I interviewed attorney at law, veteran Left politician and former Provincial Councillor for fifteen years, Lal Wijenayake in July 2010.  His experience is all the more important given the recent discussions and debates on the 13th Amendment and the Provincial Council system in Sri Lanka.  While this interview from two months back is very much focused on his experience as a Provincial Councillor, in recent weeks, Lal Wijenayake was also a petitioner against the anti-democratic 18th Amendment to the Constitution before the Supreme Court.  This was in contrast to the shameful manner in which all five Members of Parliament of the Socialist Alliance voted for the 18th Amendment.

Ahilan Kadirgamar (AK): Can you speak about your own politicisation and the political path to becoming a Provincial Councillor.

Lal Wijenayake (LW): I joined the LSSP (Lanka Sama Samaja Party) as a university student, which I believe was in 1963. I was politicised by student politics and I became the President of the Student Council in the University, in Peradeniya.  Although I studied science at university, after I completed my Bachelor’s, I decided to study law. I studied law because I did not want to join the government service and I was also interested in politics. I continued to be active in the LSSP after completing my education. I became a member of the Central Committee of the LSSP in 1972 and then a Politburo Member from 1980.  I was also a treasurer of the Party for some years. 

I contested the first Provincial Council (PC) elections in 1988. This was when the JVP threatened to kill all those who contested the PC elections.  So, at that time, the SLFP (Sri Lanka Freedom Party) boycotted the elections.  But for democracy, you need an opposition, and so the Left parties decided to contest.  This was when Vijaya Kumaratunga and Chandrika Kumaratunga had broken away from the SLFP and formed the Sri Lanka Mahajana Party.  So the LSSP, Communist Party and the Mahajana Party contested the elections and we stood for devolution of power.  The contest was thus between the United National Party (UNP) and our coalition which was then called the United Socialist Alliance.  The ruling UNP won all the PCs except in the North-East, where elections were delayed and the EPRLF eventually won.  So we in the Socialist Alliance were in the opposition and I became the leader of the opposition in the Central Provincial Council.  Thereafter I continued as a member of the PC for fifteen years. Eventually, in 2004, I decided not to contest the PC.

I continued to be a member of the LSSP, but now have been suspended from the Politburo.  I was of the view that while we gave conditional support to Mahinda Rajapaksa before the 2005 election, that we should not give unconditional support. At that time a serious situation was developing in the country, where there were abductions, disappearances, killings of journalists, and I supplied several documents to my party about these abuses and said we should address these issues publicly. The party wanted to discuss these matters with the government but did not want to make this a public issue. 

Then after Lasantha Wickramaratne’s assassination in January 2008, many of us wanted to take some action in protest.  So we formed what was called the Platform for Freedom, and we called for the support of political parties and NGOs.  I spoke at the meetings of the Platform for Freedom.  And when the leader of the opposition, Ranil Wickramasinghe and former Foreign Minister and dissident SLFP MP, Mangala Samaraweera started addressing the Platform meetings, the LSSP was not happy about me speaking at the same public meetings of the Platform.  I wrote to my party saying that I am standing for democracy and I have to continue.  So the LSSP suspended me from the Politburo.

AK: When did you start thinking about devolution as an issue?

LW: After the United Front government’s defeat in 1977, there were many discussions within the LSSP on the structure of the state, and we studied the models of the former Yugoslavia.  We proposed the idea of devolution as a solution to both the ethnic issue as well as development at the local level.  At that time, the unit of devolution was the major issue and we proposed the District as the unit of devolution, allowing for the right of two Districts to merge.  So, that was our program.  More actors got involved after the 1983 riots.  And then, India got involved, making it much more of a national issue in the country.  Many of us started reading much more about devolution and analysed it as an important issue.

AK: Then of course the Indo-Lanka Accord and the 13th Amendment…

LW: Yes, and then we got involved with the Provincial Council elections.  Many of our candidates were shot dead as many people were killed for contesting the elections. Perhaps seven or eight candidates were killed and an additional thirty to forty members of our coalition were killed by the JVP at that time.  It was brutal, where murdered victims’ bodies were cut up, and even funerals were banned.  But we defied all that and we had funerals.  The government gave guns to the candidates for their protection.  People like myself were helpless as some of us were not capable of physical combat, but the Mahajana party people did fight back.

After the elections, the first PC in the Central Province did a lot of work. But by the second PC (of 1993), the Central Government started taking back some of the devolved powers.  The SLFP won the elections for the third Provincial Council elections in the Central Province (in 1999), when Chandrika Kumaratunga was President.  While Chandrika was for devolution in principle, when it came to the PCs, her Government did not devolve power.  When I saw this, I felt there was no point in contesting Provincial Council elections after that.  The PC system was clearly flawed!

AK: Can you say more about that, in what ways were the PC system and its process of devolution flawed?

LW: First, there was no public discussion with the people about devolution to develop the PC system.  Next, we had a highly centralised executive system, which in effect gives vast powers to the President, including in relation to the Legislature, as the President sits in charge of the Cabinet (consisting of Ministers from the ruling government in parliament) and even the Judiciary through the appointments that are made.  Furthermore, we have a unitary constitution, so the Judiciary has interpreted the Thirteenth Amendment and the Provincial Council Act, such that, the legislative and executive powers reside with the Centre, the Parliament and Presidency. Such interpretation, of seeing the PC as a subordinate body of the Parliament, has become part of the legacy of the failure of devolution.  So, the PC system and the 13th Amendment was in spirit born dead.  We saw these flaws in practice subsequently.

Then, in practice, the administration was not ready, when the PC system was implemented.  There was no public discussion and even the public servants did not know the difference between devolution and decentralisation.  So, for those of us concerned about devolution, our role was to attempt to educate the people. After our election, we, the Provincial Councillors, realized that we didn’t even have a place to meet.  We first met in a hotel to discuss how the PC should get started.  Eventually, the Chief Ministers who were from the UNP, used their party power to force the public servants to create the administration.  Then we did not have the laws, or statutes to govern.  So, we needed to create and pass statutes, which required the equivalent of an Attorney General to give advice on statutes and we needed legal draftsmen.  That kind of capacity was necessary, but the government even now does not have that capacity.  Back then, many of us drafted our own statutes. 

Then the problem of finances.  In the beginning they made lump sum grants for education etc. But after two years they decided to provide the funds through the line ministries, but then the Ministers were not willing to give up their funds.  Then a few years later they decided to make it project based, which was even worse.

If you take the public servants, the District Secretaries and even the Grama Niladharis at the village level, are all appointed by the Central government.  The Governor is appointed by the President and has too many powers.  So, it makes the functioning of the PC’s very difficult, when so much of the administration is under the Centre.

AK: How about police and land powers?

LW: Police powers were devolved, and they brought an Act, which was a good Act, with the structure of the Provincial police service the police commission and so on.  But the final part of the Act says that it will be implemented when the President gazettes.  And that has not happened so far.  Now on land powers, it is very confusing.  This issue in the Act is very hard to interpret and, in practice, land has not been devolved.  In every case that went to the Supreme Court, it was ruled that the government should decide.

AK: How did the issue of Up-Country Tamils figure in the Central Province through the PC?

LW:  Fifty percent of tea production is in the Central Province, but we don’t get one cent.  We tried to tax, but the Centre said no.  So, this relates to the issue of devolution and finances, another central problem of the process of devolution.  However, there is one positive fact. In the first PC, out of 58 members about 15 were Up-Country Tamils and they were mainly trade union leaders.  And they put up a fight on behalf of their people, and therefore about a third of the issues we discussed were plantation problems.  So, we even appointed a Commission, and I was Chairman of the Commission that looked at the problems of Up-Country Tamils.  We brought out an excellent report, even though it was not implemented.  Nevertheless, the problem was made public both in the Province and at the Centre.  This shows that the PC system can be used to highlight the problems of an area.  In the Central Province, 24% of the population is Tamil and 30% of the land area is plantations, so the issue could not be ignored.  And the PC has discussed and raised such issues much more than the parliament. 

AK:  What role do the PCs play in terms of democratisation?

LW:  When we campaigned for devolution, we believed that devolution would allow people to develop their local culture and there will be democracy at the grassroots level. And that this will be a solution to the ethnic problem.  Secondly, we thought devolution will also address development at the local level.  But both have not happened.  Soon after the PCs, in 1992 or thereabouts, they brought about what they called the Southern Development Council, which was under the Centre and clashed with the PCs on issues of development.  Currently there is the Up-Country Development Council.  So these are other ways in which powers and resources that should go to the Provinces are used by the Centre.  The same is true of the current development efforts in the East and the North.  I would say, now the PCs have become, more or less, the implementation arm of the government to the extent they permit it.

The fundamental question is whether meaningful devolution can work under an Executive Presidential system and a unitary constitution like what we have in Sri Lanka.  That is what many of us have been fighting for over the last twenty years. That is the need for at least something like the Indian model, where the constitution does not specify whether it is a unitary state or not.

AK: Thank you for sharing your experiences.