The Hindu : International : Sri Lanka: draft Constitution `can be a starting point'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Sep 14, 2004

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International

Sri Lanka: draft Constitution `can be a starting point'

By V.S. Sambandan

COLOMBO, SEPT 13. Sri Lanka's draft constitution proposals submitted in 1997 and 2000 "can be a good starting point to find an amicable solution" to the island-nation's ethnic conflict and a federal variant could be found to suit a small nation such as Sri Lanka, Prakash Karat, Polit Bureau member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), said here today.

Delivering a public lecture on federalism and the political system in India, organised by the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies (BCIS), Mr. Karat said in the "long history" of the island's debate between the unitary structure and federalism, "progress was made in the late 1990s in working out a federal form of state structure, which safeguards Sri Lankan unity and sovereignty."

Responding to a question from the audience on whether federalism would suit a small country, a common apprehension among the island's majority Sinhalese, Mr. Karat said: "I don't buy the argument... There is no proof to suggest that small states cannot have a federal system. There is sufficient space within federalism to innovate."

Emphasising that there were "no readymade models," he said a federal model for the island-nation was "something which you have to work out in Sri Lanka."

Decentralisation

Replying to another question, Mr. Karat said there was a "common misconception that the Left is against decentralisation." Setting out examples from Left-ruled states in India, he said: "We can legitimately claim that we have made a serious contribution to decentralisation from a Marxist standpoint." De-centralisation, he said, "does not mean rolling back the state," but "making the state at all levels more accountable to the people."

Federalism in India, Mr. Karat said, was currently facing "a new threat" from "two countervailing forces": the outlook of the two major parties — the Congress and the BJP — and the process of liberalisation.

Jayadeva Uyangoda, Professor of Political Science, Colombo University, said there was a need for a "historic compromise" between the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE to solve the decades-long separatist conflict. Such a compromise, he said, should span three areas: self-rule and shared rule, shared sovereignty and political guarantees of a peace accord for both the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE.

Lakshman Kadirgamar, Foreign Affairs Minister and chairman of the BCIS, presided.

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