Archive for the ‘Reconciliation’

The LLRC report and ‘accountability’ in Sri Lanka

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Readers will find no big surprises after reading the final report of Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC). It is very much what most people were expecting. A document that looks to the future, exonerates the military, does not touch on the question of accountability and includes some touchy-feely language about the country’s need to move forward, celebrate its diversity and be grateful for the defeat of terrorism. Essentially, all civilian casualties were the result of people caught in the crossfire or were the LTTE’s fault. “The protection of the civilian population was given the highest priority” by the Sri Lankan armed forces, the Commission has determined. The report also claims that military operations moved at a “deliberately slow” pace because Sri Lanka’s military personnel were so careful and cognizant of the dangers to civilian life during the final phases of the conflict. While the LTTE deliberately targeted civilians, it appears that Sri Lanka’s military did not, according to the LLRC…

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The LLRC Report: A Critical Reading

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Photo credit Ada Derana For quite sometime, ever since the establishment of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), the Government of Sri Lanka has been asking its critics not to pre-judge the work of the LLRC and to await, patiently, the finalization and publication of the Report. The Report has now been published. What do we have here? Is it one that establishes beyond doubt that the Government’s version of the war, or the human rights situation in the country, is correct? If not, where has it gone wrong? The Report, as any other document, can be read in different ways with different lenses. It attempts to bring together numerous perspectives on issues ranging from the most banal topic – the CFA – to the more critical and controversial issues, such as the conduct of hostilities during the final stages of the war, the Channel 4 video, human rights, and devolution (which will be the issues briefly highlighted here). Conduct…

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LLRC Recommendations: Can the Rajapaksa Regime Digest?

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Photo credit Ada Derana Finally, the full report of the long awaited Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) is in public domain, after it was presented in parliament on Friday (16 December, 2011) by the Leader of the House, Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva. He in fact sounded very certain the recommendations would be carried out to the letter. The report and its recommendations would not satisfy the Tamil Diaspora. There is no mention of war crimes, crimes against humanity and there is no mention of a need to investigate such crimes. The Sinhala Diaspora and the Sinhala racists here would not want  it either, for the report and its recommendations accept Tamil grievances and seeks political answers for them. For the moderates, though the Rajapaksa regime dropped their claim for “zero civilian casualties” and later accepted their could be “rogue” elements and a few who could not bear the pressures of the war, who committed excesses, the report and…

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The official report of the LLRC

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The official report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission was tabled in Parliament today. The official government site the report is available at is, at the time of writing, charitably put, doing very badly with the local and international demand for and interest in the report. We managed to get a PDF of the report and mirror it online. Read it full screen here. Download a copy of the PDF here.

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Response to Michael Roberts’ ‘Turning Former LTTE Personnel into Sri Lankan Citizens?’

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Photo courtesy Lankapuvath Michael Roberts’ recent Groundviews piece on the government’s rehabilitation programme of alleged former LTTE combatants is generally approving of that programme, not only directly but also indirectly in making the kinds of criticisms that actually add to the approbation. Professor Roberts has added his distinguished academic authority to a set of circumstances that perhaps justifies a more discriminating analysis. His uncritical and at times inaccurate and misleading observations therefore require a response, providing also the opportunity to critique, both the policy and legal perspectives involved. In this article I will attempt to remedy the lacunae in my previous piece on this issue, published here[1] in late 2010, which did not discuss the legal dimensions nor use testimonies of persons released from rehabilitation centres[2] to substantiate certain assertions made in that article. Statistics: Do we know how many persons have been rehabilitated? In a section titled ‘Numbers’ Roberts discusses the number of persons who were held at rehabilitation…

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Some observations on the Final Report of the Commission on the Expulsion of Muslims from the Northern Province by the LTTE in October 1990

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This report provides what will be the definitive account of the story of the Northern Muslims following on their expulsion from the Northern Province by the LTTE in October 1990. Faithful throughout to the narrative of the affected, and respectful in its well- nuanced references to earlier writings- Hasbullah, Thiranagama and others- its approach earns the reader’s respect and trust. Commencing with accounts of pre- existing relations between co –existing Muslim and Tamil communities, the Report tightly states that. “October 1990 was a water-shed in terms of both Muslim identity and Tamil identity in the North due to the horror of the expulsion. By driving the Muslims out of their homes, the LTTE finally created a mono-ethnic North.” While the affected people’s  narrative uses terms such as “People from Batticaloa have come” it is clearly orders  from  the top that was responsible for this instance of  “Tamil Turning Terrorist” against Muslims, to use the report’s words. The creation of a…

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Post-war situation in Northern Sri Lanka & Prospects for Reconciliation

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Changes since the end of the war: 30 months after the end of war, more people travel between the once off limits North[i] and the South and many of the travel restrictions have been eased. The dreaded Medawachiya checkpoint is no more, and since 2010, we have not taken a flight or ship to Jaffna, travelling by road instead. Displaced people who were detained for about 6 months have now been allowed freedom of movement and many have been allowed to go back to their places of origin. Many youth detained in “rehabilitation” centres have been released and allowed to go back to their families and communities. Death certificates have been issued to few of the people killed during the war. Few schools, hospitals, and some main roads and bridges have been built and glamorous ceremonies held to open these by government and military officials. Three major elections have also been held in the North. But much remains to be…

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Importance of psychosocial interventions in post conflict Sri Lanka

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Editors note: The issues addressed in this article, plus psyhco-social and mental health related topics are covered in more detail on the MHPSS Network is a growing global platform for connecting people, networks and organisations, for sharing resources and for building knowledge related to mental health and psychosocial support both in emergency settings and in situations of adversity. The network aspires to build and shape good practice in support of people affected by difficult events or circumstances. ### The war ended in May 2009 saw over 280,000 people being displaced for about one to two years largely in IDP camps before returning to their original villages in north and east of Sri Lanka. The returning process is not yet fully completed as pockets of IDPs still lingering in smaller IDP camps due to issues such as their lands being allotted for high security zones, and slow de-mining process, among other things. Before May 2009, over half a million people had been…

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Ari of Sarvodaya: Conscience of a Bruised Nation

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Photo courtesy Sarvodaya Media Unit When Dr A T Ariyaratne, founder and president of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement of Sri Lanka, turned 80 years on 5 November 2011, felicitations poured in from all over the world. This spontaneous act was an indication — if any were needed — of how much and how widely he has touched the lives of millions. For someone with global stature, Ahangamage Tudor Ariyaratne is completely devoid of pomposity. In a career spanning six decades, he has received some three dozen awards and honours — including the ‘Asian Nobel’ Magsaysay Award (Community Leadership, 1969), honorary degrees and doctorates, and the highest national honour from his own country, SriLankabhimanya (Pride of Sri Lanka). But he remains a simple and amiable man. He is still ‘AT’ to contemporaries, ‘Ari’ to us fellow travellers, and ‘Loku Sir’ (Master) to all at Sarvodaya – the largest development organisation in Sri Lanka. The apolitical people’s movement has a presence in…

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Women Left Behind: Truth Commissioning in Sri Lanka

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A mother displaying the photographs of his sons which are missing during the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) session in Trincomalee, December, 3-5, 2010. Photo courtesy Centre for Human Rights The power and promise of national exercises like the LLRC lie in the way that they can access the voices of those who have not traditionally been heard, and use them to build a more representative and inclusive collective memory. Yet for Sri Lanka’s Tamil women, the LLRC simply reaffirms bad old habits, writes Jo Baker [i] In the lead up to the release of the report by Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), strong concerns have been publicly raised about the value of a process that aims to build a clear picture of the conflict, without fully including or representing those who were most directly affected. This has led to important questions regarding who has been heard, how their concerns have been addressed, and whether they will…

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Turning Former LTTE Personnel into Sri Lankan Citizens?

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Editors note: Also read a response to this article by Valkryie, titled Response to Michael Roberts’ ‘Turning Former LTTE Personnel into Sri Lankan Citizens?’] Whatever the death toll during the last stages of Eelam War IV in 2009 the official government data in that year acknowledged that 11,696 (9078 male and 2024 female)[i] of those who survived had identified themselves or been identified as members of the LTTE — whether combatants or active functionaries. There were others who had been arrested elsewhere in the island (that is beyond the battlefields), often on flimsy evidence, in the years 2006-09. Muralidhar Reddy stresses that “once bracketed in the category of a combatant, irrespective of the degree of their involvement in the war, there was no mechanism for those detained to prove their innocence.”[ii] In parenthesis let me add that grapevine information from Tamil sources indicate that in April-May 2009 quite a few Tigers seem to have successfully merged themselves with the population that was…

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National Reconciliation, Transitional Justice, Rights and Accountability in Sri Lanka

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Image credit Steve Chao, via Al Jazeera Good Afternoon; Esteemed and Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen; Dear friends Thank you for inviting me to share with you my thoughts on reconciliation. I will not devote much time here, to describe the history of the conflict or the background situation in Sri Lanka. The physical and emotional pain that has been handed down through generations in Sri Lanka during the last five decades has mainly been the inevitable outcomes of past policies followed by the successive governments, based on discrimination and social exclusion. The players, particularly parties to the conflict, have continued their unceasing confrontational politics. The current landscape in Sri Lanka and within the diaspora bears testimony to this situation. On-going effects of dispossession, destruction, dispersal and subjugation mean that the affected people have become the most disadvantaged in society. Indications are that the gap between the affluent and the poor continues to widen. The island’s leadership seems neither committed…

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Sri Lankan Tamil Destiny is Inextricably Grounded Within Sri Lanka: A Response to D.B.S Jeyaraj

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  This is a belated response to D.B.S. Jeyaraj’s article titled “Tamil Destiny is inextricably intertwined with that of the Sinhalese,” which I noticed only a few days ago. I not only endorse every point he makes but also go further and include the other communities comprising Sri Lanka, especially the Muslims (Moors and Malays) and the Indian Tamils (as they are incorrectly designated in the national census. I also point out that the Tamil leadership had firmly and consistently upheld this position till at least the mid 1970s. Those interested in exploring the historical and ideological background could refer to a wealth of literature on the subject including my monograph titled “Tamil Nationalism” (Marga Monograph Series, 2001). Perhaps I should start with a reference in that monograph to the Jaffna Youth Congress (JYC), which was the dominant voice in the North during the 1920s and 30s. The Jaffna Youth Congress Jaffna, widely identified as a centre of Sri Lankan…

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Waiting for the end of the LLRC

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Image courtesy LLRC Another session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva has come to an end. Sri Lanka has emerged unscathed, even though considerable pressure is being exerted on the Sri Lankan Government, from different actors in different quarters of the world: one, regarding a political solution to the conflict; two, regarding the issue of accountability (investigations). Decisions before the UNHRC-session To recap briefly, some interesting decisions were taken by the Government just before the UNHRC-session started. One was the decision to ‘repeal’ the Emergency Regulations (ER). The manner, as well as the context, in which the Government ‘repealed’ the ER clearly suggested why it was done the way it was done. The other was the decision taken by the Cabinet to approve the national Human Rights Action Plan. Initially, this came as a surprise, since not much was known about the document or about whether it was being studied by the Cabinet. Yet, the decision to approve…

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In conversation with Joshua Roman: Videos and photos

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Performing at the Lionel Wendt. Photo by Ruvin de Silva. TED Fellow and gifted cellist Joshua Roman was in Sri Lanka recently for his debut concert in Colombo. He also performed in Kandy. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma called him an “extraordinary young musician”. Those who came to listen to him play in Colombo and Kandy, accompanied by Eshantha Peiris on the piano, left richer for having experienced his music. As with Mandhira de Saram, Joshua started playing an instrument very young, at age three. Joshua speaks about his family’s influence on his music, and choice of instrument. We also talk about the cello he brought to Sri Lanka, which made in 1899, was perhaps the oldest western musical instrument to ever grace the stage at the Lionel Wendt and the venue in Kandy. Joshua speaks about his approach to music, and how though trained and obviously adept at playing classical music, he always tries to experiment and likes to play contemporary…

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About Groundviews

Located at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Groundviews is a citizen journalism website that uses a range of genres and media to highlight critical perspectives on governance, reconciliation, human rights, the arts and literature, democracy and other issues. The site has won two international awards, including the prestigious Manthan Award South Asia in 2009. The grand jury's evaluation of the site noted, "What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It's a new age media for a new Sri Lanka... Free media at it's very best!"

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