Vessantara-traitor dilemma

Between getting branded as a Tamil traitor (even GG Ponnambalam was once called a Tamil traitor) or a Sinhala Vessantara/Siri Sangabo, Wigneswaran and MahindaR, respectively, could find the zone of agreement that Dayan Jayatilleka is talking about, if both of them act honestly and reasonably. Beyond the picture-taking oath ceremony, and the prohibited word “unitary” (Dayan talks of a united not unitary), there are serious but simple questions one could ask. When Wigneswaran (W) says that Sinhala people have no other land [except this island], then he accepts the history and geography of the country. But is this because the visiting Indian foreign minister told him to say so? If it was his own genuine realization, then is he ready to forget the Tamil homeland myth of SJV Chelvanayagma? Since nobody calls Tamils buying land in Colombo as Tamilisation would he stop using the word Sinhalisation when Colombo government does anything in NP or EP? Then only one can think of W or one his granddaughters one day becoming a Tamil Obama in Sri Lanka or at least a reincarnation of Lakshman Kadiragamar or even a Jeyaraj Fernandopullai. More Tamils live outside NP like a scrambled egg.

The death of (2) territorial democracy was the next. Whatever one could salvage from the capitalist representative democracy that the American president George Bush was talking so highly about, who stole it from Al Gore in the first place, ended in Sri Lanka with JRJ-RPremadas election laws. Now MPs, PC members and Pradesheeyas are mostly thugs selected by party bosses in Colombo after an interview. The whole system is a disgrace to democracy, whatever is meant by the word democracy. The election boss cannot even implement the law on declaration of assets on the candidates or the ones got elected!

After 1978, During RPremadas time, another (3) attack on civil administration took place by increasing the number GSN units from 4,000 to 14,004. There was no rationale behind this decision except providing jobs to UNP catchers. Each GSN unit now has at least 3-5 full-time government officers. If local school teachers are added to this list 50-100 government servants per GSN unit. No country can develop if these people are allowed to idle because they have political party connections.

Spatial inequity

With the governance system in such a mess for the past 50 years or more, it was not possible to expect anything better on the socio-economic side other than patch work here and there. Structural changes to a colonial open economy, reducing the gap between the rich and the poor, taking development work away from Colombo, all operated under the Colombo paradigm, which JVP described as “milk to Colombo and fodder to villages.” Some work was done but it was always government officers running the show fooling the politician. DS Senanayaka’s dry Zone land development schemes gave lots of jobs to Tamil technical officers, but were run very inefficiently. Dudley Senanayaka, Mrs. B and RPremadas had at least one major project always directed from Colombo. Now Basil Rajapakse has begun several projects also run by officers. He decided not to copy the very successful Gami Diriya people-based project, and instead created a monster department to run his Divi Neguma plan. These can bring some results but unless people are deciding what they need to do, any officer-imposed plan cannot succeed. That is the history of such projects all over the world. The problem in Sri Lanka today is a problem of spatial inequality in not having equality of opportunity and equal access to opportunity. This is so all over the country worst affected being the border regions in the NP, NCP, EP and UP.

Degradation of morals (King Kosol’s Sixteen Dreams)

The open economy introduced by JRJ without reasonable restriction has destroyed the physical, human and moral resource base of the country. Big fish eating the small fish, greed to make money somehow, parents encouraging children to tell lies, tuition mafia, bribery, corruption, sex selling, one can write pages of such ill effects slowly destroying the society, especially the Sinhala Buddhist society. During the 30-year war people lived smiling with the fear of death underneath and two generations suffered from this mental condition, became so un- human like, suspicious of others, extremely selfish, willing to lie or steal. Unfortunately, only a visitor from abroad can see these traits and the whole country needs mental therapy of some sort. This can be identified as the Mervyn Silva syndrome, so openly abusive of all Buddhist norms of civility. Buddhist temples are failing in their traditional role as the whole country is in a rat race. This situation is not limited to Colombo areas alone. Yes, there is a section of the people who make money and rich but the masses are bankrupt, materially and morally. Importing luxury cars using the money sent by village women who work in Arab homes cleaning toilets, and the tourism madness have already done massive societal damage.

Zone of agreement (curse of the JRJ bahubootha thing)

So Dayan Jayatilleke talks about the zone of agreement—the fine line dividing an Eelam versus united federal state! His zone does not include a unitary Sri Lanka. He and other federalists want Wigneswarn to be cautious, not to be a case of pudana kotama kaapi yakaa (the devil swallowed it as if the offer was completed fully?) as if to give MR sometime to digest the rope. Dayan is so sure about a Bangladesh/Kosovo type R2P solution if W be patient. Hasty acts will be a reverse of what Prabakaran did, who refused all the good offers bestowed at his feet. This is all when MR is caught between the Canadian boycott of CHOGM and the British PM coming with “tough messages.” May be another lucky UNP MP can become a new minister just to implement CHOMG decisions

The short descriptions in paragraphs above show that Wigneswaran, TNA, Indian RAW and Michele Sisson are just small disappointments that MR has to worry about. Dayan’s zone is a mental zone limited to a merged N-E zone; MR’s zone on the other hand is the whole country replete with mismanagement by black-whites. Just forget about the university mess, tuition mess, hospital mess, transportation mess; even the Sugala Devi’s tomb is dynamited and the archaeology boss says he will have an inquiry! There is a Ph.D. minister whose only allocated function is to protect such historical sites!

JRJ thought he was an Aristotle but ended like an Andare, the court jester. He preached for a system of government better than anywhere in the world, and with the help of A.J. Wilson erected a method which is now known as the bahubootha thing. With its other death trap, the new election method, this JRJ thing has become a curse for those who come to power under it. For example, we know from Mrs. B’s private secretary that she thought that “Chandrika [is] pissu kelinava.” We know from RPremadas’ press secretary that “RP was suffering from severe mental (psychiatric) disease.” Fortunately, MR is free from all such problems but the curse affected him

in a different way. In order to overcome the most severe defect in the bahubootha thing (planted by AJ Wilson?) MR started using minister’s jobs as a bribe which is a politically wise thing to do. But in so doing he has violated a cardinal rule in management systems. It created a system of disintegration of functions that has become a malfunctioning of the whole system of governmental management. The divisions were such that no one can be identified as the party responsible for bad things. For example the function of agriculture which should under one minister is so divided that there is even a sugar minister. While this is happening on one end three or four ministers have all the key governmental functions taken out of other namesake ministries so that when things go wrong namesake ministers become the scapegoats. In a situation like this it is human nature to make hay when the sun is shining. The evil triangle operating for several decades is now at its zenith under this bribing method along with the PC white elephant. There is no Middle Path but extremism.

River for Jaffna

Despite all these problems from A-Z, there is no alternative for the Sinhala Buddhists and the poor Christians in Sri Lanka other than MR. People have not forgotten what JRJ, RPremadas, RanilW, Ravi Karunanayaka and Mrs. Chandrika did to the country. The new movement Bodu Bala Sena is really the challenge that MR faces because it is exposing how Sinhala politicians have been playing a game of cheating Sinhala Buddhists for half a century. Therefore, if Wigneswaran and TNA becomes an albatross on MR’s neck, the country will again be in a total mess. War capital will be over. Golden brains (GLP, CBK-based federalist), copper brains (Sarath Amunugama, legalize kassippu) and sand brains (Vasu, two language national anthem) will be the first to jump ship when the right time comes.

Therefore, if TNA is not for an Eelam, if they want to follow the law, if they learned anything from the good advice given by CJ Sansoni in 1980, then the first task before them on behalf of Tamils in Jaffna is to ask Colombo’s help to implement the river for Jaffna project, first presented by K Balasingham, member of the State Council in the 1930s and refined by S Arumugam in the 1950s and keeping it alive to date by DLO. Mendis. Since, Colombo itself should have undertaken this plan as part of the Mahaveli Project, a request from TNA, will be an eye opening cry of TNA. It would be the most beneficial, most reasonable Colombo-Jaffna joint project with least cost. In fact, this was something Douglas Devananda should have discussed with Basil Rajapakse and Bathirudeen if he was a wise man.

Colonial administrative divisions

Whether or not Wigneswaran is honest MR has a duty to make sure that incentives promoting separatism are removed. One cannot depend on Supreme Court or goodwill of Ms. Sission. America is the only country in the world where one part of a target country is bombed while parcels of food and medicine air dropped in another part of the same target country! Not only friendships are temporary but friendships can be different depending on the location—

Jaffna, Trinco or Hambantota. There are forces that W or MR cannot control. Tamils all over the world are dreaming for a Tamil state with a UN seat. USA is joining with 300-million Indian middle class to control China and Trinco harbor is so valuable in this regard (it is already under Indian control). Christianization of Asia is easier if the Sinhala Buddhist society is in chaos with interfaith junk evangelical-Taliban intrusions. Steps taken to remove germs of separatism must be such that they could not be sabotaged using the R2P trick. This is why some actions suggested by Susantha Goonetilleke to introduce what Germany did to de-Nazify German minds after the end of Hitler cannot be implemented in the case of Prabakaranism in NP. Instead there are rational, reasonable, scientific Buddhist methods that can be justifiably applied in Sri Lanka.

1. Making sure that children in NP are taught Sinhala as part of the national plan to teach Tamil and Sinhala to all school children in the island;
2. Taking steps to demarcate GSN boundaries on the basis of natural-ecology (hydrology) and geography-based criteria;
3. Surface or underground water resource based GSN units will fit within the 103 river basins running radially from a central mountain mass, making it possible to agglomerate GSN units as electorates, districts and provinces as needed;
4. If provinces are needed so that Tamil in the north wants a larger area all GSN units can be divided as seven river basins;
5. River basin approach is the scientific method used in a world of global warming, environmental degradation, soil erosion, deforestation, flooding, drought, landslides, waste management, and land and air pollution.

Seven River Basins

1. Yalpanam
2. Raja Rata
3. Dambadeni
4. Mahaveli
5. Deegavaapi
6. Kelani
7. Ruhunu

(Compare this map with the nine-province map which cuts all major rivers into artificial pieces).

With this simple change it will become obvious that the nine-province division of the island done by the British for colonial reasons has no reason to exist other than the inability of the Eurocentric black-white thinking of the UNP, LSSP, CP and SLFP politicians. With the realization that NP is depending on the Mahaveli water and that there will not be an EP, the thinking that a Tamil country could be carved out of Sri Lanka instead of from India will face a natural death. With GSN units based on natural boundaries there will be hundreds of 100% Tamil, Muslim units but there basis is not language or ethnicity but hydrology-ecology. Divisions based on river basins will not be perceived as a Tamil separatist threat by the Sinhala villagers.

Evil triangle

Tamil separatism is only a small problem compared to the wholesale destruction taking place in the island due partisan politics. An evil triangle (politician-officer-NGO) has enveloped the villages, towns, urban areas and the whole island making people’s lives so miserable which does not appear on surface but deep within. This why the administrative boundary modification proposed above becomes more relevant in salvaging the country from the present mess.

LLRC recommended devolution of power to the lowest possible unit of government as opposed to Tissa Vitharana’s APRC idea of having a Tamil police station in Sinhala villages. If Sri Lanka is to be protected from inevitable destruction it is necessary to create GSN-level people’s civic administrative units where 10 members are selected on non-political party basis. This is how empowerment of people can take place. This is what India is trying to do under the Panchayathi Raj law. Our situation is not as complex as India’s. All local civil administrative functions need to be handed over to these committees. They will take the decisions with the advice of officer experts and the implementation of these policy decisions to be handled by local officers responsible to the GSN committee. At present local knowledge is ignored or erased by some officer answerable to party politicians. Issues people face on a daily basis, drinking water, garbage disposal, elementary education, floods, landslides, religious harmony, agriculture, water and air pollution, basic health, NGO exploitation must be tackled by local people at local level. The Divi Neguma law needs modification and used as an instrument to create this kind of GSN level civil administrative units. It is true that politicians at all levels who created a mess in the first place will not willingly give up their power and perks. But this is a war for the politician MR, unlike the military war won by the soldier GR. Imagine a situation that the Bodu Bala Sena taking a booklet developed on the basis of this essay and distributing it to villagers!