Although it is possible for the President to go for a parliamentary election before the confusion prevailing in the country grows further, and to secure a majority in the parliament, he seems to be trapped in a position where such a path cannot be taken.
The President cannot give up his relationship with the JVP although he is well aware that the political option proposed by the JVP will not be a successful one. The President of course cannot forget the decisive support the JVP gave him at the Presidential election.
At the same time the President is not prepared to trust UNP leader Ranil Wickramasinghe fully and to function on that basis. If the President gives up the JVP he will have to act on the basis of full faith in the UNP. However the President does not see Ranil Wickramasinghe as a leader who can be so trusted.
A President who depends on the JVP will be compelled to be trapped in the JVP framework. President Chandrika Kumaratunga too had to be trapped willingly after she chose an alliance with the JVP. Although President Mahinda Rajapaksa wants to go his own way without becoming a prisoner of the JVP, he will not get the JVP’s help for such an independent project. The JVP does not have the capacity to change the President totally, and the President himself cannot transform the JVP.
If a parliamentary election is not to be held, the President will have to be satisfied with the status quo and then move forward. Nothing can be done without the JVP’s agreement in the existing framework of power.
The government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE too are facing an impasse similar to that faced by the President. India will not permit the government of Sri Lanka to wage a war that will oppress the Tamil people of the North and the East. Also, India will not allow the LTTE to go so far as to form a separate state.
In that sense the LTTE as well as the government of Sri Lanka is in an impasse. In as much as the LTTE’s separate state is not a realistic proposition, the Sri Lanka government’s talk about a decentralised solution in a unitary framework too is not realistic. The LTTE is unable to win a separate state and the government of Sri Lanka is unable to offer a solution acceptable to the LTTE, this side of a separate state.
Now the LTTE has to negotiate with a government which talks about a solution that amounts to something less than a federal solution to say nothing of a confederal solution, and even less than the solution envisioned in the Bandaranaike – Chelvanayakam Pact. There lies the basis of the present confusions.
To put it in terms of a simple simile, the LTTE asked for tens of thousands of buns. We agreed to give them thousands of buns instead. However, they did not agree to accept what we had proposed to give. Now the government says that it is willing to give the LTTE one bun only and that they must come to the negotiating table to receive it.
The government is inviting the LTTE to peace talks not to discuss a confederal or a federal solution, but to discuss a solution based on decentralisation within a unitary framework. It is like an expression of consent to give them, who had asked for a state with a great amount of independence, a solution based on a village council system. This has created a situation in which they cannot come to the negotiation table with any self-respect.
This limit imposed by the government will not induce them to go for a solution through negotiations. The government is now prepared to give less than what Bandaranaike had wanted to give in 1958. With that as the starting point, it is difficult to believe that the LTTE would come to the negotiation table.
The government is unable to effect a profound change in the limit it has imposed. Whatever the President’s wish, forces like the JVP and the Hela Urumaya will not permit a change in the stand that has been declared now.
In these circumstances, the LTTE will inevitably be pushed again to a position of settling accounts through war. On the one hand, the LTTE will be unable to create a separate state because of India. On the other hand, the government of Sri Lanka does not have the capacity to find a solution acceptable to the LTTE. In these circumstances, the LTTE might even be pushed to a destructive path. They might opt for a system in which the borders are determined in accordance with the communities.
An attack on the Sinhalese of the East might lead to a situation where the Tamil people are unable to live among the Sinhalese people of the South. Such a situation might even create conditions for a racial massacre, and create a situation in which the Sinhalese people will be confined to Sinhalese areas and the Tamil people will be confined to Tamil areas.
If conditions are created in which they will feel that there is absolutely no way in which they can solve their problems, they might even be tempted to think in terms of total and mutual slaughter.