This is really addressed to JVP and I hope a follow up should be addressed to the present leaders in the government.

I reproduce below the following extract from your article to facilitate my comments. .

‘A Constitution is the basic law of the land. No election mandate or manifesto ranks above it, nor can it. A president is elected under the Constitution, and his most fundamental duty is to uphold the Constitution. If a Constitution is to be changed it must be according to the process and procedure laid down by the Constitution itself’.

Agreed, and excellent !

But in your article you are referring only to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.

Is it because you wanted to find fault with only JVP?
.
If you consider the other amendments such as 16th and 17th Amendments, then others more responsible are at fault for non-implementation.

I give below some salient features of the 16th amendment as many of your readers seems to be ignorant of the provisions of this Amendment.The bill was certified on 17th December 1988.

Article 22.(1):- Sinhala and Tamil shall be the languages of administration through out Sri Lanka and Sinhala shall be the language of administration and be used for the maintenance pf public records and the transaction of all business by public institutions of all the provinces of Sri Lanka other then the Northern and Eastern Provinces where Tamil shall be so used.

Provided that the President may, having regard to the proportion which the Sinhala or Tamil linguistic minority population in any unit comprising a division of an Assistant Government Agent, bears to the total of population of that area, direct that than Sinhala and Tamil or a language other than the language used as the language of administration in the province in which such area may be situate, be used as the language of administration for such area.

Art 23.(1) Language of Legislation
All laws and subordinate legislation shall be enacted or made and published in Sinhala and Tamil, together with a translation thereof in English.
Provided that Parliament shall, at the stage of enactment of any law determine which text shall prevail in the event of any inconsistency between texts.

Anyone who reads the 16th amendment will agree that the language issue is solved to the satisfaction of everyone, you can’t ask for more.!

But Dr Dayan, why you are not worried about the implementation of this amendment which will solve the language problem once and for all.

Not only you but the civil society is also silent.
No one other than DEW .Gunasekara seems to be aware of the existence of this amendment.!

The 17th Amendment at least everybody talks of .even if it is not comprehensive enough!

Dayan, Please write about 16th and 17th Amendments also and let us have more and more of your personal opinions!

Suresh,

Gotabaya is not a politician, he is the Defence Secretary – that has always been a Presidential Appointment position. The JVP have all been elected to their Seats in Parliament and Basil’s appointment to fill an existing MP spot is completely legal in SL political rules.

TMVP are the ones going to represent the Tamil people in the East. I am sure they will do a hell of a better Job than the LTTE have done in the past 18 years.

Tamil ultranationalism, especially in the Diaspora, goes through many fantasies which never come true.

From the 1950s it was the Israel fantasy. Its 2008 and still no Tamil Israel.

From 1971 it was the Bangladesh fantasy. Still no Tamil Bangladesh.

Now its the Kosovo fantasy.

Ah well….

2. Anti South Indianism and not anti Hindianism has always been there. It is worse since 1948 because the British passed the power to the Sinhalese together with the sovereignty of Tamil speaking people of whatever origin. It will not go away until the Tamils of South Asia get back their equal status.

JR Jeyawardne showed his anti Indian feelings. Witnessed with calm his naval officer to attacking Rajiv. Premadsa & Mahinda Rajapakse, JVP opposed the Rajiv – J R signed agreement and thus the 13th amendment.

When one Sinhalese leader agrees another will oppose. It will continue that is the DNA of Srilankan democracy.

3. What is the size of Srilanka in terms of population and economy ? What is the size and the demographic make up of of SL armed forces ? How much is spent on internal defence to kill their own citizens who wants to live peacefully in their homelands and manage their affairs to maintain the Sinhala nation’s rule ? When it is an island what real external security threat they have ? Where does GOSL get money for all these because once you become a debtor you are under the control of the lenders. Economic weakness created by the poor political leadership of the Sinhalese leaders since 1948 is the security threat not the Tamils and their struggle. If proper devolution is given to the Tamil speaking people by stopping the war will solve both the security problem and economic problem of both the nations within the Island.

But the young generation of Tamils and Muslims feel that they have to fight the battle of their grand parents.

The solution is to satisfy the minorities in Sri Lanka without any more delay such as federal state with the protection of a third party, UN.

I agree that unelected Basil, Gotha with JVP thugs are the model politicians who can teach our Tamil speaking politician on ‘democracy’.

I also applaud Dr.Dayan Jeyatillaka is their representative in Geneva on HR!