Sri Lanka-13th Amendment

21-07-2023

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) recently “categorically rejected” Sri Lankan President’s offer to implement the 13th Amendment.
13^th Amendment was evolved as a demand by the moderate Tamilians during the Civil War and has still remained a key demand from the Sri Lankan government.

Sri Lanka has been involved in ethnic conflict since the country, formerly known as Ceylon, became independent from British rule in 1948.
The Sri Lankan Civil War was a civil war fought in Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009.
Beginning on 23 July 1983, it was an intermittent insurgency against the government by the Velupillai Prabhakaran-led Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the north-east of the island.
The demand for Ealam was due to the continuous discrimination and violent persecution against Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lanka government.
After a 26-year military campaign, the Sri Lankan military defeated the Tamil Tigers in May 2009, bringing the civil war to an end.
Even to this date, the military is visibly present in the Tamil-majority north and east till date, 14 years after the civil war ended.

India intervened in the Civil War by sending its troops (Indian Peace Keeping Forces) under “Operation Pawan” in Sri Lanka, who were intended to perform a peacekeeping role.
The intervention was the result of Indo-Sri Lankan Accord between India and Sri Lanka of 1987.
The Accord was intended to end the Sri Lankan Civil War between LTTE and the Sri Lankan military.
Indian Peace Keeping Forces (IPKF) engaged the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in a series of battles to make the LTTE surrender the arms and enter into negotiations with the Sri Lankan government.
The failure of IPKF to make LTTE surrender forced them to withdraw from Sri Lanka.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is a political alliance in Sri Lanka that represents the country's Sri Lankan Tamil minority.
Tamilians constitute around 10% of Sri Lanka’s population. The Sinhalese who are Buddhists dominate the population in Sri Lanka.
TNA was formed in October 2001 by a group of moderate Tamil nationalist parties and former militant groups.
The alliance originally supported self-determination in an autonomous state (Tamil Eelam) for the island's Tamils.
It supported negotiations with the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to resolve the civil war in Sri Lanka.

The 13th Amendment is a Sri Lankan legislation on the devolution of power to the nine Tamil provinces, but has never been fully implemented.
Subjects such as education, health, agriculture, housing, land and police are devolved to the provincial administrations.
Restrictions on financial powers to the provinces and overriding powers given to the President are some of the reasons behind the lack of progress in the 13^th Amendment.
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) on 18^th July “categorically rejected” Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s offer to implement the 13th Amendment.
The reason behind the rejection was the absence of police powers given to the Tamil Provinces.
Successive governments in Sri Lanka have refused to grant land and police powers to the provinces.
India has consistently emphasized the “full implementation” of the legislation, which was enacted after the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987.
As a part of Sri Lankan Tamils’ historic demand for the right to self-determination, 13^th Amendment remains the only legislative guarantee of some power devolution.

The SL government has listed developmental plans which includes several projects promised in the past, such as upgrading the Palaly Airport and Kankesanturai Harbour in Jaffna.
It is also planning to establish ferry connectivity between south India and northern Sri Lanka.
The plan also includes devolution of power to the provinces “with the exception of police powers”.