Prof. Vitharana's Politics for What ? With whome?

"Tissa Vitharana, has now come up with his proposals mainly based on the majority report of the expert panel, and has invited amendments from the other parties. The JVP has already left the APRC, and the MEP has totally rejected the Tissa Vitharana proposals. Most of the Tamil parties and the Muslim parties have submitted their amendments to Tissa Vitharana. The SLFP and the JHU are yet to respond to the proposals of Tissa Vitharana. However, in the meantime Tissa Vitharana goes round the country including visits to Malwatte and Asgiriya to "sell" his proposals which are apparently approved by "American Imperialism"."
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(February 16, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) It appears that the ambassador of the United States of America wants us to follow the leadership given by Tissa Vitharana to find a solution to the so called ethnic problem. It could be the first time that a representative of American Imperialism, in the terminology of the LSSP, wants the others to follow a Trotskyite in solving some problem as perceived by the Americans. Why the Americans, Marxists, Post Marxists, and others agree on something is worth examining, but it is not my intention at present to do so. In any event whether diplomats from other countries could express their views as they please on internal matters is something with which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should be concerned with.

Meanwhile Tissa Vitharana is busy running round the country with his so called proposals to solve what he calls the ethnic problem. Tissa Vitharana is the chairman of the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) that has failed to meet for about two months. For all purposes APRC is dead and gone but the chairman continues to express his views in his so called official capacity. The APRC as is known is a committee of representatives of the political parties represented in the Parliament. Though it is not a sub committee of the All Party Conference (APC) it has representatives from the same political parties represented in the latter.

At the beginning APRC had three parties with definitely anti federal views on the so called ethnic problem. The parties were the JVP, JHU and the MEP. The position of the SLFP has to be taken as pro unitary as the party got a mandate at the last presidential elections based on Mahinda Chinthana. The other parties were the two Marxist parties one of which was represented by Tissa Vitharana, four Muslim parties, at least four Tamil parties. The UNP did not take part at the beginning but took part in discussions towards the end based on the infamous MoU between that party and the SLFP. There was no constitution to the APRC and there were no officials expect for the secretarial assistance given by the Peace Secretariat. One of the first acts of the APRC was to elect a chairman to preside at the meetings. The idea of electing a chairman at each meeting was considered (rotating chairmen) but it was given up in favour of electing a "permanent" chairman.

The majority of the parties represented were pro federal and when Tissa Vitharana's name was proposed by a representative of a pro federal party nobody objected because a chairman was elected only for the purpose of chairing meetings. Thus Tissa Vitharana as chairman of the APRC is merely a chairman and not the leader or the President of the APRC. Together with the APRC the President of the country appointed a panel of experts, and it came out with two interim reports and two other documents. The reports are now identified as the majority and the minority reports. The majority report was produced by the pro federal members of the panel, and was rejected in toto by the anti federal parties. With the production of the interim reports the panel has gone into oblivion, except for seminars organised by various organisations that apparently have money to spend, on the majority report. It is curious that none of these organisations conduct seminars to discuss the anti federal views shared by the majority of the community. Though they seem to be against majority decisions with respect to the so called ethnic problem, in all the other instances they take majority decisions!

Tissa Vitharana, has now come up with his proposals mainly based on the majority report of the expert panel, and has invited amendments from the other parties. The JVP has already left the APRC, and the MEP has totally rejected the Tissa Vitharana proposals. Most of the Tamil parties and the Muslim parties have submitted their amendments to Tissa Vitharana. The SLFP and the JHU are yet to respond to the proposals of Tissa Vitharana. However, in the meantime Tissa Vitharana goes round the country including visits to Malwatte and Asgiriya to "sell" his proposals which are apparently approved by "American Imperialism".

These proposals are not the proposals of the APRC, which has not met for about two months, and are only the proposals of the "anti imperialist" Tissa Vitharana, the leader of the LSSP, who has incidentally being elected by the APRC to chair the meetings. The SLFP is in the process of preparing its proposals but it is not expected that they would be submitting merely a set of amendments to Tissa Vitharana proposals. As we have already mentioned submitting amendments to Tissa Vitharana proposals is a trap. The moment one submits amendments one accepts in principle the federal character, and Tissa Vitharana by asking the other parties to submit only amendments to his proposals, has set up a trap.

The anti war lobby should take into notice that they cannot get what they want from the Sinhala people by propagating against the so called war. If they ask as to what "war" has achieved in the last three decades one could ask them what has "peace" and discussions achieved in the last three decades. It is clear that the west tries to extract a federal solution by threatening the Sinhala people using the LTTE. It is the west and India that maintain the LTTE. The terrorists could have been defeated number of times at "war" but intervention by India and the west has prevented the armed forces from doing so.

As I write this column I get the news of an air attack by the LTTE on Katunayake air force camp. The details are not available but the question is how many terrorist organisations around the world have air crafts and an air strip. I would not believe that the LTTE buys all these equipments and has been able to have an infrastructure only from the money collected by various means from the Tamil people. The news of LTTE acquiring air crafts had been in the air for few months and some western embassies had been accused of assisting the LTTE in bringing the parts of the air crafts to the country. However, we cannot rule out the possibility that the aircrafts (apparently two) took off from some other country and having bombed the air force camp landed somewhere else. An inquiry has to be held to determine not only these but what connections these attacks have with recent political developments. When Sripathy Suriaarachchi and Mangala Samaraweera two former ministers accuse the government on "war" it is serious business, and also when their friends Tiran Alles and Ruwan Ferdinands associated with Mavubima which is accused of supporting the terrorists one has to be extra vigilant on what is happening in the "front".

The American Ambassador who has enough experience in the other parts of the world in promoting American interests would not have said that defeating the LTTE is only a dream without knowing the "facts". The west, as we have said on many occasions is pro Tamil, not because the west is concerned with "human rights" or the "grievances" of the Tamils, but because their interests demand that they should be anti Sinhala. The west is not pro Tamil but anti Sinhala. They have an axe to grind against the Sinhalas and in this exercise imperialists as well as anti imperialists such as Tissa Vitharana are on the same side. It is clear that the present day Tissa is not in agreement with the present day Mahinda on the so called ethnic problem.

We have to be clear in mind that it is the west and India that prevent us from defeating the LTTE. As long as the political leadership is not prepared to tell the public what is happening behind closed doors, after all those hand shakes are done with the foreign diplomats, and prepare the people for any outcome, we are heading towards disaster. In the name of human rights, for which the west has only scant respect as seen from what is taking place not only in Iraq but also in the western countries regarding the dress of the Muslim females, it is very likely that the west would directly interfere with the politics of the country by imposing economic sanctions and/or by sending UN forces, and the government has to prepare the people for any eventuality.

(Professor Nalin de Silva is a Sri Lankan theoretical physicist, philosopher and a political analyst. He is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka.)