By sacking three crucial ministers, proroguing Parliament and telling the nation that she was "willing to discuss with the LTTE, a just and balanced solution within the parameters of unity, territorial integrity and sovereignty of Sri Lanka", President Chandrika Kumaratunga may have precipitated a politico-constitutional crisis with far-reaching consequences. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe cannot complain as the President has all this powers and more, under a Constitution drafted by and for his own UNP predecessor, the late J R Jayawardene. So much so it can be argued that the persona-centric powers sought by the LTTE for the office of the Chairperson-cum-Chief Executive of the Interim Self-Governing Authority (ISGA) in the interim administration in the Tamil-majority 'NorthEast' may have been modelled on the Sri Lankan Constitution itself.
Chandrika's startling decisions, all coming on a single day when her Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) came down heavily on the LTTE's proposals to the point of nearly rejecting them in toto, has rendered Ranil, a lame-duck Prime Minister. The authors of the Sri Lankan Constitution, however single-minded they have been, may not have foreseen such a stalemate of sorts. It is not clear as yet who called into Army, "to assist the police" in maintaining the situation in the national capital of Colombo, but the armed forces are said to be unhappy over the Ranil Government's overtures to the LTTE which many among them felt compromised national security. There is also a perception that the Sinhala mood in the South and the West may now favour Chandrika just as it favoured Ranil when he opposed her earlier peace packages, and get reflected once the prorogued Parliament is ready to reassemble.
It should be said to the credit of Chandrika that as President it was she who had broken the LTTE logjam by offering peace talks in the first instance. The LTTE out-rightly declined the 'Chandrika peace packages', the latter taking away some of what the former had offered. Leave alone the constitutional propriety of the President entering the talks directly over the head of the Prime Minister, it remains to be seen if the LTTE wants to do business with a Chandrika-led team, now or later. The chemistry, as they say, worked between the LTTE and UNP under Ranil, though the latter was perceived to be giving more than getting any.
Chandrika's decisions reportedly is aimed at upstaging the ruling United National Front's (UNF) efforts to impeach Chief Justice Sanath N Silva, when the nation's Supreme Court was hearing a petition on the President's powers vis a vis that of the Defence Minister, who she has now has sacked. Earlier, the court had upheld the President's powers vis a vis the Government and Parliament. There are SLFP claims of a similar move to impeach the President. But that sounds self-contradictory as a fearsome possibility alongside similar claims that a breakaway UNF group was ready to help form a new government.
Prime Minister Ranil has said that the President's decisions have caused a 'national crisis'. That much is true. The LTTE could not have asked for more, as the 'South-based Sinhala majority' would have to take the blame. If the evolving situation 'leaves the LTTE with no choice but to revive the war, and not the talks' as offered, Prabhakaran may have got the Sinhala parties where he wanted. As the past has shown, political turmoil of the kind in the South has left him free to run and stabilise the LTTE's civilian administration in the Tamil-majority areas, and win an occasional war against a direction-less and demoralised Sri Lankan Army.
It is an irony of contemporary Sri Lanka politics that the two major Sinhala parties have been playing Tom and Jerry with the nation's crucial ethnic war. Chandrika, who was painted a villain for her peace initiative when the UNP was in the Opposition, seems to have become the darling of the very same sections while now opposing the peace process under the UNP. With Chandrika under physical and political attack from the LTTE, the 'cohabitation arrangement', a recent accident of Sri Lanka's electoral history, had reated space for a national-level political leadership in Ranil Wickremesinghe, in the absence of any other, even from her SLFP. Now, that too seems to be under threat.
By timing her actions when Ranil was away in the US, and ahead of his meeting with President George Bush, Chandrika has sent out a message that would be heard in world-nations. She herself is scheduled to be in New Delhi from Friday, followed by the Sri Lankan Army chief. Whether she would still go ahead with the planned visit, or did what she did when she did only to pre-empt a sober advice while in Delhi are all issues for conjectures.
For now, the reality is that the LTTE has exploded a paper-bomb in Sri Lanka's South, which may have greater destruction capabilities for the enemy without taking any Tiger or Tamil casualty than RDX or any other chemical explosives. As long as the LTTE confines itself to the Tamil areas and does not provoke the Sri Lankan armed forces to the conviction of the Norwegian mediators, whose future presence too may be under question, they are god's own free men. The South may have too much on hand to worry about the LTTE and the Tamils.
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