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| Ports and Muslim Religious
Affairs Minister Rauf Hakeem |
| Photo by Alex Kersis |
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| A neighborhood mosque in
Kandy. |
| Photo by James Overly |
The concerns of Sri Lanka’s sizeable Muslim
minority could become a wrench thrown into the peace
process works if not taken into account. While Muslims
constitute about 7 percent of Sri Lanka’s population,
they are concentrated in the Eastern province, where
they are as numerous as Tamils and Sinhalese.
Ports and Muslim Religious Affairs Minister Rauf Hakeem
explains, “The Eastern province as a whole provides
an important dimension to the peace process. It is
a mix of different ethnic communities. No community
is dominant. It’s a very complex political issue
to find rational solutions to create an environment
there where all communities can coexist in harmony.”
Hakeem, the head of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress
party, is also the Muslim representative on the Sri
Lankan government negotiating team. He explains the
“Muslim dimension” of the peace process:
“The issue concerns the merger of the two provinces,
the Northern and Eastern provinces, foreseen in the
peace talks.
“The Muslims have the larger political clout
in the East. In the merger with the North, their political
authority gets diminished. So they need to find innovative
ways of retaining political authority over the areas
in which they are the dominant group.
“Therefore,” he continues, “we are
looking at a federal solution in its different forms
to see if we can try to introduce a suitable system
to accommodate the aspirations of the Muslims. I’m
sure that with some imaginative thinking and brave
compromises we can arrive at a lasting solution.”
Hakeem warns that the task will not be easy. “Muslim
perceptions of the LTTE and their agenda are certainly
not healthy ones. Even before Bosnia, ethnic cleansing
took place here. Muslims in the entire northern part
of the country were driven away by the LTTE. So there
are a lot of suspicions in the minds of the Muslims.”
Hakeem reports some tentative successes. “I have
begun to build some bridges between the LTTE and the
Muslims. I have met with LTTE leaders; we both signed
a joint statement, which has some progressive features
about it.”
“That generated a lot of hope among the people,
but subsequently, certain assurances that were given
in the agreement didn’t happen as envisaged.
There has been some decrease in confidence” as
a result, he says.
So the Muslim parliamentarians have redoubled efforts
to advance their concerns. A cross-party delegation
of Muslim parliamentarians met with the prime minister
in early March in order to finalize arrangements for
participation of a Muslim delegation in the peace
talks when substantive issues are taken up.
Hakeem says, “We are very keen to see that, out
of disillusionment and lack of understanding, we should
not allow any radicalization of politics in those
areas.
“It could happen if sufficient attention is not
paid to the political aspirations of the people there,
and we should never allow anybody to feel marginalized
in the process. With that in mind, all of us have
now got together to see that we would support the
Prime Minister in the effort to usher in lasting peace
in our country.”
The prime minister has also sent Hakeem to various
Muslim countries to secure support for the peace
process. “We have had good traditional relationships
with the Middle East countries as well as others
in the Non-Aligned Movement. We have had the benefit
as well of the labor market in the Middle East,
which has absorbed almost one million Sri Lankan
workers. Remittances by the workers there top revenues
earned from tea and all other export earnings.”
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