It appears that the peace process is at a stand still. The
President, just like her father did in 1956, had mobilized the forces against
the peace process in order to win the General Election. Having won the General
Election and also being a person who is in favour of the peace process, she is
now in a dilemma. If I quote a Buddhist Jathaka story, it is just like the
position; if you go home your wife would die and if you stay elsewhere you
would die. In deed her father faced the same situation. What happened then is
history. In my view both, in the sense the person and the country, died or
suffered. In fact the situation of the President is much complicated since she
wants to be in the helm for some more time, rather than politically resign
after the end of her term in 2005?
The LTTE insists that the ISGA proposals should be discussed
and the view of the Government is to discuss the ISGA proposals as well as the
core issues of the problem simultaneously, to which LTTE disagreed. It appears
to be that the basic concept of the peace process is, you against me. It is a bargaining process, how much we
should give and how much they should get. During the time of the previous
government of the President there was a political package. The name itself
connotes the idea of how much are we giving. Then the opposition comes in
saying we should not give that much. One accusation against the previous
government was that they did not indicate the envisaged ultimate solution; in
the sense how much they were willing to give. The President later said at a
television interview that the former prime minister revealed to her with great
difficulty that what he intends to give and she said she was quite agreeable to
that.
In my view, the requirement of discussing the core issues
now, in parallel to the ISGA proposals, comes out of two reasons. One is that
the mindset I discussed above, bargaining mentality; how much to give and how
much to get. The other reason is that
the ISGA proposals being an interim solution should enjoy somewhat lesser
autonomy compared to the final solution. Therefore the parties should have an
idea of the final solution. Let us look at the whole issue in a different
angle.
I suggest that there should be a paradigm shift in the whole
process. The parties concerned should not be involved in bargaining. They
should not be in the opposite sides of the table. In fact they should be in the
same side of the table finding out a solution to the fate of the people of
Tamil origin living in the North as well as in the East, who are citizens of
this country. If the situation demands, the fate of the Muslims in the East
also can be discussed by adding more parties to the same side of the table.
In this scenario it is not necessary to start the discussion
with ISGA proposals, which is a partial solution of the LTTE to the part of the
problem, which is how to give the benefits of the peace to the people of North
and East immediately. Let the parties go back and discuss the problem, not the
solution and arrive at a solution later. There cannot be any opposition to
discuss the question of how to give the benefits of the peace to the people of
North and East immediately. I do not think JVP or for that matter Hela Urumaya
could not agree to this. Let the Government and the LTTE agree to this because
there is no point of promoting the ideas of either, you die; I die or you die;
I survive. It should be; we both
survive.
Core issues can be discussed once a solution is found for
the above problem. If the Government is
going to discuss core issues at the early stages before establishing the
confidence with each other, it is sure way of getting the process derailed.
Core issues should be discussed at a later stage once all the peripheral issues
are sorted out and the solutions are implemented. In my view there should be
only one prerequisite for this suggested process, a commitment form the both
parties that there should not be war hereafter.
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