CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

Mr.Anandasangaree says…., but, Mr.Anandasangaree is an honorable man.

By Charles Perera

Mr. Anandasangaree says, "The merged provinces have for a period of 17 years gained legitimacy by remaining so, uninterrupted and un-challenged.

People who had lived in these merged provinces and some born there, have enjoyed certain fundamental rights that cannot be interfered with."

A wrong, that had been continued unchecked for a number of years, does not become a right, at the end of the period. It is also questionable whether the , people who lived in the merged North East and some born there have enjoyed certain fundamental rights that cannot be interfered with.

The question often posed with regard to devolution of power is that the Sinhala Supremacists have denied the Tamil people their fundamental rights, if such is the case what are the certain fundamental rights those in the merged provinces had enjoyed, which cannot be interfered with, according to Mr. Anandasangaree. If they had enjoyed certain fundamental rights, then it is a lie to say that the Tamil people have been denied their fundamental rights by successive Sri Lanka Governments.

Nobody has still said what the fundamental rights that had been denied to the Tamil people by the government. Victor Ivan also was speaking about it in a recent interview and could only think of the right of the Tamil people to correspond with the government Departments in Tamil. That is not such a difficult problem and the President could give effect to it with a simple Gazette Notification. What else…….
Mr.Anandasangaree says again, that he is not arguing whether the merger of the North and the East is justifiable or not, but only emphasizing that this is not the time to do it. But Here Mr. Anandasangaree should be more precise, and say when it is the appropriate time to de-merge.
A solution to a problem should be stated clearly and precisely , without leaving someone else to fill the gaps. If the merger of North East was merely on a Agreement between Rajiv Gandhi and JR Jayawardhana, it could have been argued that the de-merger should be decided by a referendum of the people of the North and East.

But as this agreement was subsequently included in the Constitution of Sri Lanka as an Amendment, it becomes a National issue and the de-merger should be decided by the people of Sri Lanka as a whole, not just the people of the two provinces affected. However , the question of a referendum poses a problem, when a decision by the High Court of Sri Lanka remains unexecuted.

Mr.Anandasangaree says, that If only the LTTE had not taken over parts of these provinces now under their control, the Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims would have lived happily in peace and harmony. Here Mr.Anandasangaree is correct, but unfortunately the whole problem has surfaced because of the LTTE terrorists taking over parts of the provinces. There is no other alternative now, other than to dislodge the LTTE terrorists from the parts of the provinces taken over by them, to enable the Sinhala ,Tamil and Muslim to live happily in peace and harmony.

Mr. Anandasagaree’s argument , that the de-merger at this juncture will only make the Tamils and the Muslims of the Eastern Province to desperately go behind the LTTE finding no alternative and forgetting all their ruthless recent past., does not hold water, because one does not see clearly, why these suffering Tamil and Muslim people of the East will want to go after the LTTE terrorists if there is a de-merger. Already thousands of people are fleeing the terrorists controlled areas to Government areas, and that shows that ordinary Tamil and Muslim people still trust the Government and the army. That means, that the people have decided on their own which way to turn.

It is wrong to say, that those who want de-merger have no vested interest in the merged area. It is merely to spite the minorities that all sorts of demands crop up. This is an indirect reference to JVP and JHU , but, neither the JVP nor the JHU have shown anti-Tamil and Muslim sentiments in asking for the de-merger. Mr.Anandasangaree does not see, that the de-merger will weaken the Terrorists, and that will be a step towards the defeat of terrorism in Sri Lanka. In this war against terrorism the people should not be divided ethnically or politically, we have to fight this detestable terrorism together as Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim, and afterwards get rid of the divisive elements and build a United Sri Lanka where the Sinhala, Tamil, and Muslim will be a united force.

And for that we should have a unitary constitution, with a suitable power sharing structure. A Federal constitution following the Indian Model may not be the panacea for all our ills.

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