A new organisation calling itself the “Collective for the abolition of the Provincial Council System” was formed today. It comprises the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), the SihalaRavaya (SR), and civil activists including Attorney-At-Law S.L.Gunasekara, Professor Nalin De Silva and other individuals and organisations.
The collective is calling for the abolition of the 13th Amendment from the Constitution.
At its first news briefing held today in Colombo, the Collective stressed the need to devolve administrative powers as a solution for the existing impasse and pointed out that the devolution of political power to provincial councils had failed.
“What is needed is the devolution of administrative powers and not the devolution of political power. The Provincial Council system has failed to address this issue and as a result the entire country has been made to pay for this,” BBS Secretary the Ven. GalabodaAththeGnanasara said at the news briefing attended by many monks and civil society activists.
Ven. Gnanasara said the Buddhist populace has to take responsibility for failing to win the hearts and minds of the people living in the north.
“Although its four years since the LTTE was defeated LTTE militarily,wehave still failed to win the trust of the Tamil people. The Tamil people are least bothered about the provincial council system andonly want to live happily in their areas,” he said.
All the speakers underlined the various shortcomings of the provincial council system insisted that it did not solve the existing “problem”.
When asked by journalists whether there were moves by certain sections within the government to scuttle the aim of the organisation, the collective’s acting spokesman Rev. Gnanasara said it was so.
“This is the way these things work and of course there are moves to break this movement, but we aren’t afraid to face these challenges,” he said.
The Thera said the newly formed collective would take all possible measures to create awareness among the people against the provincial council system in case the government decided to proceed with it.
“Like the ‘halal sermons’that were preached we will now start preaching the ‘provincial council sermon’ at every given opportunity and we will take all measures within democratic boundaries to oppose moves to implement it.”
BBS Leader the Ven. KiramaVimalajothiThera, concurring with the communiqué released said if the government proceeds with the Northern Provincial Council Elections, it would have to do so subject to the amending Police andLand powers, the power to merge, the majority rule and amendments on adhering to Central Governmentdirectives.
(Hafeel Farisz & Jayashika Padmasiri)