INTRODUCTION
Whenever and wherever terrorism stalks a land, the people are warned to beware of ‘packages’. They are warned not to touch any ‘package’ that looks suspicious, but to report its finding to the Police who would, in turn, call in the ‘Bomb I Squad’ , which would carefully, gingerly, tenderly and with optimum
circumspection, open it, examine every one of its contents minutely and destroy it if it is found to have harmful potential.
It is with that same degree of care and extreme circumspection that the package of proposals for the devolution of power (the ‘Package’) recently presented by the Government must be examined, for just as much as the lives and limbs that are lost by the explosion of a bomb in a package can never be restored, so also can the evil consequences of implementing the ‘Package’ neverbe undone. If the ‘ Package’ is implemented, we and future generations yet unborn would have to live with it – there could never be a return to the Unitary State of Sri Lanka comprising 65,000 square kilometers of territory which we inherited from Our forefathers.
The purpose of this book is to examine, not the legal niceties and theoretical concepts relating to the ‘Package’ but its harsh practical realities. The Government has formulated the ‘Package’ as a means of restoring peace by providing a solution to the purported ethnic problem. Is there indeed an ethnic problem in Sri Lanka ? If not what is the problem that we have that is in need of a solution? Does the ‘ Package’ contain within it a solution to that problem? Can the ‘Package’ restore peace ? What will the
consequences of implementing the ‘Package’ ? Will they be beneficial to the People or otherwise ? These are some of the questions that are analysed in this book. Part One of this book analyses the evolution and nature of the secessionist war and the objectives sought to be achiewed by it, because the full significance of the several provisions of the ‘Package’ and the dangers posed by them cannot be properly appreciated except in the context of these circumstances: Part Two analyses the more important provisions of the ‘Package’.
