President sounds clarion call for consensus on Constitution

• Sirisena hails TNA Chief Sampanthan, slams ‘pseudo patriots’ including Mahinda for trying to 
• sabotage Constitution making process

By Dharisha Bastians

President Maithripala Sirisena made a passionate appeal for consensus on the proposed new Constitution in Parliament yesterday, urging lawmakers to support his Government’s efforts to end decades of ethnic strife and achieve lasting peace.

In a 25-minute speech delivered during the budget debate on the Ministry of National Integration and Reconciliation last afternoon, President Sirisena said everyone engaged in the process would need to be flexible to negotiate a political solution that would be acceptable to all communities in the country. 

“I urge all members of this House who desire a better future for our motherland, who desire permanent peace, who do not desire a recurrence of war, to come to the negotiating table to hammer out a solution that will resolve our national question once and for all,” the President appealed during his speech. 

Delving into history, President Sirisena explained that decades of bloodletting and communal clashes had cost the country dearly, by hurting the economy and creating fear and mistrust between communities. 

While the guns had fallen silent, and a physical battle had been won, true peace has eluded Sri Lanka because the ideologies of separatism and division have lived on beyond the war, Sirisena explained. 

“I do not agree that we have achieved true peace. True peace will come only when we have silenced the calls for division of this land nationally and internationally,” he said, making the case for a permanent political solution to end a 60-year ethnic conflict.

The President said the country was living through a historic opportunity to resolve the ethnic question, since the current Tamil political leadership were also genuinely committed to finding solutions.

“In my opinion, Mr. Sampanthan is the best northern leader who can help us to achieve a reasonable and equitable solution,” he said, to applause from the House. “From experience we know that this type of cooperation is not always forthcoming from the political leadership of the north and east. Today, Mr. Sampanthan gives leadership to the northern people and he and his parliamentary group cooperate with our Government,” Sirisena noted. 

He also slammed former President Rajapaksa and his political allies for attempting to sabotage efforts to draft a new Constitution that would include a political settlement for the north and east, calling them “pseudo patriots” that were seeking to mislead people for petty political gain. He said these forces were claiming that the process to draft a new Constitution was aimed at dividing the country. 

“Those that are opposing this process to resolve a national issue are those agitating for more bloodletting in this island,” President Sirisena charged.

The former President, now a Kurunegala District legislator, made very different promises about power devolution to the provinces when he was leading the country, he recalled. “As a member of his Government, I remember his promises to the UN Secretary General about sharing power. I remember his 13 plus promises to the Indian Prime Minister. It is a tragedy if politicians say one thing in power and another thing when they are desperately seeking to regain power,” he asserted. 

Over a hundred thousand people still live in displacement camps in the north, President Sirisena told Parliament during his speech, and some of them had lived in those camps for up to 27 years. 

“It’s easy to demonstrate and hold press conferences and criticise this process when the Government is trying to resolve the problems these people face. I wonder how these pseudo patriots will react if they were stuck in a displacement camp for 27 years? Wouldn’t they want to take up arms? Perhaps they would do worse,” he charged.

During his moving address, Sirisena told lawmakers that when people of the north returned to their own properties, as the Government slowly releases tranches of land for resettlement, some of them fall to their knees to kiss the ground in their own plots. 

President Sirisena said he doubted that any of the politicians opposing constitutional reform and the release of lands ever visited the north to listen to the grievances of the people there. 

“What are the opponents of this process, who are spreading lies, seeking to achieve? Just like leaders in the past who used this national problem to gain political power, those who oppose attempts to resolve this issue now are also trying to gain power. If this process is sabotaged, they will have to take responsibility for the consequences,” the President charged.