Sunday, July 10, 2016

Retraction for the 15th time by the Sinhalese

Cheating the UN on the UNHCR resolution is the 15th in series of such deceits, false promises and retraction of agreements by the Sinhalese since 1925. Other 14 are listed below.
1.    Abrogation of the Mahendra Pact of 28th June 1925 between the Ceylon Tamil Maha Jana Sabhai led by Sir W. Duraisamy and the Executive Committee of the Ceylon National Congress led by Sir C. E. Corea.  
2.     Disfranchisement of the upcountry Tamils by two legislations, the Ceylon Citizenship Act of 1948 and the Indian and Pakistani Residents Citizenship Act of 1949, against the agreed constitutional guarantees provided to them by the British government under section 29 of the Soulbary constitution.
3.    Passage of the Sinhala only resolution at the Kelani convention of the United National Party (UNP) in 1955. The resolution was mooted by no other person than Mr. J. R. Jayawardane who in the late thirties moved a resolution in the then State Council to make Sinhalese and Tamil as official languages. Also this resolution was against the solemn pledge of the then UNP Prime Minister Sir John Kotelawela at his 1954 Kokuvil Hindu College proclamation to make Sinhala and Tamil official languages of Ceylon.
4.    On June 5th 1956, Sri Lanka Freedom Party’s (SLFP) Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike moved a legislation to make Sinhala, the official language of Ceylon, violating all pledges given by the Sinhala leadership to the Tamils in 1948.
5.    During May 1958, SLFP Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike unilaterally abrogated in the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam Pact of 26th July 1957. This pact provided for the establishment of Regional Councils. Bandaranaike abrogated the pact under pressure from ultra nationalist Sinhalese groups.
6.    SLFP Prime Minister Srimavo Bandaranaike, under the bilateral agreement, the 1964 Srimavo-Sastri pact betrayed the up country Tamils who toiled for over a century to make the hill country of Ceylon, an economic paradise. Nearly 500,000 Tamils were to be herded off without their consent to unknown terrains in India, once again against the constitutional guarantees provided by the British to them under the Soulbary constitution.
7.    During late 1966 UNP Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake, bowing to ultra-nationalistic pressure (a Buddhist bikku lost his life protesting on 8th January 1966) abrogated the Dudley-Chelvanayakam Pact of March 24th 1965.
8.    SLFP Prime Minister led the promulgation of a Republican constitution, in 1972 May, taking away the minimum guarantees granted by the British to the Tamils while granting dominion status on 1948 February 4th. The architect of the constitution was Colvin R. De Silva, who in 1956 proclaimed loudly inside the parliament, one language two countries and two languages one country. The 1972 constitution provided for the prime place to Buddhism, making Sri Lanka a theocratic state, and powerfully enshrined Sinhalese as the official language.
9.    UNP Prime Minister J. R. Jayawardane was the architect of the 1978 constitution, providing for executive presidency, a move that smashed all hopes for Tamil participation in governance. This led to the government orchestred burning of the Public Library in Jaffna, a treasure house of knowledge of the Tamil people. The 1983 racial riots and the aftermath exodus of the Tamil population is history.
10.                       President J. R. Jayawardane agreed to negotiate through the special emissary, G. Parthasarathi, of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (3rd January 1984). Proposals made by G. Parthasarathi, after adequate consultations with Tamil leadership, were scuttled by President J. R. Jayawardane, by referring the proposals to an All-Party Conference on ethnic peace and eventually abandoning the final proposals of the All-Party Conference. (26 Dec 1984)
11.                        Sri Lankan government refused a negotiated settlement after few rounds at the Thimpu conference organized by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi (17th August 1985)
12.                       All-Party-Conference to resolve the ethnic crisis at the BMICH (25 June 1986), and a subsequent summit in Bangalore between Rajiv Gandhi and Jayewardene (17 & 18 November 1986) failed because of the intransience of President J. R. Jayawardane.
13.                       On 29th July 1987 Rajiv-Jayawradane accord was signed. 
13.1 The accord recognized that the northern and the eastern provinces have been areas of historical habitation of Sri Lankan Tamil speaking peoples.
13.2 It provided that the northern and eastern provinces as now constituted, will form one administrative unit, having one elected provincial council. Such a unit will have one governor, one chief minister and one board of ministers, who have at all times hitherto lived together in this territory with other ethnic groups.
13.3 The accord implied that the government of India will underwrite and guarantee the resolutions, and co-operate in the implementation of these proposals.
13.4 As a consequence, the 13th amendment among other things made provisions for the establishment of a system of Provincial Councils (14th November 1987).
14.                       On 22nd February 2002, agreement on a ceasefire between the Government of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, followed by the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding between the two parties, as a means of establishing a positive atmosphere in which further steps towards negotiations on a lasting solution can be taken. It invoked international law and said that the parties shall in accordance with international law abstain from hostile acts against the civilian population, including such acts as torture, intimidation, abduction, extortion and harassment.  This agreement was under-written by the Royal Norwegian Government, who became the final authority regarding interpretation of this Agreement. On 8th January 2008, President Mahinda Rajapakse unilaterally abrogated the pact and gave notice to the international monitoring mission to vacate Sri Lanka. 

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