The Liberal Party welcomes the belated acceptance by the Government of the principle of extensive Provin­cial Autonomy, its commitment to a fundamental revi­sion of the political and constitutional structure of this country to create democratically elected Provincial Councils with their own Governments and the acceptance of Sinhala, Tamil and English as equal offi­cial languages in terms of the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord of 29th July 1987. The Liberal Party and the Council for Liberal Democracy have over the past six years continually asserted the necessity of Provincial Auto­nomy and of a language settlement based upon an acceptance of Sinhala, Tamil and English as equal offi­cial languages. The Liberal Party which has through­ out its existence unequivocally opposed racism in all its forms and has repeatedly condemned the violence in which thousands of Sri Lankans of all races have died, hopes that there will now be an end to hatred and vio­lence and a determined progress towards a unity based on individual liberty and a truly free society.

Although Liberals emphatically support the princi­ple of genuine autonomy and the respect of all forms of diversity, there are aspects of the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord which we cannot accept. Above all, the, Liberal Party emphatically condemns the secretive, repressive, illiberal and undemocratic manner ill which the Accord was imposed. We cannot accept that so fundamental a revision of the political and constitutional structure of this country can be imposed in a context of a com­plete ban of public meetings and demonstrations, an imposition of a censorship of the press that is sweeping and arbitrary, a completely one-sided media exercise whereby leading members of the Government who sup­port the Accord have been permitted to justify and defend it at length while the opponents of the Accord within and without the Government have totally been denied access to the media. The Liberal Party ex­presses its deep disappointment that several persons of enlightened and democratic opinion have permitted themselves to be so carried away by the prospect of peace that they have entirely ignored the brutal repression with which the Government has sought to stifle all criticism of the Accord. The Liberal Party appeals to all those who truly value individual liberty and liberal democracy not to be blind to the arbitrary and authoritarian manner in which the Government (or that section of it that supports the Accord) has attempted to  impose the Accord on an unwilling and unconvinced people.

The Liberal Party is convinced that the unre­presentative manner in which the Accord has been im­posed denies even its undoubted positive features of legitimacy and may result in so bitter an opposition as to endanger those positive features. It seems to us that the manner in which the Government has sought to bring the bloody ethnic conflict to an end demonstrates that it has failed to understand the lesson of the tragedy of the past years - that intolerance of dissent, that   the repression of the strongly held convictions of sections of our people, produce that bitterness and frustration which makes violence inevitable. It is tragic and dangerous that the Government having helped to exacer­bate the violence of extreme separatists is now assisting by its intolerance a new spate of ].V.P. inspired as well as more spontaneous violence. The Liberal Party deeply deplores the wanton destruction that accompanied the announcement of the accord but it also emphasizes, that unless the Government permits the free expression of opinion, extremism and intolerance will be enhanced.

The Liberal Party is also gravely concerned at the enactment of the Accord by a Parliament whose legiti­macy is seriously in doubt. Liberals have always insisted since the infamous Referendum of 22nd December 1982, by which the life of this Parliament, elected over ten years ago on a set of issues entirely removed from the crises of our times, was artificially extended for six years, that we refuse to accept the legitimacy of the present Parliament. The lack of legitimacy upon which we insisted has clearly been established in the Report on the Conduct of the Refer­endum issued by the Commissioner of Elections. The Liberal Party asks all those who truly believe in free political institutions whether they can, in good con­science, consent to the enactment of legislation to im­plement the terms of the Accord by a Parliament that cannot truly claim to represent Sri Lanka? Likewise the Liberal Party is concerned that the Accord has been arrived at with the Indian Government which cannot claim to be representative of, any party to the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict, in consultation not with democratically elected representatives of the Tamil people but with a group of terrorists whose totalitarian nature, abominable cruelty and intolerance is plain to the world. Can we truly assume that the Liberation. Tigers of Tamil Eelam represent the wishes of the people of the Northern and Eastern Provinces? The Liberal Party believes that the Accord between India and ,Sri Lanka should only have involved a cessation of hostilities, a process of disarmament and an Indian supervision of the conduct, in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, of a General Election that should be held throughout the. island. The substantive settlement should be the product of. open negotiations between democratically elected and representative political forces.

The Liberal Party expresses its deep concern about some of the provisions of the Accord. In particular the Liberal Party is opposed to the merger of any two provinces of Sri Lanka (and therefore of the Northern and Eastern Provinces) even' for a temporary period without the prior consent of the people of such a province or of the democratically elected Provincial Council of such a province. While we recognize that there would have been difficulties in the negotiating process which resulted in this particular formulation, to Liberals it smacks of authoritarianism and deceit. The Liberal Party is convinced that the inclusion of a provision in the text of the Accord whereby "the President may, at his discretion decide to postpone .... a refer­endum" seeking the views of the Eastern Province which has been promised before the end of 1988, sug­gests a secret agreement whereby the people of the Eastern Province may be subjected to a long governance by a single Provincial Government of the North and East.

The Liberal Party is very concerned by the implications of Article 2.16 (c) of the Accord whereby the President of Sri Lanka may request, without any limit­ation of time or numbers, the military assistance of India in the implementation of the Accord in any part of Sri Lanka. While it is entirely acceptable that Indian troops may be necessary to perform a peace­keeping role in the North and East, the Liberal Party is concerned that the Government may invite Indian troops to suppress legitimate opposition to the Accord outside the Northern and Eastern Provinces.

While the Liberal Party has consistently opposed the lack of democratic solidarity in the Government's foreign policy which led it into a dangerous flirtation with dictatorial regimes in the region and elsewhere in Asia, unsavory organizations of mercenaries and shadowy agents of espionage, and therefore welcomes the abandonment of such a policy in terms of the Accord, we regret that some aspects of the annexure to the Accord give the impression of an acceptance by Sri Lanka of Indian tutelage. The Liberal Party has always advocated friendly relations with India and has advocated a solidarity of the South Asian democracies. Accordingly  while we fully acknowledge the necessity of a constructive Indian role in the resolution of the present conflict, the Liberal Party supports a Common wealth peace-keeping force in which India would play a major part, rather than an exclusively Indian one, for the supervision of the General Election  and the subse­quent Provincial Elections which we propose.

The Liberal Party sincerely believes that a lasting settlement of the ethnic conflict, will be possible only in a context of freedom and bipartisan agreement. We therefore believe that the Sri Lanka Freedom Party must abandon all equivocation and make clear its pro­posals for a resolution of this conflict. The Liberal Party believes that if would be irresponsible and immoral for the principal democratic opponent of the Government not to recognize and openly acknowledge that Sri Lanka is multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, plural society. The Liberal Party calls upon the S.L.F.P to recognize that no group has an exclusive or primary right to Sri Lanka, that all its citizens must be free and equal. The Liberal Party calls upon the S.L.F.P. to make an unequivocal commitment to Provincial Autonomy on the basis of nine provinces and to support the linguistic equality of all Sri Lankans by supporting the declaration of Sinhala, Tamil and English as the official languages of Sri Lanka, The Liberal Party believe that any appeal by the democratic alternative to the current authoritarian and unrepresentative Government to an exclusively Sinhala nationalist constituency would be disastrous for Sri Lanka - for liberal democracy, for national unity and ultimately even for the S.L.F.P. itself.