Sri Lanka to Propose Sharing Power With Separatists

On the heels of their biggest battlefield victory over Tamil insurgents, Sri Lankan leaders will unveil a formal power-sharing plan this month that would transform the country into a federal republic in all but name, the justice minister said Sunday.

The chief tactical aim of the plan to change Sri Lanka into a union of “regions” is to satisfy the demands of the Tamil minority and simultaneously undermine popular support for the Tamil guerrillas, who have been waging a war for a separate homeland on this Indian Ocean island since 1983.

But uncertainties in the proposed package of constitutional amendments still must be ironed out, G. L. Peiris, the justice and constitutional affairs minister, said in an interview. He said President Chandrika Kumaratunga has not yet decided whether to merge two of the island’s provinces with large Tamil populations into a single region, a key demand of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam guerrilla group.

“There’s been no firm decision on the unit of devolution. It’s an open question,” Peiris said. Discussions between the president and other political leaders are continuing, he said.

The plan must be approved by a two-thirds majority of Parliament and by voters in a referendum.

On Dec. 5, after a hard advance that took 50 days, the Sri Lankan army captured the city of Jaffna, the rebels’ northern capital. Most of the guerrillas melted away into the jungle, and virtually the entire civilian population fled.

Tiger attacks on military and economic targets, including suicide bombings, are now mounting in the east, another area with large numbers of Tamils.

Kumaratunga, who was elected president in November 1994 on a pledge of seeking peace, has offered amnesty to the guerrillas but demanded that they lay down their arms first. Last month, Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran said he was ready to talk, but only if the army withdrew from Jaffna.

Under the power-sharing plan, the country’s 10 provinces would be transformed into “regions” having sole responsibility in about 40 areas, including agriculture and land use. The boundary between central and local powers would be more clearly demarcated, Peiris said.

“Devolution is a good thing, a democratic thing,” Peiris said.

An informal version of the plan was floated in August. The next step, Peiris said, is the presentation of draft constitutional amendments to a special panel made up of all parties in Parliament.

“Certainly during the course of this month we’ll be presenting the proposals to the select committee,” Peiris said.

Although all regions would have equal powers, the constitutional package is aimed mainly at wooing the Hindu Tamils, who see themselves as having been victims of discrimination and exploitation by the majority Buddhist Sinhalese since Sri Lanka gained independence from Britain in 1948.

In the Tamils’ struggle to carve out an independent homeland, an estimated 39,000 people have been killed. In April, the rebels broke off talks with the government and shattered a three-month truce by resuming hostilities.

Under the new plan, the central government would retain control of sensitive areas such as defense and foreign affairs and retain certain constitutional prerogatives.

“We don’t want any region to be able to hold a referendum to decide on whether to remain a part of Sri Lanka or not,” Peiris said.

Merging the Northern and Eastern provinces, as the Tigers demand, is a hot-button issue. Tamils make up a clear majority in the north, but the province that stretches along the island’s eastern coast contains roughly equivalent numbers of Tamils, Sinhalese and Muslims, Peiris said.

“The government is not prepared to endorse a fully unified North-Eastern province,” Peiris stressed.

That decision, and the recent reaction of a Tiger official, portend more armed strife in Sri Lanka.

Anton Balasingham, the Tigers’ theoretician, said Dec. 30 that the government seems to be plotting to leave only a “skeleton” of the Eastern province to Tamils after stripping it of jurisdiction over areas such as Trincomalee Harbor and the Amparai district. He charged Kumaratunga with buckling under hard-line Sinhalese pressure and revising the plan to give herself the power to dissolve regional councils.