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APRC should remodel the Political Party System, and ban Political Parties with Communal identity.

By Charles.S.Perera

APRC appears to be ready to re-commence its deliberations. It augurs well as TMVP, another representative group of the Tamil Community has also agreed to participate. There may now be no further problem with regard to other political parties to continue with their participation in the APRC proceedings.

There is of course an exception, as the UNP, JVP and perhaps the SLMC as eem to have "better" things to do, such as trying to discredit the President Mahinda Rajapakse and his government, for all progressive political decisions they take, rather than participate in the APRC, to find a solution to the so called "ethnic problem".

However, APRC should take seriously into account, that mere devolution of political power will not solve the deep rooted problem of Communal Unity. As long as there is no consensus for the different parties to league together into a Sri Lankan National entity, (burying their differences with the Majority Sinhala Community, accepting them merely as another community, and ending all their vituperations about the Mahavansa mindset, Sinhala Chavinism, and the Sinhala Buddhist Supremacism), there could not be a real solution of the "ethnic" problem.

The demand of devolution of power by the Tamil Community, seems only to fortify their Communal difference. There seems to be no genuine desire to give up their "Tamilness" in the effort to unite with the Sinhala Community, which seems to arise from an inborn inferiority complex.

More intellectual the group of people, more seems to be their problem. That is evident if one reads the several article by different Tamil writers, some perhaps more intellectuals than others, appearing in the diverse websites in the Inter Net. For example: Tamil Week, Sri Lanka Guardian, LankaeNews, Lanka Watch, Lanka Dissent and a whole host of other websites of such ilk.

In this "ethnic" problem the Muslim Community, except a few individual writers to the websites, is a Community apart, whose real interests are difficult to ascertain. Rauf Hakim, and his companions in the SLMC, fall into this category. The part that is being played by the Muslim religious groups-the Ullamas, in the effort for communal unity seems questionable. The representatives of the upcountry estate Tamils, such as Thondaman and Chandrasekaran are unreliable elements for real Communal Unity.

The APRC should take all this into consideration and have frank discussions, every one of the participants, putting "all their cards on the table", without hiding any thing that would be of negative effect to the deliberations to unite the Communities. For that is what the APRC expects. The devolution of political power is not to create rival Communities, each trying to assure communal equality, down grading other communities.

That said, the APRC has a larger role to play in finding a viable solution to the "ethnic" problem- which is the " enteric emission" of the International Community", that resulted from their "tortuous" call for peace negotiations with terrorists.

There is no "ethnic problem". This was a term invented by the International Community to explain the reason for the terrorist problem of Sri Lanka, and used by the 13 percent of Tamil population to justify their claim for equal rights with the 70 percent of the Sinhala Majority Community. Therefore, it is better to leave out this term-"ethnic problem", that explains nothing in reality. This is a correct argument as no body has identified an ethnic problem, as such, in Sri Lanka.

What then is the "ethnic problem", is it the use of the Tamil Language, in par with the Sinhala, with all the allied conveniences such as corresponding with , and receiving replies from the government in Tamil, in all their administrative dealings ?

Then the solution is simple. If it is the admission of Tamil students to Universities on a percentage basis, a solution for that too is equally simple. But are they the "ethnic problems" ?

If not those, what then is the solution sought by devolution of political power ? Sri Lanka is a multi ethnic society, if the communities are united, there is no problem in movement of people from one area to another. If the argument is that the political power is centralised, it could be decentralised under a unitary system, in respect of all provinces of Sri Lanka, without giving special privileges to the Tamils, the Sinhala or to the Muslims.

In this "ethnic problem" what is the situation of the Muslim Community ? It would not be the language, nor the admission to Universities, if it is settled to suit the Tamil Community. They of course have the special privilege of receiving 100 metric tons of Dates from Saudi Arabia every year, and that could be offered exclusively to the Muslim Community. That would not be a problem either !

If it is the political power for the Muslim Community; they would be enjoying the same political power as Sinhala, and Tamils, to contest at elections, and be elected as representatives of the people of the electorate they represent without their communal identity.

However, what the APRC should look into is neither the language disparity, and its allied consequences, nor devolution of political power according to Communities. They should neither waste their time delving into various constitutions of the world, nor should they change the constitution to satisfy communal interests. They should look into the political systems as it exists in other countries, in the world, and adopt a system that does not discriminate people according to their communal identity.

The main problem with regard to political parties in Sri Lanka is that they are to protect Communal Interests, rather than National Interests. The APRC should look into the possibility of getting different political parties to agree on re modelling their Party Constitutions to make them National Political Parties. Or still better, if the APRC could get the political parties to agree to amend the Sri Lanka Constitution, to accept political parties only as National Parties. For example Democratic Party and Republican Party in USA, Socialist Party, UMP, Communist Part etc. of France, Conservative Party, Labour Party and Liberal Party of UK.

On that basis, all reference to a Community, or a religion in the name of a Political Party should be made unconstitutional and therefore unacceptable.

If the people of different communities of Sri Lanka, accept themselves as the citizens of Sri Lanka ( and not as members of their Community), the APRC would have cleared the initial hurdle.

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