cannot be the privilege of Southern politicians only, but Northern as well: Mano
Q There have been many interpretations to the recent protest led by Northern Chief Minister C. V. Wigneswaran. As a Tamil political leader, what is your opinion about the protest march ‘Eluga Thamil’?
The slogans raised and demands put forward by ‘Eluga Thamil’ are not new. They are the slogans and demands of all the Tamil leaders and parties of the North and East. Just refer the last parliamentary election manifesto of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA). The entire ‘Eluga Thamil’ list is there. Although the terminologies may differ at some point, the spirit is identical.
My general opinion is that the era of standing separately as Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims is officially over now. Yes, there are some remnants of the past era. But let us today stand up as Sri Lankans and defeat such odds. I responded to ‘Eluga Thamil’ instantly. But my reply was not arrogant or political. It was a friendly, genuine and logical response.
Mr. C.V. Wigneswaran is a good friend of mine. I convinced him to take up the Chief Minister candidature for the NPC elections years before. Technically, I pushed him from his peaceful spiritual life in Colombo to the turbulent political life in Jaffna. I have no regrets.
You see, LTTE leader V. Prabhakaran once called the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa a pragmatic leader. Today MR has branded CV as non-communal. I qualify MR’s opinion. CV is not a typical politician. Let us open up a dialogue with him. That is the sense of national coexistence.
Q Do you approve such a protest march at this point of time?
I don’t want to make a direct opinion as it is already an issue within the TNA. As I understand, TNA leader R. Sampanthan, ITAK leader Mavai Senathirasa and party spokesman M.A. Sumanthiran are of the opinion that this protest should not have occurred at this juncture. Many ITAK front liners who spoke to me during my recent visit to Jaffna are of the same opinion.
Timing is very important in politics. You make wrong decisions at right times and right decisions at wrong times. Tamil history of the North and East is of missed opportunities, which are in fact mistiming. In 1987, the Tamil leadership failed to take the fully-pledged 13A from JR and Rajiv Gandhi. Later in 2000, the TNA failed to provide the necessary votes to CBK to pass the package proposals. In 2005, the
LTTE-manoeuvered vote boycott prevented Ranil Wickremesinghe’s victory at the presidential elections and lost a 13A plus solution.
Today, genuine Tamil leaders must be regretting, some from the heavens and some within. I am not giving any clean chits to JR, Rajiv, CBK or RW. They too don’t need certificates from me. There are accusations on their genuineness. The Tamils should understand that all the above leaders would stand by the interests of the government and State they represent. Therefore, we have to compromise at a meeting point. You can’t expect the sun and moon, that too in one single stroke.
I am a member of the Constitutional Steering Committee (CSC). I can’t divulge anything. But I can indicate the mood there. Today, what is on offer may be less than what was offered during 1987, 2000 and 2005. Give the CSC a break. Let it finish the job. If you are not happy, then you can commence the democratic struggle. Nobody will stop you. It is the Tamil people of the North and East who will make the final decision.
Q Some of the demands made during the Chief Minister-led protest were nothing new. Even you have made similar demands like a political solution to the ethnic problem, release of Tamil prisoners, releasing of lands that had been taken over by the security forces during the war to their original owners and so forth. How did this protest get a racial twist?
You are spot on. Leave aside the TNA and Wigneswaran. I have demanded many such. A political solution to the national question is a must. It has to be addressed with the power-sharing package. That is why leaders from SWRD to Dudley, JR, Premadasa, CBK, RW and Mahinda conducted discussions with Tamil leaders. These leaders are not fools to conduct discussions and make wars if there is no such national question.
The hardliners in the South, North and beyond the seas are political cousins. They wait for opportunities to score points. Whenever Northern hardliners open their mouth, their Southern cousins score points. And it is vice versa.
Q The protest also reflected the frustration of the Tamil people who specially suffered with war for a long time. Why has the government failed to win the trust of these people?
Now the war is over. But the root causes that triggered it still remain. You have to address them with a power-share solution within the one Sri Lanka radius.
Nobody is demanding that the Army withdraws totally. If anybody is calling for such, they must be off their heads. During warfare, you need to protect the military formations from the LTTE guns. So you needed the high-security zones. Now the war is over. So the LTTE and their guns having been defeated why do you need high-security zones (HSZs)? The fertile private land you acquired should be returned to the original owners. The Army cannot engage in agriculture, farming, fishing, hospitality and tourism industries and run motels and small kiosks along the roadways.
Q According to the Chief Minister, what he said in Tamil has been misinterpreted and miscommunicated among the other communities. There is a segment among the Sinhala community that uses these types of protests and what is allegedly stated there to spread extremism. What is your view?
There is a miscommunication again. Some tend to think that the CM has withdrawn his earlier remarks. An MP told me that the CM has withdrawn and he is almost apologetic for what he spoke during ‘Eluga Thamil.’ That was a couple of days ago at a political debate programme on a private TV. I had to intervene and correct him.
To my knowledge, the NPC CM has not withdrawn anything. The CM in his recent speeches had said his original comments were twisted by certain politicians who should have been in jail for misdeeds of theirs. He also qualified that his demands were traditional ideas of the North and East.
Now, this is a free country again. But nobody can demand a separate country or division within Sri Lanka. Nobody can propose an armed struggle to achieve political goals. This is the radius within which you are free to talk and express opinions.
There are some in the South that demand that this country should be a Sinhala Buddhist Republic. My friend MP Udaya Gammanpila told me at a public TV debate that this country had only one nation and that was the Sinhalese, and all others were minority linguistic and religious groups. The ‘Hitaishi JathikaViyaparaya’ (Patriotic National Movement) Secretary told me, that too at a private TV debate, that all, other than Sinhala Buddhists, shall accept the supremacy of the Sinhala race. BBS General Secretary Ven. Gnanasara Thera threatened to chase all the Tamils to India. I have given appropriate responses to them as per my patriotic stands. But the point I draw here is that freedom of speech cannot be the privilege of Southern politicians only. It is extended to the North as well.
Q There was an allegation that neither you nor your officials were consulted on the formulation of the national policy on reconciliation. This is despite you being the Minster of National Co-existence, Dialogue and Official Languages. What has exactly happened?
There is more than one ministry and too many agencies engaged in the reconciliation subject. The Ministry of National Integration and Reconciliation is headed by the President. It is one of the many institutions coming under him. The office, by the name of ONUR, headed by former president Mrs. Kumaratunga is coming under the president’s ministry. And my ministry, National Co-existence, Dialogue and Official Languages, is here. And SCRM is headed by Mr. Mano Tittawala, Consultation Task Force on Reconciliation Mechanisms is headed by Mrs. Muttetuwegama and Ministry of External Affairs. All that I wanted is that all stakeholders be invited for a discussion so that there can be division of labour. This is an issue for the Colombo diplomatic community and the UN too.
ONUR has formulated the national policy on reconciliation without any discussion with my ministry. This Cabinet paper was submitted to the Cabinet by the president. He was under the impression that it had been discussed with me. But at the Cabinet, when I objected and explained to him, he postponed it and assured me that he would call for a general discussion forthwith. This is what happened.
I respect Mrs. CBK as one of the few most progressive leaders in this country. Her husband had been a political and cinema friend of my late father. I have no personal issue with her. But I don’t understand why she fails to coordinate with me. I have visited her office many times. Forgetting all formalities, I have sought discussions with her. But they are not occurring. But it is unfair to put all the blame on Mrs. CBK. It is the fault of the system today that lacks coordination.
If the Tamil minister is not accommodated in the national reconciliation policy making, it would send wrong signals to the Tamil community and international community. I want my vision and thoughts based on the genuine heartburns of the Tamil community of the North and East and South, also of the Muslim community. I am living with the Sinhala community and understand the Sinhala psyche. I am personally trilingual. I am qualified to be the minister for national reconciliation and coexistence. Therefore, I wanted to be accommodated in the national reconciliation policy making process. I will not accept half-baked branded policies to be stamped on me and generally on us as a national reconciliation and coexistence policy.
Q What are the general National Co-existence Dialogue activities of your ministry?
The Geneva response of Sri Lanka is based on four principles. They are Truth commission, Reparations, Judicial process and Non-Recurrence. My ministry tends to play the lead role in the non-recurrence subject matter as national co-existence is the gateway to non-recurrence. I have indicated this to the president and prime minister, and also to the Sri Lankan friends in the international community.
My ministry has already formulated and at some streams started conducting national coexistence dialogue sessions propagating the ‘Sri Lankan, our Identity; Diversity, Our Strength, Let us review the history and correct mistakes, Let us not take up arms to achieve political goals, One country, power to all’ concepts. We engage with grassroots streams such as university and teacher communities, religious sects, artistes, media, private sector corporates, youth and women organisations, LG legislators, State officials at district, divisional and provincial levels, soldier families, ex-militant families, war widows and Sri Lankan Diaspora.
I am establishing district offices as per the LLRC recommendations and working through 1,000 Coexistence Societies established around the country by my ministry. I have the NGO secretariat under me and am reorganising the civil society organisations by establishing CSO councils at national, district and divisional levels.
Q Over the years, the language barrier has been a major issue with regard to reconciliation and unity in Sri Lanka. There are still instances where the two official languages Sinhala and Tamil are not given equal status. There were complaints that certain sign boards in public transport like in train stations are dominated by one language. As the Official Languages Minster, why do you think this has become such a difficult task?
Please give me some time. I have just taken over one year ago and am addressing an issue of 60 years. I am committed to this job. And I am trilingual. ‘Trilingual Sri Lanka’ is my aim. The sign boards and all forms at government offices are needed to be in all three languages. There need to be written and oral responses to the citizens in their own language.
We are discussing the power devolution subject to frame new laws in the steering committee. But we already have a generally-acceptable language law. I trust that if we can show real-time progress on the language issue, we can simplify the national question. Thus, I envisioned the official language policy implementation as the prelude to the political solution. Therefore, this is directly linked to national coexistence and reconciliation.
I am making all possible efforts to make my own government to understand this. It is because my two important Cabinet papers on providing translators to necessary State offices and bilingual and trilingual abilities of State officials are held at committee stages for months with objections raised by people who do not comprehend the very spirit of the language policy of the State. I am confident that if my Cabinet papers are accepted, those will revolutionize the language policy implementations.
The official language policy stipulated in the Constitution needs no major amendments. What is pending is the implementation. Tamil language, mother tongue of about five million Sri Lankan citizens, seeks parity status at implementation with Sinhala as official and national language.
The entities related to the language policy coming under my ministry are the Department of Official Languages headed by the Commissioner of Official Languages (DoL), Official Languages Commission (OLC) and the National Institute of Language Education and Learning (NILET). I require funds to carry on with my workload.
The OLC goes behind the policy violators, conducts language audits at all State offices, provides official translations of name boards, documents, establishes language help desks at all and necessary State offices around the country. The NILET conducts language classes, trains professional translators and interpreters, while the DoL conducts exams to State officials, prepares language study curricula and language Apps, establishes language labs around the country and develops the official language policy. I require reasonable fund allocations for these activities. I seek the support of the Finance Ministry and the donor community.
