The Hindu : Chandrika's proposals to end stalemate hailed

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Dec 01, 2003

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Chandrika's proposals to end stalemate hailed

By R.K. Radhakrishnan

Sri Lankan Minister for Port and Shipping, Rauff Hakeem.

CHENNAI NOV. 30. The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress leader, Rauff Hakeem, on Saturday welcomed the President, Chandrika Kumaratunga's proposals to end the stalemate and said that it was a "good start to begin a bipartisan approach to the peace process which was lacking" so far.

"With the sudden takeover of the Ministries, the President perhaps precipitated some crisis. But we have to look at the brighter side. People expect some good to come out of this [the proposals], particularly we, the minorities who have suffered as a result of bickering in the south between the two main parties. Our best wishes are with both of them (Ms. Kumaratunga and the Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe) to arrive at some consensus since it is very apparent that unless both these major parties take it (the peace process) out of the contentious political agenda, there is no future for Sri Lanka," he told The Hindu here.

Mr. Hakeem, whose party holds the balance of power in the Sri Lankan Parliament, felt that Norway would come back to mediate between the Government and the LTTE. "I only feel Norway's suspension of their involvement was purely tactical. The President's attitude has gone through a lot of changes during the past two weeks and so has the Prime Minister's. All of this augurs well to work out a bipartisan approach, which is a crying need of the hour," he said. He said people had "repeatedly given a mandate" to Ms. Kumaratunga and the Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, to pursue peace.

Mr. Hakeem said the LTTE's stand of an appropriate time to include Muslims in the peace talks was not correct. "In my opinion the appropriate time was at the very beginning of the peace talks itself. From the second round onwards. It did not happen. I participated despite the fact that it affected my credibility with my people. That sacrifice I made in the hope that the LTTE and the Government were sincere in their professed commitment to accommodate the Muslim dimension when the political talks would begin," he said.

It was important that the structure of the talks itself was altered to accommodate a separate Muslim delegation. This, he reminded, was the promise made by the LTTE, the Government and even the International Community.

But the LTTE "continued" to be "very intransigent" when it came to the question of Muslim representation in the talks. "It is not a question of simply ensuring minority rights in an LTTE dominated council. It is a question of autonomy for the Muslims. That issue has to be addressed by the LTTE, the Government and the International Community," he said.

The Muslims had consistently garnered 50 per cent votes in the East. Hence, the community, which had such popularity both in the provinces and at the Centre, could not be ignored when it wanted to be considered as an equal partner, he said.

Mr. Hakeem is here to study the Indian model of devolution.A team of seven constitutional experts from Sri Lanka will be in New Delhi for five days and study the various Indian federal models in Jammu and Kashmir, the north-eastern States, West Bengal and the Union Territories.

"We may not copy the same thing. But we would try and include some of these features in our counter proposals. We are trying to devise a way in which non-contiguous territories could be brought together under a single administration in order to make effective devolution work. That would mean that we will still want to share power with Tamils in certain respects," he said.

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