“You have to give the Tamils the confidence that their grievances will be looked into”-Ferial Ashraff

September 27th, 2007

Minister Ferial Ashroff, leader of the National Unity Alliance, speaks to C.A.Chandraprema on the current state of Muslim politics in Sri Lanka, the three cornered conflicts between the Sinhalese and the Muslims , the Muslims and the Tamils and the Tamils and the Sinhalese in the east, and the present policy of the Rajapakse government on the ethnic conflict.

Q. A broad question for a start. What do you think of the present state of Muslim politics in Sri Lanka ?

A. The reason for this question I feel, is because we had this charismatic Muslim leader who was able to bring all these various forces under one umbrella and be the voice of Muslims in parliament. Now people tend to ask, what of Muslim politics in Sri Lanka because we are all divided and there are so many parties, so many factions. But I feel that this fragmentation is the general trend in Sri Lanka and if you were to take an issue relating to the Muslims, I don’t think there is much of a difference in what each person says. The divisions are basically due to personality clashes. We have not been able to gather around one leader or one particular party.

[Minister Ferial Ashroff, leader of the National Unity Alliance]

Q. If you take the period before your late husband formed the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, there was the situation where some Muslim leaders were affiliated with the UNP, some with the SLFP and there was no separate Muslim party as such. Haven’t things come back to square one because NUA which you lead is affiliated with the PA and the SLMC which is led by Mr Rauff Hakeem, seems to be more with the UNP even though they now serve in a PA government?

A. Before Ashroff, there was the situation where Muslims supported various other political parties and the grievance was that when an issue was raised, the voice that was listened to was that of the party and not of the Muslims. But now, even if they are affiliated to the other political parties as you say, when an issue is raised, because we have this history of Ashroff raising the Muslim voice, I don’t think the Muslims who support the various political parties, will make the same mistake they made prior to Ashroff. If it is an issue relating to Muslims, I think they would be able to come out and talk about it independently.

Q. If we go back in history, the immediate reason for the formation of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress in 1987 by your late husband was because of this feeling that the Muslims had been let down by J.R.Jayawardene in signing the Indo - Lanka peace accord and turning the Muslims into a minority within the merged northern and eastern provinces. The accusation is that he later forgot the reasons for the formation of the SLMC and became an ethnic lobbyist in Colombo .

A. The reason why a Muslim political party had to be formed, was not necessarily, the merger of the north and east. If you take the Puttalam incident where the Muslims in power kept quiet while the Tamil politicians had to speak about it, and then there was this massacre in Galle , where the Muslims in power kept quiet and the Tamil politicians had to speak about it. So all these matters were in the background, and things ended up in the Muslims not being consulted with regard to the Indo-Lanka pact. When Ashroff started lobbying in various other places, he wanted the people to understand what was happening to the Muslims in the north and east. Even though we live in a small island, the Muslims in the Western and other provinces, don’t know what is happening to the Muslims in the north and east. It was only after the tsunami that the Muslims here felt that something bad has happened to the Muslims in the east. So Ashroff had to put up a big fight to get people to understand the necessity for a separate Muslim voice - which was very difficult - people wanted him to remain a regional voice. Since then of course, things have happened. And even when I represent the people through NUA, I can’t go by what Ashroff said, alone. The new situation has to be taken into account. I think the same thing happened to Ashroff.

Q. In the east, with which ethnic community do you have the most serious differences?

A. The Tamil community spoke of the discrimination by the majority community and this was what was being talked about until the Tamils became a majority and we had to talk about how the Tamils treated the Muslims. Our only request was that we be treated fairly by our neighbours. We also want the government to understand that we are Sri Lankan and have been living there for a long time and that we want justice and fair play. So we have to ask both communities to respect our views.

Q. There was that incident some months ago where Sinhalese stormed one of your meetings in the east saying that land was being distributed to tsunami victims deep in the interior of the country and that some of the beneficiaries were not tsunami victims at all, and that Sinhalese also should be given houses in the same area…

A. What you say about this incident is not totally correct. We had got land from the government and we were trying to build houses for the tsunami victims. This was in the Akkaraipattu divisional secreatary’s area. The tsunami victims were from the Akkaraiatu division. The policy of the government at that time, was that people of a particular divisional secretariat area will be settled in that particular area. If you take the coastal area of the Digamadulla district, you will find that there were hardly a Sinhalese living along the coast. They lived in the interior in places like Amparai, Uhana, Damana, Dehiattakandiya, Padiyatalawa, and so on. Only the Muslims and the Tamils live along the coast. So we got this property and wanted to build houses for the tsunami victims. But there are people amongst us who want to find fault with whatever is happening. I would definitely have looked into it if there was a valid reason for them to find fault with what we were doing. The property was 120 acres of sate land which came under the Hingurana sugar factory. Out of this, I asked for 60 acres to house 500 Muslim families who had been victims of he tsunami. So this 60 out of the 120 acres, was what caused all these problems. This was bare land, far away from Muslim settlements, it was 14 kilometers away from the Dighavapi chaitya, it was nowhere near the Sinhala village which was on the other side of the land and the Dighavapi village is in the neighbouring divisional secretariat area. So there has been a huge misrepresentation of facts. This seems to be a saleable commodity in Sri Lanka, to start off an ethnic conflict and to say that she is a Muslim, and she is doing something for the Muslims, totally forgetting the fact that I have been working with the Sinhalese of the Amparai district, and other areas where we are building houses and so on. But this had nothing to do with the Ministry of Housing, this was a tsunami project. I don’t handle tsunami projects. I was involved only because I happen to be the MP of the area.

Q. The reason why I asked you as to which community you feel you are under siege most is particularly that…

A. You have to go on a case by case basis. We have had similar issues with the Tamils as well. In another place, when we were trying to build some tsunami houses, the Tamils created a similar problem saying I was trying to take over Tamil property and settle Muslims there. That took quite a long time to settle. But unlike this spat in Akkaraipattu, that issue did not get much publicity because it was between the Tamils and the Muslims.

Q. You spoke of ethnic contradictions being a marketable commodity. What if someone says, that you too are exploiting that?

A. It would be absurd for me to say, “No, I’m different”. People will be able to decide in the future. If you take for example, that issue about Dighavapi temple land which was raised during Ashroff’s time, most of the people who spoke about it were people who had not even seen the area. If you look at the condolence vote in parliament for Ashroff, you would find that a very senior minister from that area, who was very quiet when all this was going on against Ashroff, stood up in parliament and said ‘I bear witness to the fact that Ashroff did not do anything detrimental to the Dighavapi temple or its lands. It is sad that this was said only Ashroff had died and the vote of condolence was taken.

Q. What future do you see for this country with people dividing and re-dividing again on ethnic lines?

A. I feel that anything has to reach a climax and them come down. I suppose we have not yet reached a climax in this process. As for dividing, I think we have only ourselves to blame, because all these people were represented by the major parties at one time. Even now, we support politicians of the majority community and worked very hard to give them the fullest cooperation. There is another strand of thought which says that it is the majority community which is being discriminated against. Unless people come out of this mindset, and are willing to look at the reality, and treat people equally as Sri Lankans, things are not going to improve. In that I think that the leaders have a great role to play by giving the confidence that he minorities are looking for.

Q. If you take the two main political parties, the UNP says all the ‘correct’ things with regard to ethnic politics. They talk about peace, about negotiations, about ceasefires and putting and end to war and all that kind of thing. So most of the other minority political parties, the CWC, the SLMC, and the UPF, and even the TNA seems to find the UNP rhetoric more attractive than that of the PA. You seem to be the only minority leader, who has consistently stuck with the PA despite the fact that they have been saying all the wrong things, talking about war, de-merging the north and east and everything that is incorrect in ethnic politics.

A. I don’t think they are saying all the incorrect things with regard to ethnic politics. I came into politics during president Kumaratunga’s time, and I still feel that Madame Kumaratunga made a sincere effort to find a solution to the problem. She was somebody who could treat the different communities equally. She had a feeling for the minorities. If you say that the UNP was always very liberal on the ethnic issue, it was not so. If you take president D.B.Wijetunga, he said there was no ethnic issue and that it was only a terrorist issue. But if you take the PA, I felt there were members of the PA who were prepared to look at this ethnic issue and try to bring about a solution. We still have the left parties who have been very openly supporting the minorities. I had this confidence that all these people put together will be able to sort out this problem. On that basis, I stood with the PA.

Q. How would you view president Rajapakse’s policy with regard to the LTTE?

A. We should be able to draw a distinction between the LTTE and the Tamil people. And if we have failed to draw the LTTE to some kind of an understanding, and the LTTE is going to continue to say no, then we have to look at them as a terror group and start dealing with them in a different way. The president feels that the LTTE has to be dealt with like that. But I feel that at the same time, Tamil sentiment has to be looked into and you have to give the Tamils the confidence that their grievances will be addressed and that has not been happening enough. A lot of work has to be done on that aspect. [Courtesy:The Island]

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