Gotabhaya Rajapaksa does not hesitate to cavort where men less well-connected fear to tread even gingerly. As Defence Secretary and President Mahinda Rajapaksa's younger brother, he has no need to mind his language. His verbal outbreaks are of the highest political relevance since they provide invaluable glimpses into the opaque mental universe of the Rajapaksas. So when Gotabhaya Rajapaksa repeatedly advocates immediately repealing the 13th Amendment, attention must be paid. Especially so since Rajapaksa equates that Indian-induced legislation (which introduced power-devolution in Sri Lanka) with the Norwegian-brokered Cease-Fire Agreement (CFA) of 2002. Says Rajapaksa: "The 13th Amendment and the CFA didn't serve the people of Sri Lanka. Instead they facilitated interests of various other parties, including the LTTE. Interestingly, both supported the separatist cause."
Hitherto, only the most diehard Sinhala supremacists decried the 13th Amendment as pro-LTTE and pro-separatist. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa's public endorsement of those outré views marks a menacing new turn in Lankan politics. That dangerously fallacious equation repackages the 13th Amendment as a threat to national security, enabling the Rajapaksas to condemn its supporters and defenders as traitors.
Basil Rajapaksa, another Presidential Sibling and the Minister of Economic Development, took the argument a step further by advocating the replacement of provincial-level devolution with village-level decentralisation: "The Janasabha system is the unit of devolution… It is a new village concept…. Now, we have amended the Constitution for the 18th time. We will now do so for the 19th time." The icing on this anti-devolution confection was provided by President Mahinda Rajapaksa himself. In his 2012 Budget speech, the President endorsed his siblings' depiction of provincial-level devolution as pro-separatist and irrelevant to public wellbeing: "A change in the prevailing Provincial Council system is necessary to make devolution more meaningful to our people. Devolution should not be a political reform that will lead us to separation…..
With all three Rajapaksas ranged against the 13th Amendment, devolution is as good as dead. The 19th Amendment, which would replace limited devolution with minimum decentralisation, is likely to be born as soon as the impeachment motion against Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranaike is concluded and a Rajapaksa acolyte placed at the head of the Supreme Court.