WASHINGTON, 16 March 2007 — Constitutional reforms aimed at ending three decades of ethnic bloodshed in Sri Lanka could be finalized as early as next next month, Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said here Wednesday.
“We are expecting it to be by April, the political process to come up with definite proposals for a political solution — the constitutional reforms,” he told AFP in an interview in Washington ahead of talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today.
He said that an all-party consultative committee had emerged with several proposed constitutional reforms to be refined into a “final” plan “within a few weeks from now,” setting the stage for what could be devolution of power in Sri Lanka. “These are matters I would be able to impress upon the secretary of state in terms of our political direction” toward a resolution to the island nation’s 35-year-old ethnic conflict, in which 60,000 people have died, Bogollagama said.
He did not say how President Mahinda Rajapakse’s administration is going to forge what many consider a difficult consensus among the various political parties on the mechanics of sharing power with the minority Tamils. Rebels from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have been fighting for about three decades for an independent state for the minority Tamil community northeast of the majority-Sinhalese island nation.
The United States together with Japan, the European Union and Norway are co-chairs of the Tokyo donors’ conference which had tied $4.5 billion of aid to Sri Lanka to progress on a peace settlement. Asked what would be the basis for a political solution, Bogollagama said, “devolution as a means toward which we can address the concerns of all communities.” He pointed out that Colombo was prepared to go beyond the existing constitution to achieve the goal.
There could be “several forms” under which devolution could be structured, he said citing particularly what is popularly known as the “13th amendment” to the constitution made under an Indo-Sri Lankan accord signed in July 1987.
Bogollagama said if the amendment under which the Sri Lankan government agreed to devolve some authority to the provinces “fell short” of expectations, “we have to look at how we can go beyond that.”
“Therefore there is conscious approach by the government of Sri Lanka” to bring about a political solution — a “home grown” solution addressing “all concerns,” he said. Bogollagama, who took over as foreign minister in January, stressed that the island’s peace process was not dead despite an upsurge in fighting, in which more than 4,000 people have also been killed since December 2005.
