Kath Noble with her easy conversational style of writing and her ‘at a distance’ sense of objectivity in comment, is of the view that Dayan has lost his job and Malinda has lost the argument in the course of expressing their views on this subject. I don’t believe that Dayan has lost his job because he favoured the implementation of the 13th amendment. Losing a job in the public sector is a randomly ordered occupational hazard in Sri Lanka. There is pendulum-logic in Dayan’s position because he swung with vigour and conviction in defending Sri Lanka’s position at Geneva and then resorted to reverse swing (nothing to do with cricket) to recommend measures that would consolidate the gains that have been achieved so far. Malinda has not lost the argument for two reasons. In first place what he says has considerable merit in the context of the famous epigram "Little now and more later". In the second place, the issue at stake does not boil down to an argument. It is a matter of what the future holds by way of political stability and national sovereignty of their motherland to a talented young journalist, a mature practitioner of political science and others who with very limited personal ambitions, do not wish to be to be a part of a diaspora that lives on the bread of greenbacks alone.

What I offer is no more than an impressionistic (perhaps whimsical) picture based on my experience as a citizen. Now that a military operation has been successfully executed to meet a military problem, we need to go beyond that result to penetrate the social problem associated with the dissatisfaction and dissension lingering within the minority communities (especially the Tamil citizenry) in Sri Lanka. The challenge that Sri Lanka now faces is to find a political solution that goes beyond that of fulfilling the expectations of this minority by setting up a system that provides just and efficient governance across the entire country. Many contributors to the Island, like Dr. B. S. Wijeweera and U. B. Wijekoon have argued that what is most needed is a reform of Parliament and therefore an entirely new Constitution that incorporates a new political culture. Their critique is especially significant as it relates to the uncritical use of the term ‘empowerment’ because in the ultimate analysis only politicians are empowered with more material benefits and the potential for being boorish and abusive of power. While I agree with their opinion, I must say that considering the problems that Sri Lanka now faces, such an adventure would take us beyond the horizon of immediacy. In the narrowest sense, the talk of the town is a solution to the ethnic problem as it relates to the North and East. The proposed solution is envisaged in terms of the 13th amendment. The purpose of devolution is often described as being a means of ‘empowering people’. This is a verbal conceit that is used as the metaphorical equivalent of equipping the elected representatives of the people with fissile material. The inevitability of this outcome becomes evident when one reviews the run up to Provincial Council elections and the aftermath thereof. Devolution is meaningful when it is used to divide large stretches of territory so that the needs and legitimate wants of people can be served effectively. An additional feature of successful devolution is that in most cases separate states come together to form a federation. The United States of America is a good example of such an outcome. The idea of division is perpetuated when a small sovereign state is divided to form separate units on an ethnic basis. In the case of a small country like Sri Lanka the benefits derived from the devolution of political functions as against the decentralisation of administrative functions, as was the case in District administration, are negligible, when compared with the damage done by the exponential increase in the number of politicians and the additional costs involved in running the system. The devolution of powers relating to the utilisation of state-owned land and the exercise of Police powers found in 13A is hazardous because there are several factors that have in conflation inhibited a ready response to its acceptance. They are:

* 13th amendment was combined with the merger of the Northern and Eastern Provinces – subsequently de-linked by virtue of the judgement of the Supreme Court. The strategy implicit in this merger was more than that of giving a minority a voice in the conduct of its own affairs. It was clearly a strategy aimed at weakening the majority and amplifying the status of the minority and thereby creating conditions that would ultimately result in setting up separate state. The aforementioned constitutional remedy in its totality was forced on the government of Sri Lanka by India. When judged by any standard, it was an intervention, which in its entirety planted the seed of separatism and prolonged the reign of terror.

* The Cease Fire Agreement, now abrogated, created conditions for undermining the sovereignty of Sri Lanka. The ‘de facto’ ground plan of government-held areas and LTTE–held areas created perfect conditions for enforcing ‘de jure’ secession. Responding to the position of the Norwegians that the CFA was an instrument for maintaining a balance of power, H.L. de Silva PC argued as follows, "The term balance of power is a political concept and not a legal doctrine. It was the concept developed in mid 19th Century in the interest of maintaining peace between contesting states in Europe. So the term balance of power is inappropriate to describe the relationship between the State of Sri Lanka and an entity that is admittedly non-state" (Hard Talk, Daily Mirror 17May 2006)

* Nearly 30 years of terrorism and the abortive attempt at a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) have also left a deposit of mistrust and suspicion in the minds of the people in the South.

* The Special Session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) convened by the Western Powers for the purpose of bringing Sri Lanka to trial for war crimes and the statements made by Britain’s Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, America’s Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon and Navi Pillay indicate the abominable levels of moral turpitude to which foreign intervention could descend. Even if Sri Lanka cultivates a persuasive, tactful and professionally accomplished form of diplomacy, it is very unlikely that the Western Powers (especially Britain and the European Union) would revise its domineering and dictatorial posture towards it. In these circumstances, Sri Lanka needs to be cautious in formulating and implementing a political solution that once implemented cannot be revoked. Any solution must not only serve the interests of the minorities but also guarantee the sovereignty of the entire country. The attempted intervention during the closing stages of the war has to be examined in the context of what happened in Kosovo. The following analysis made by H.L. de Silva, PC is relevant to the analysis of this issue. "The United States and its NATO allies acting in collusion, who must take full responsibility for the several violations of International Law and the Charter involved in Kosovo’s UDI, has sought refuge in the specious plea that the Kosovo secession was unique and that it should not be seen as a precedent to be followed presumably to dampen the enthusiasm of other aspirants to statehood…If nothing else, the Kosovo adventure demonstrates the inherent weakness and flaws of the much vaunted Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine and its modalities for action, which received the approval of the World Summit of 2005, subject to the overall control of the Security Council". Considering the implicit threats made by the US and the European Community during the last stages of the war and the details revealed in the UK Parliament paper seeking a UN mandate for SLL ‘war crimes’ probe (The Island headlines, 15th July 2009), the implementation of the 13th amendment A or A-plus could create conditions that would lead to secession on the grounds that it is a legitimate recognition of a unique situation. These specific acts of threatened intervention must be set against the broader background of a devious form of colonial manipulation employed by the Western powers to use various local agents to set up a cultural environment that is favourable to and compatible with its own culture: neo-liberal economics through a exploitative system of globalisation, a debased form of Christianity through unethical conversions, and political manipulations of NGOs and INGOs.

* Just as much as foreign intervention has inhibited a ready and positive response to the call for a political solution, the conduct of the opposition has shown very clearly that national interests have persistently been made subservient to self-serving election strategies. The opposition has also demonstrated that the approval and applause of the international community is more important than the will of the Sri Lankan electorate.

* The significant demographic changes that have taken place over the last two/three decades have resulted in large number of the minority communities living outside the North and East. Constitutional changes based on the 13th Amendment A or A-plus will not have any meaningful impact on these people.

The views expressed by the writers I have mentioned (and by others, including myself) show that there is no unanimity that could ultimately serve as the basis for a final decision. While science can serve as a handmaid in conferring material benefits and intellectual satisfaction, it cannot hold out a ready formula for establishing happiness, contentment and cordiality in human affairs. The following is an observation made by a leading scientist, "Since we cannot determine the ultimate ends of political actions scientifically or by pure rational methods, difference of opinion concerning what the ideal state should be cannot always be smoothed out by method of argument. They will, at least partly have the character of religious difference. There can be no tolerance between different Utopian religions…Do not aim at establishing happiness by political means". (Karl Popper, ‘Conjectures and Refutations").

We do not need new laws. We are in desperate need of enforcing existing laws. The Constitution of Sri Lanka has been cut and chopped too often to no avail. What we need is strong determination to grant the minority communities equal status in every aspect of life. Though the quality of the public service has declined due to various factors, it is better to have a public servant (Government Agent) at the helm of the district administration than to have a politician as the head of a province. This can be done with a major overhaul of the administrative machinery. In any case constitutional reform that includes devolution of powers relating to land and police administration will not benefit those members of the minorities that that live outside the North and East. The following excerpt indicates the futility of making a travesty of the law.

Humanity is an ineffable, condition which permits the working of democracy to be irrevocably linked to the will of the majority. Any attempt to use a Procrustean method to diminish a majority as means of compensating a minority will only result in division and dissent. The following statement made by Pericles illustrates the position as it relates to the functions of a majority: "Our Constitution is a democracy, because the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few. Just as much as equal justice is meted out to all in their private disputes, the claim of individual merit is also recognized. On the other hand when a citizen excels in ability when compared with others, he is given preference in selection to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as a reward for merit. Since poverty is not an obstacle, a man may serve his country however obscure he may be in his social rank". (Funeral oration made by Pericles as a tribute to the soldiers who died in the war as narrated in Thucydides’ "Peloponnesian War"). While it is true that the situation as it has prevailed in Sri Lanka is far from this high standard, the only solution lies in emulating it. Equality of status before the law must be enhanced with equality of opportunity entrenched through efficient and just governance. There has been considerable debate of the grievances of the minority communities. Some say that they are no demonstrable grievances, others say that grievances, if any, must be audited and others say that they are no grievances. I would like to look at this problem from another angle. Many people in Sri Lanka even among the majority community harbour grievances about the way the country has been governed over the past years. In this context it is only natural that the minorities do have grievances, which seep down to their collective unconscious as those attributable to their minority status. Can they walk into any government office and transact business in their own language? Can they get mistakes corrected without political intervention or the expensive and dilatory expedient of a legal remedy? Precautionary measures need to be taken to ensure that the will of the majority does not stifle the rights and legitimate aspirations of the minority communities. Yet, recurrent amendments to the Constitution will not serve the intended purpose if the overall quality of governance is poor. The true majority are the poor and the marginalised, and the true minority are the English-speaking affluent. What we have witnessed so far are endless cycles of immiseration followed by feeble attempts at commiseration. A test case of how well this problem is solved will be the prompt and generously designed resettlement and rehabilitation of the IDPs.