Lanka can't toe India line on 13th Amendment: Gotabaya

[HeinzGud]

http://newindianexpress.com/world/Lanka-cant-toe-India-line-on-13th-Amendment-Gotabaya/2013/05/27/article1607688.ece

The influential Sri Lankan Defence Secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has said Sri Lanka should jettison the system of devolution contained in the India-inspired 13th Amendment of the country's constitution, irrespective of India's reaction.

"Just because India or some other country will get angry, we cannot stop doing what is good for our country," Gotabaya told the Tamil daily Sudar Oli on Sunday.

He was asked if his statements against the devolution of power to the provinces would not irk India, which was responsible for the promulgation of the existing devolution system through the India-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987 and the 13th constitutional amendment which followed it. Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid had recently expressed displeasure over Lanka's attempts to prune the 13th amendment to deny the provinces powers over land and police.

Gotabaya expressed the fear that if the Tamil majority Northern Province went into the hands of the pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance (TNA) following the September 2013 elections to the Northern Provincial Council (NPC), that province would demand power over land and police and jeopardize national integrity and security.

He recalled that the 13th amendment did not have the people's support when it was enacted in 1987. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna had "set fire to the whole country," and the LTTE leader Prabhakaran had rejected it, he pointed out.

"Why should we implement it merely because it meets India's needs?" Gotabaya asked.

According to him some forces were trying to weaken Lanka's Central Executive by divesting it of powers of land and the police; demanding independent commissions to make official appointments; and promoting an independent judiciary. Gotabaya, who is President Mahinda Rajapaksa's sibling, suggested that Tamils, Sinhalese and Muslims, should all "forget" about the 13th amendment and think about a "reasonable" solution to the ethnic question.

However, according to "The Sunday Times" President Rajapaksa had told the cabinet that the NPC elections should be held as scheduled in September, and under the existing constitutional arrangement. Perhaps, Rajapaksa does not want to ruffle feathers in India and the West ahead of the Commonwealth summit scheduled to be held in Colombo in November.

Source: http://newindianexpress.com/world/Lanka-cant-toe-India-line-on-13th-Amendment-Gotabaya/2013/05/27/article1607688.ece

 

[maomao]

Good news for SL.....More wars to come...........

 

[MAYURA]

Good news for SL.....More wars to come...........

This will not happen as "peaceful " Sri lankans have so horribly massacred the tamils that they can not raise any head. Gotabaya is speaking because of arrogance which comes natural to anyone gaining such smashing victory. While LTTE was really one of the most monsterous ideaologically based terrorist organization, the crackdown on tamilians in general have been very brutal.

After all Sri Lankans have support of china the " next superpower".

 

[trackwhack]

have to annexe

 

[Tronic]

Congratulations SL. You're an authoritarian prick. I never supported the civil war against the SL government, but when you steal power from people in this manner, than the Sri Lankan government deserves another civil war and an ass kicking.

 

[amoy]

@HeinzGud , recall u posted earlier on this 13A. perhaps in order to address the root cause u folks shall take another amendment to ban all ethnicity based or religion based political parties, or go even further to redemarcate provinces. just my 2 cents.

 

[HeinzGud]

@HeinzGud , recall u posted earlier on this 13A. perhaps in order to address the root cause u folks shall take another amendment to ban all ethnicity based or religion based political parties, or go even further to redemarcate provinces. just my 2 cents.

We should abolish provinces altogether and go for distric - town - village based local government system. This division on ethnicity is such a BS.

 

[aerokan]

We should abolish provinces altogether and go for distric - town - village based local government system. This division on ethnicity is such a BS.

Devoolution of power is good to the district level.. Where do you think the financial power should rest? Center or the districts?

 

[amoy]

We should abolish provinces altogether and go for distric - town - village based local government system. This division on ethnicity is such a BS.

Alright, the point is to prevent such a dilemma as

if the Tamil majority Northern Province went into the hands of the pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance (TNA) following the September 2013 elections to the Northern Provincial Council (NPC), that province would demand power over land and police and jeopardize national integrity and security.

All in all the design shall be to disable a constituency (province) with "Tamil majority" or a TNA on the ground of ethnicity.

Lanka's top brass may have got clues from Kosovo where Serbs is a "minority" thanks to NATO intervention, or Cyprus where Turks are patronized by Turkey.

After all the politically correct craps like "minority rights", it's high time for the "majority" to get assertive.

 

[Ray]

Sl Govt is confident that it has solved all issue having got rid of the irksome and pesky LTTE and that all are now heaving a sigh of relief including the Tamils and the Muslim.

so, why are they afraid of the amendment?

 

[HeinzGud]

Devoolution of power is good to the district level.. Where do you think the financial power should rest? Center or the districts?

Center no doubt. Because Sri Lanka is a small country unlike India where local financial centers are located far apart to each other. In SL what should happen is to have a strong central governing institute with the local governments which have the power to administer local issues without the need to ask from the center.

The central government should have the power to the overall finance, military, foreign relations, education and health sectors.

 

[HeinzGud]

so, why are they afraid of the amendment?

1) The amendment has the nasty tendency to re-ignite the separatist campaign with its highly controversial powers like holding down the central government of certain key issues such as the one occurred recently with the Divi-Naguma (Grameen like program) bill. In such a situation you have a minority hijacking the demands of a majority.

2) The amendment is a economic constrain yielding no results to the country.

3) It has not fulfilled its mission for nearly 27 years.

 

[aerokan]

Center no doubt. Because Sri Lanka is a small country unlike India where local financial centers are located far apart to each other. In SL what should happen is to have a strong central governing institute with the local governments which have the power to administer local issues without the need to ask from the center.

The central government should have the power to the overall finance, military, foreign relations, education and health sectors.

If Center keeps everything, what exactly are you divulging to the districts? If you don't give financial powers to districts, then the power lies at the center, not with the districts like you asked for. Divulging financial powers to the districts means some share of the revenue or expenditure will be taken/given from/to districts and some share to the center. And the decisions can be taken at district level with financial backing.. no need to run to the center to get every decision.

Sri lanka is the size of state in India. It's hard to manage states with state controlling the finances of districts. If India can fund directly to the districts on a shared basis between district and state, it will develop much faster. So it makes perfect sense to devolve rather than centralize the powers.

Ofcourse military, foreign relations and other crucial sectors will lie with the center.

 

[amoy]

Sri Lanka shall be modelling itself on successful economies.

Also an island, Taiwan
- 36k sq km vs. SL 65.6k sq km
- 23,335k population vs. SL 20,870k

Check what TW's GDP and GDP per capita is, in comparison with SL's.

Why hasn't SL been developed in an ideal location, though larger in land, less in population? SL shall really come to see how Chinese provinces work their way through, especially coastal ones.

 

[HeinzGud]

Why hasn't SL been developed in an ideal location, though larger in land, less in population? SL shall really come to see how Chinese provinces work their way through, especially coastal ones.

It's all about internal dynamics and bad policies.