{"id":119507,"date":"2014-02-03T13:59:25","date_gmt":"2014-02-03T08:29:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=119507"},"modified":"2014-02-10T00:40:59","modified_gmt":"2014-02-09T19:10:59","slug":"finding-a-resolution-that-does-not-polarise-sri-lanka-even-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/finding-a-resolution-that-does-not-polarise-sri-lanka-even-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding A Resolution That Does Not Polarise Sri Lanka Even More"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jehan Perera<\/span><\/a> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Jehan<\/a>

Jehan Perera<\/p><\/div>\n

US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Desai Biswal<\/span><\/a> who visited Sri Lanka<\/span><\/a> made it clear that the United States would continue to pursue a resolution on Sri Lanka at the forthcoming session of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva.\u00a0\u00a0 The Sri Lankan government is totally opposed to the initiative spearheaded by the US to have a resolution that calls for an international probe into the human rights issues that arose in the last phase of the war.\u00a0\u00a0 Ms Biswal also explained her country\u2019s interest in Sri Lanka as being motivated by its values and desire to see peace and prosperity in Sri Lanka and the region.\u00a0 However, this latter motivation is unlikely to impress the ethnic majority Sinhalese population at large whose view of post-war Sri Lanka corresponds to that of the government, which gives priority to post-war economic development over other values.<\/p>\n

While Assistant Secretary Biswal was meeting with the country\u2019s decisionmakers and also visiting the North, I was in Avissawella in the Western Province.\u00a0 The government has scheduled early elections in both the Western and Southern provinces and selected the day after the vote in Geneva for these elections.\u00a0 The government appears to be calculating that the voters will be motivated by the spirit of nationalism to give it a victory at these elections, which will be a springboard for further victories at the more important Presidential and Parliamentary elections that are billed to follow in swift order.\u00a0 On the Sunday morning I was in Avissawella, it presented a picture of tranquility and prosperity, with tea and rubber plantations and factories and schoolchildren going to Sunday school in their temples.\u00a0 In conversation with people on the street getting about their daily business it could be seen that Ms Biswal\u2019s concerns about post-war peace and prosperity were largely met, at least for them.<\/p>\n

But the problem is that the same does not hold true in the North and East of the country where the war was fought, and even in the hearts of members of the ethnic minorities who live outside of those fromer war zones. The concerns of the Sinhalese majority are different from those of the Tamil and Muslim ethnic minorities, especially where it concerns their sense of security. The recently elected Northern Provincial Council<\/span><\/a> has passed a resolution of its own calling for an international war crimes investigation.\u00a0 The resolution of the Northern Provincial Council has pitted it frontally against the government and is likely to be based on their frustration at the emasculation of the Provincial Council despite its recent election.\u00a0 However, most non-Tamil Sri Lankans would agree with the view that the government is being punished for having defied Western pressure to stop the war and negotiate with the LTTE<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 Some would even say that the forces of separatism are at work again.<\/p>\n

Government Warning<\/strong><\/p>\n

Given the issues at stake a victory by either side is not likely to further the post-war reconciliation process within Sri Lanka.\u00a0 It will only induce bitterness and whet the appetite for revenge in the name of justice.\u00a0\u00a0 Reconciliation will be the first casualty.\u00a0 At a media briefing in Washington DC, Presidential Secretary Lalith Weeratunga<\/span><\/a> has warned of a descent into chaos if there is an international investigation that probes war crimes and targets the Sri Lankan military.\u00a0 The Presidential Secretary\u2019s warning of a descent into chaos evokes the memory of July 1983<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 After an LTTE ambush that killed 13 soldiers, the largest number to die in a single incident at that time, Sinhalese mobs went on the rampage and attacked Tamils in Colombo and elsewhere they lived as minorities.<\/p>\n

Those riots took place because the government of the day created the enabling environment for it, which proved in hindsight to be the greatest mistake on the part of any Sri Lankan government.\u00a0 Such a descent into chaos would be a terrible tragedy to the entire country, and also to the government.\u00a0 It was after July 1983 that the tide changed against the Sri Lankan government and towards the Tamil militancy.\u00a0 They became strengthened immeasurably with scores of voluntary recruits and international support.\u00a0 On the other hand, the government lost its international credibility as media images of the pogrom were beamed internationally.\u00a0 The government hand in the mob violence, both through the active participation of government ministers and the inaction of the security forces became evident.\u00a0 It required the election of a new government in 1994 to restore the international balance.<\/p>\n

The Presidential Secretary\u2019s second point was that the government should be given more time to make the reconciliation process take root.\u00a0 He asked for five more years from a starting point of July 2012.\u00a0 While taking this date as a starting point is not self-evident, it nevertheless is valid to observe that reconciliation takes a considerable period of time.\u00a0 But it must also be noted that the post war period has seen a rise in the targeting of minorities — especially the Muslim community, with impunity, suggesting that reconciliation has not been on the forefront of the government agenda.\u00a0 The government\u2019s approach to reconciliation in the North continues to be contradictory.\u00a0 On the one hand, the government uses the security forces to engage in surveillance over the people which creates a psychology of fear towards the security forces.\u00a0 On the other hand, the government takes pride in using these same security forces to engage in economic development and welfare activities such as house building and provision of material handouts.<\/p>\n

Broader Investigation<\/strong><\/p>\n

The third point raised by the Presidential Secretary was that any investigation to be just and comprehensive should span the longer period of the conflict and go back at least to the 1980s when the violence took root.\u00a0 The international focus on only the last phase of the war is too obviously targeted on the government.\u00a0\u00a0 But there was more than one party to the conflict and to the atrocities that took place.\u00a0 There is no justice in picking out a short period and investigating it so that only those who committed war crimes and other human rights violations in a particular period will be caught and punished.\u00a0 The longer period too needs to be investigated.\u00a0 That is what makes it fair and will give it legitimacy in the eyes of the larger population in the country.\u00a0 The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission<\/span><\/a> had a mandate that extended back from 1960 to the early 1990s and not just any one phase.<\/p>\n

The absence of balance lies in the insistence on an investigation only into the last phase of the thirty year war.\u00a0 The narrow focus on the last phase of the war is seen by many in Sri Lanka, and not only its government, as a partisan intervention to punish it for defeating the LTTE.\u00a0 At best it seems to be a call for punitive justice for its own sake, rather than for reconciliation.\u00a0 Any investigation of the past, either in the form of an international inquiry or a national Truth and Reconciliation Commission would need to win the acceptance of the different ethnic communities who constitute the Sri Lankan people.\u00a0 There are many examples of such truth seeking commissions in which finding the truth for the sake of the victims who need to know what happened to their loved ones took priority over other considerations.\u00a0 Whatever model Sri Lanka chooses, looking at what happened over the longer period than the last phase of the war would be necessary.<\/p>\n

There is a need for Sri Lankan society as a whole to be apprised of the nature and consequences of the political violence conducted with impunity by all sides in the past, by the present government, previous governments and different militant movements, including Sinhalese, so that the cycle will not repeat itself.\u00a0 In this context, a Truth and Reconciliation mechanism with international involvement that has the consent and involvement of all major stakeholders within Sri Lanka is an option worth considering. The South African government has indicated its interest in supporting a process if it has cross party support within Sri Lanka and is part and parcel of a larger process of political reform.\u00a0 It could be an alternative to an international investigation if both the Sri Lankan government and the major minority parties agree to it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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