beleaguered by dissidents within the party, and President Rajapakse clearly indicate that all concerned have resolved to live with the reality of the result.

More importantly, the emergence of a highly vocalized need to reach what is referred to as a Southern consensus, has shown that the democratic forces are probably for the first time beginning to get pro-active with respect to resolving the conflict in the North and East and hopefully its terrorist articulation in the form of the LTTE. This is then an opportunity to get our act in order instead of limiting engagement to ill-informed (mis) articulations by way of responding to Prabhakaran's agenda.

It is clear that one of the things sadly lacking on the part of the Government in previous rounds of negotiations is a position of its own, a position that clearly defines what can be negotiated and what cannot be, and more than this a position that has been validated by both historical evidence, past experience (especially with respect to Prabhakaran's track record) and the will of the people.

To begin with, it cannot be overemphasized that the term "Southern consensus" is a construct that feeds Eelam propaganda. A "Southern" consensus or a "Southern" anything implies a Northern "other". The consensus that has to be built is an anti-terrorist one, or an anti-separatist one and such a consensus must arrive for inclusion of all communities and faiths.

The first issue in terms of consensus building is deciding on the political structure of governance, for example whether we should retain the unitary character of the state or whether we should replace it with a federal structure. Prabhakaran for his part has made his position clear. He has rejected both the unitary concept as well as the federal option.

He wants nothing less than separation. Although some propose that taking a diametrically opposite view would result in an impasse, President Rajapakse should understand that the position he takes should not follow from a desire to break through "impasses" that are the artificial creations of those who will not eschew violence, but rather from a review of historical evidence.

In this he will have to understand that he cannot do injustice to the vast majority of the population who are peace-loving and have placed faith in democratic institutions just so that a man who has placed his faith in bombs and bullets is cured of a well-crafted pout.

In 2005 it was a totally different story. Mahinda didn't just say "peace he clearly said "unitary". He won. He got a mandate. It must be remembered, also, that he won in spite of considerable forces actively and indeed passionately canvassing against him.

Apart from the UNP, he was tripped at every turn by the outgoing President and others in his own party. The minorities, who had for years exacted much more than a pound of flesh, benefiting from the divided Sinhalese, backed his key opponent. The Catholic church, led by Archbishop Oswald Gomis, openly campaigned against him.

The big businesses led by Lalith Kotelawala spent hundreds of millions of rupees in trying to defeat him. All private media institutions, except perhaps the Upali Group, overwhelmingly backed Ranil Wickremesinghe.

He still won. Had the field been less skewed against him, the mandate for Mahinda Chinthana would have been that much more significant, one can conclude. Indeed, it is likely that he would have secured well over 70% of the vote outside the North, East and certain parts of the central provinces.

Today, with his victory, many of the forces arrayed against Rajapakse have either gone silent or are trying to mend fences, knowing well that having backed the wrong horse, the best bet would be to kiss the hand that would not get bitten, so to speak.

Today, Mahinda Rajapakse and his mandate are in a position of strength. Today he can tell, "Well folks, the people made a choice. This is what they said. Unitary. Are you asking me to turn my back on the mandate I won? Wouldn't that be punching democracy between the eyes? No, friends, we must build the Southern consensus around the mandate given by the people, around the unitary state."

It must be recognized that this is not a position that the UNP cannot accept. After all, federalism was as pointed out above, Chandrika's dead rope. It was just Ranil Wickremesinghe's UNP that swallowed that story wholesale. There is no shame in going back to the party's original position, that is, the unitary character of the state is a strict non-negotiable.

I believe that there is no reason why Mahinda should back down from his mandate, for he is in no risk of losing ground politically. Indeed, if he maintains his commitment to implement Mahinda Chinthana, he can only grow stronger with time.

I also believe that if he wants to silence the federalists for all time, he can do that too. He can settle the question of historical homelands once and for all by using his executive powers to gazette the setting up of an independent and qualified panel to investigate the historical claims which are the basis for the federalist proposal.

Since this is a position based on claims and not on fact, he can seek a conclusion based on evidence. If it is found that the North and East are in fact the "exclusive historical homelands" of Tamil people, then he can offer to submit to the transformation of the state in congruence to these findings, federalism or even separation.

If not, then the LTTE loses all legitimacy and can no longer hide the fact that it is a terrorist organization engaged in attempted land theft. Parenthetically speaking, someone can ask, "Who after all drew these lines demarcating province and district and on what basis", for that alone would throw the historical claim into the dustbin called anti-intellectualism.

If the 'South' in the articulation 'Southern consensus' refers to the clustering that excludes the North (where the couple of hundred thousand Tamils who have not fled Prabhakaran's tyranny were not allowed to exercise their franchise) and the East (where too Prabhakaran's 'stay order' was implemented in certain areas), a good indication of popular opinion can be obtained from the election results themselves.

In these districts, Mahinda Rajapakse averaged over 60 per cent of the popular vote.

Whereas Ranil Wickremesinghe, in both his manifesto and his campaign rhetoric, said, he stood for a federal 'solution', Rajapakse, we all know, asked for a mandate to maintain the unitary status of the nation. This is clearly articulated in Mahinda Cinthana, his official manifesto. The 'South', then, overwhelmingly favoured 'unitary' over 'federal'.

Today there is talk of returning to the 'agreements' reached in Oslo and Tokyo, which clearly state that negotiations should take place within the idea of a federal framework. The first thing to remember is that the Ranil Wickremesinghe regime did not receive any mandate from the people to submit or submit to any such proposal.

Neither were these agreements put before the people in any formal manner for ratification. They were agreements signed by delegates who had no mandate, no vision, and absolutely lacking in a sense of history or in sensitivity to the pulse of the people. They were agreements they did not have to be arm-twisted to sign for the simple reason that they had no position of their own and seemed to be operating as though Prabhakaran was doing them a favour by 'conceding' federalism.

Secondly, the only time that the public pulse on the issue was tested, namely the 2005 Presidential Election, the Oslo and Tokyo positions were overwhelmingly rejected by the South. For these reasons, there can be no justification in citing these agreements as the basis for building a 'Southern Consensus'.

The starting point, therefore, has to be Mahinda Chintanaya insofar as it refers to the political position he was elected to represent, namely, the unitary character of the State. It would be worthwhile to compare and contrast the matter of 'mandate' as per the election results of 1994, 2001 and 2005.

In 1994 the PA came to power thanks largely to widespread anti-UNP sentiment built over 17 years of virtual disenfranchisement, corruption and merciless unleashing of state terror on unarmed populations. Chandrika interpreted this victory won largely by default as a mandate for federalism. She attempted to foist federalism on the people by way of the infamous 'Package' and the ill-fated Draft Constitution of 2000.

Federalism, then, was in no uncertain terms the lanuwa that Chandrika created, or, more accurately was created for her by the NGO mafia (made up of leftists and retired terrorists) and Eelamists whom she embraced as her principal advisors. It was this lanuwa that Ranil Wickremesinghe caught hold of as though it was a baton passed to him by a team-mate.

And yet, even in 2001, Ranil only said "I am for peace". He didn't utter the word federalism. He didn't say he will negotiate. He didn't say he will negotiate away the nation's territorial integrity and sovereignty to a terrorist. But this is exactly what his key 'negotiators' or 'appeasers', G. L. Peiris and Milinda Moragoda did in Oslo and Tokyo.

If anyone says that devolution/resolution should be based on today's ground reality, the following arguments can be made. One, the LTTE's ground reality is a minuscule size of its image. Two, the LTTE is not the sole-representative of the Tamil people (Karuna, Anandasangari, the EPDP and PLOTE are individually and collectively too significant to conclude this).

Three, if we offer solutions to current ground realities, we will end up having to offer solutions every other day; if the LTTE ethnically cleanses Wayamba of Sinhalese and Muslims, then that province will have to be conceded, federally or otherwise; if the LTTE is wiped out tomorrow, then Tamils in Jaffna may have to say goodbye even to the benefits of decentralised administration. Four, even today, the people in the so-called LTTE-controlled areas would be in an even more pathetic situation if not for the money pumped into those areas through the state apparatus.

Mahinda has to do two things his predecessor did not or could not do. First, he must show commitment to his mandate and moreover use it to ask the democratic world whether it seriously advocates that he kick the will of the people in its proverbial behind.

"My people have spoken," he can say, "now do you want me to un-speak them, and if so could you please tell me how?" Related to this, he can build on his gains. Whereas Chandrika actively campaigned to market her federal lie for which she did not have a mandate, Mahinda has been conferred the right to broadbase the support for the unitary democratic truth that was uttered on November 17, 2005. He can talk history. He can tell the Eelamists, 'show up or shut up', demanding that they substantiate their claims of historical homeland.

Secondly, he must spare no pains to counter LTTE falsehoods both here and abroad. He must set up a mechanism to keep our foreign missions always on their toes to, a) give the widest publicity possible to the LTTE's transgressions, both big and small, and b) to respond to the LTTE's false propaganda.

In addition, he must take decisive action whenever the armed forces are at fault, admitting when they've themselves transgressed and taking corrective measures, in short cleaning up our act on the ground.

Finally, LTTE or no LTTE, he has to deliver to the people in the North and East all the opportunities enjoyed by those in other parts of the country and if the LTTE does anything to prevent delivery, he must give the widest publicity to the fact that Prabhakaran just doesn't want the Tamil people to better their lives.