An Outdated Eyewash

On yet another APC meeting

IN JUNE 2006, Sri Lanka’s president Mahinda Rajapaksa assembled an All Party Conference (APC), reportedly to fashion a southern consensus towards a “political solution” for the island’s ethnic conflict. At the time, it was dismissed by Tamils as yet another eyewash for the International Community (IC), while the regime tries its hands at pursuing a military alternative. More than two years later, Tamil predictions, that came with the wisdom of experience, appear all too true.

On 11 October 2008, Mr Rajapaksa called yet another meeting of the APC; not to seek an update on a political solution but to “apprise its members of the current developments” on the military front. The only real revelation at the gathering was the introduction of Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan, better known as Karuna, as the newest member of the APC clan. Otherwise, the proceedings were just the usual: hours of pouring praise on the President, followed by a rich lunch and some drinks.

According to one reporter, Mr Muralitharan had a struggle finding his seat; the reservation cards had only been completed in Sinhala and English. So much so for Tamil’s status as “national language”. Neither did Mr Rajapaksa utter any words in Tamil; that gimmick, it seems, is reserved exclusively for demonstration in front of the emissaries of the IC. Nonetheless, Mr Rajapaksa found time to gloat on the successes of his “successful” military “operations to eradicate terrorism”.

At the time of its inception, the APC was described by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as “a recurring tactic used by Sri Lanka’s presidents to present a peace posture to placate the international community while refusing to reconfigure the polity from the rigid and majoritarian Unitary constitution.” The largest Tamil party in parliament, Tamil National Alliance (TNA), pointed out that the APC had previously been deployed by two former presidents while they executed murderous wars.

Within months, the second and third largest political parties in the south, the United National Party (UNP) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), pulled out, citing various disagreements within the conference. Consequently, the APC lost much of its “southerners” and became a mere extension of the ruling regime. Yet, as the Sri Lankan military intensified its violent campaign against Tamils, the APC managed to bid time from the IC by travelling the world “studying” power devolutions in other countries.

In January 2008, the APC recommended that the 13^th amendment, a long dead proposal from 1987, be resuscitated. That proposal offered limited power devolution to the provinces, but was rejected in ‘87 because, amongst other short comings, it allowed the parliamentary majority to retain the power to legislate even on matters allotted to provincial councils. This year, the TNA summarised that any revival of the 13^th amendment would be a case of “hatching chicken from spoiled egg.”

An early advocate of the APC was the US Ambassador Robert Blake. According to some reports, he had seriously believed that an all singing, all dancing APC would be a genuine and joint effort by all the parties in the south to come up with a “credible power-sharing proposal.” Mr Blake even courted sceptical members of the IC on behalf of Sri Lanka, promising that the elusive southern consensus was only weeks away. Nowadays, he might be deliberating on how he was deceived by a banana republic.

The eventual unfolding of the APC only goes to show how successive Sri Lankan governments have fruit-fully mislead the IC while embarking on war efforts. Given the privileges of intergovernmental communication channels, it is all too easy for the IC to become engulfed in Sri Lanka’s propaganda. Therefore, it remains vital that the Tamil people, especially the Diaspora, continue to apprise respective governments of the IC on ever developing events in the island.