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Tamil Guardian 27 December 2006
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Despite strong opposition from India and the rest of the international community, the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse is accelerating the demerger the Northeast province.
The NEP administration has been split into one for the northern province and one for the eastern province, with Trincomalee district, with the coveted eastern harbour kept as third separate entity.
The move is a direct assault on the Tamil assertion of a homeland in the island, the recognition of which was implicit in the formation of NEP as part of the Indo-Sri Lanka accord in 1987.
The military officer who had been appointed governor of the NEP by President Rajapakse confirmed to reporters Sunday that the de-merger was proceeding as planned.
Rear Admiral (Retd) Mohan Wijewickrama was last week sworn in before President Rajapakse as governor of the eastern province.
"From 1 January 2007, we have no choice but to run the two provinces separately," Wijewickrama told the Sunday Island yesterday. "Finances have already been appropriated separately for the two provinces."
Fresh appointments are also to be made to the northern and eastern provincial councils in keeping with the Supreme Court ruling two months ago that the 1987 merger was “illegal and void.”
The Northern and Eastern Provinces were temporarily merged under the 13th Amendment following the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord in 1987.
The merger was challenged in the Supreme Court earlier this year by the ultra-nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Perumana (JVP) with the tacit support of President Rajapakse’s government.
Until the JVP challenged the merger, the temporary merger was being extended by a Presidential decree every year.
But the Supreme Court’s ruling on the NEP was specifically about the modalities of the merger, rather than the notion of the merger itself.
However, despite calls by the international community, particularly India, for the Rajapakse government to carry through the proper merger of the two provinces, the government has instead abrogated the 1987 agreement with India.
"I have already started appointing the secretary, deputy secretaries and heads of department to the two provinces, the filling of higher positions has almost been completed," Wijewickrama said.
"A lot of structures are in place and they just have to be divided into two. Thus, there will have to be two secretaries of education, health and so on. There will also be two treasuries."
The Sunday Times reported that the northern province will be administered from Vavuniya and the eastern province from Kalmunai.
The staff of the Northern and Eastern Provincial Council office based in Trincomalee is to be divided between the Northern and Eastern Administrative Secretariat offices, the paper added.
But Wijewickrama rejected the report, saying: “Both administrative offices will be temporarily located in Trincomalee until an alternative location is found for the northern provincial council.”
Sri Lanka’s move to split the Northeast are a slap in the face for India.
Not only does it directly contradict the terms of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord, it runs contrary to an explicit call by the Congress government in Delhi that the Northeast remains merged pending a referendum in the east once ‘conducive’ conditions prevail there.
The point was made directly by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh personally to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, once during the NAM summit in Havana in September and again last month when the latter visited Delhi.
The Co-Chairs of the now moribund peace process – the US, EU, Japan and Norway – have also called repeatedly this year for the Northeast not to be de-merged.
The international community had seen the merged Northeast province as a tool to address the Tamil demand for self-autonomy for the regions they have traditionally inhabited.
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