_ BackTHE UNIT OF DEVOLUTION
Nobody makes meticulous preparations for the wedding of a son while the question of who the bride would be is yet undecided. Yet, the Government in its 'wisdom' has put forward elaborate proposals for the devolution of power to Regions without a proposal of what the Regions should be, and has, purportedly, left this question for decision by the Select Committee.
The Select Committee itself, composed as it is of Members of Parliament whose political futures would depend on toeing the lines of their respective Parties, appears to be in no hurry to determine this fundamental question but commenced its proceedings with discussions about the powers of Governors, the number of Ministers each Council should have and other such peripheral matters - an exercise akin to embarking on the Committee Stage of a Bill before the Second Reading !!
The vast majority of the members of the Select Committee are of the PA and the UNP which are parties, the difference between which is like unto the vast and unbridgeable difference between two bottles of soda water marketed under two different brand names. Neither Party has yet made a firm and uncompromising statement of whether or not they or either of them will countenance the merger of the Northern and Eastern Provinces or not.
The racist Tamil Parties and Groups have never ever wavered from their almost half century old demand for a permanent merger of the Northern and Eastern Provinces [which is also one of the four 'basic principles' articulated by them at Thimphu], except for some 'noises' with no firm commitment made by the TULF that it might accept a merger of the North and East minus the Ampara Electoral Division. The PA Government depends on the votes of these Tamil Parties for its survival, while the UNP depends on them for its renaissance.
In its commentary on the 'Package', the Ministry of Justice
has said:-
"A long expressed demand of minority groups has been
that the Northern and Eastern Provinces be regarded as one
administrative unit. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution,
currently in force, stipulates that this question should be put
to a referendum if the temporary merger is to be made permanent.
Groups representing the nation's majority have consistently
asserted that the Northern and Eastern Provinces should not be
joined. The Government's proposals do not, in any way, suggest
that the present Northern Province be linked up with the present
Eastern Province. Instead, it is proposed that the boundaries of
both areas be redemarcated. The proposals further state that the
demarcation should be done after all communities' interests -
Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim - are given the fullest consideration
with a view to achieving a formula acceptable to all." (3)
It would be observed that this publication while saying that the Government does say that the "proposals do not suggest" the merger of the North and the East, it also does not say that it will not countenance such a merger. While it speaks of a re-demarcation of the Provincial boundaries of the North and East, it does not specify the nature of the re-demarcation, if any, that it has in mind. This is particularly strange and equally sinister since the PA has been talking about a re-demarcation for more than two years. No responsible Government or Party could possibly talk of a re-demarcation of boundaries without having first decided on the nature of the re-demarcation which it proposes. The dictates of 'transparency' to which the Government claims to be committed demand that this fact must be made known to People - yet it has not. Why ??
The LTTE has already rejected the 'Package'. The so called 'moderates' among the Tamil racist Parties and Groups are complaining loud and clear about the alleged paucity of the powers to be devolved. There is clearly no prospect of any of these Parties or Groups accepting the 'Package' unless the Northern and Eastern Provinces, or at least the entirety of the North, the entirety of that 'jewel in the crown' of the Eastern Province - the Trincomalee District - in which the Tamils constitute only 34.47% of the population, the entirety of the Batticaloa District and at least a part of Ampara District are merged with the North.
The entire purpose of the Package is to appease the LTTE and other racist Tamil Parties and Groups. Since the implementation of 'the Package' without a merger of either the entirety of the North and the East or at least of the entirety of the North, the entirety of the Trincomalee and Batticaloa Districts and a part of the Ampara District will not appease or be acceptable to any of the Tamil Chauvinists whom the 'Package' is designed to appease, there can be no doubt that the Government proposes that either the entirety of the North and the entirety of the East;or at least the entirety of the North and the entirety of the East minus the Ampara Electorate be merged in one Region.
What of the other Regions ?? Nobody other than the Tamil Chauvinist Parties and Groups demanded or sought the vivisection of our Land into autonomous Regions. Yet our political 'culture' is such that politics has become not an exercise in governance for the welfare of the allegedly sovereign People, but an exercise in gaining power and influence at the expense of and by deceiving those 'sovereigns' for the personal benefit of the 'Party Faithful'.
Until the enactment of the Thirteenth Amendment, the 'Party Faithful', whether they could read and write or not, were rewarded for their services to 'the Party' [whether the UNP or PA] with posts of significance or directorships in Public Corporations or nomination to largely ineffectual District Development Councils. With the creation of Provincial Councils however, these 'Faithful' were gifted with another and more effective means of plundering the Country in the form of Provincial Councils, replete as they are with so many Governmental Powers. The Provincial Councils therefore saw in their wake, the creation of a number of 'political fiefdoms' in the several Provinces comprised of what may be termed the 'second elevens' of the PA and the UNP and their followers. Each of those who gained position in the Provincial Councils built up their own coteries of 'yes men' and other sychophants. Each of these 'yes men' and sychophants give unquestioning obedience to the dictates of their parties and patrons, which and who, constitute the source of their new found importance, influence and power [such as they may be] with the financial and other material rewards as go with them.
With the process of privatisation Public Corporations are rapidly disappearing, and that once fruitful sector for rewarding the party faithful becoming a mere distant memory. Any abolition of Provincial Councils and any amalgamation of Provinces or a lessening of Chief Ministerships, Ministerships or Memberships of Provincial Councils or any Regional Councils that may replace the Provincial Councils would result in less 'jobs for the boys', less opportunities to reward the 'party faithful', less opportunities for plunder for, and the consequent dissatisfaction of the 'party faithful', leading to an erosion of support for the mandarins of power in those parties. This is something they would welcome as much as a term of imprisonment.
Thus, it is inconceivable that either the PA or the UNP would ever agree to the diminution of the number of posts or offices with which they could reward the 'Party Faithful', and that consequently the units of devolution in the seven Provinces outside the North and the East would remain those seven Provinces.