Photo courtesy of Kumanan
The legacy of the civil war still haunts communities across the country. Despite Sri Lanka’s ethnic, religious and cultural diversity, lingering ethnic tensions have deterred investment, hindered development and impeded progress. Without genuine reconciliation, the nation’s diversity risks further division while a climate of trust and cooperation could promote economic growth, attract foreign investment and create opportunities for all Sri Lankans, regardless of their ethnic or religious background.
The Sri Lanka Barometer conducted a national public perception survey on reconciliation in 2021, which revealed that Sri Lankans felt that reconciliation was beneficial to the country and cited the lack of political will and divisive politics as the biggest barrier to achieving reconciliation. They also felt that it was important to recognise and address past injustices but realised that political interference and influence prevented this from happening. Politics and political actors interfering in justice processes were identified as key barriers to justice. People condemned the use of violence against other civilians regardless of the perpetrators of this violence.
Over a quarter of people perceived reconciliation as beneficial and would be a means to achieve national unity. They felt that moderate progress has been made towards reconciliation and continued to recognise the importance of reconciliation by expressing a consistently strong demand for reconciliation, which cut across identity and demographic groups. This was indicative of the relative importance people place on this process, which may imply a differing view to the mainstream political views and the de-prioritisation of reconciliation.
People felt that progress towards achieving reconciliation has been limited. While the state’s commitment to reconciliation and implementation of relevant policies has varied since 2009, civil society has continued to advocate for stronger measures towards achieving reconciliation to little avail.
The findings indicated that people agreed that the institutions established to support reconciliation were important. They noted that obstacles to reconciliation related to politicisation of the process, followed by nationalism and ethnic and religious discrimination as well as economic inequality.
Sri Lankans considered dealing with the country’s past to be important. This indicated that people had not forgotten the violence of the past and felt that it must be dealt with. This finding was significant because while the nationalist political discourse against post war justice and reconciliation at one point was to “forget the past and move forward”, failure to address the past would prevent people from moving forward and hinder meaningful and sustainable progress towards reconciliation.
The survey findings revealed that people recognised that injustices suffered by all groups were an important aspect of dealing with the impact of the war and that memorialisation and reparations were aspects that should be included in the process.
The findings regarding access to justice reflected the perceptions and status of the regular judicial system. Human rights violations committed during the war could be addressed through a judicial mechanism separate to the regular justice system.
As part of its series on Assessing the Key Issues Facing the NPP Government, Groundviews spoke to veteran peace activist and executive director of the National Peace Council, Dr Jehan Perera, on what the government can do to rebuild trust between polarised communities and how to address the festering issue of enforced disappearances.
What can the government do immediately to promote reconciliation?
There are some of important issues that Tamil people have been agitating about for a long time even after the end of war. What they have been asking for is to find out what happened to missing people, to release the prisoners taken into custody 10 or 20 years ago who sometimes have not been convicted by the courts or even taken before the courts but are languishing in the prisons and to return the land taken over by the military during the time of the war. Those are some of the things that I think this government can do fairly easily and quite quickly if it has the political will to do so. I’m a little puzzled as to why it’s not happening. One reason probably is that this is a new government with new politicians and although they have a good vision for the country, that vision does not necessarily permeate downwards. My feeling is that whether it is in the area of corruption, living a more austere lifestyle or dealing with ethnic minorities, there is resistance in the system that they have still not taken headlong. They have to do something to win confidence of the Tamil people. There are some things that can be done fast such as to change some of the laws that we have. For instance, under the Public Security Ordinance, every month the president signs an order that enables the military to come out and patrol along with the police. Now why is that necessary? The conflict war has been over many years. There is no sense of emergency or threat in the country. Why do we need the military to be out on the streets? The police can do the job equally well. If the government withdraws the military from the streets – they can still be in their camps – but if they are withdrawn from the streets, from being at checkpoints, it will be a sign to the Tamil people that there is change in the country. It is also something that even the police will like because I understand that the police are not keen to have military people along with them.
Is there any other legislation that needs to be introduced or repealed to bring this about?
One confidence building measure would be if the government can deal with the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), which was introduced as a temporary measure 40 years ago and it is still there. It was used during the time of the Tamil uprising andduring the time of the JVP uprising. It is a very draconian law where the rights of people can easily be violated because you can take people into custody without bringing them before a magistrate and keep them for some time. They can be kept without bail. These are where human rights violations take place and it has especially affected the Tamil people in recent times. So if the government either withdraws the PTA from the law entirely and replaces it with a new one or at the very least amends the bad features of it, then that would be a confidence building measure. Another thing that the government could do is something that has been talked about a lot – a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I think that is necessary now. Recently the issue of the Batalanda Commission report has come up and now there is a great deal of interest to know what that report says and what really happened during the JVP period. In the same way that people are now mobilising different political parties and saying, okay we must go into the past and see what happened during the JVP period, in a similar way we can expect the Tamil people to want to know what happened during the war period. In both cases people want to know the truth. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which is there to promote and to strengthen the reconciliation process, is something that we have to seriously consider. The previous government also had a draft law but didn’t pass it. This government has the same law that it can work with, and there is talk about that it will appoint a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. That is also something that can be done to build confidence in people.
The government seems to be taking the same stance as the previous government by rejecting an international investigation into enforced disappearances. Can a local mechanism work?
What the present government is saying and the position it is taking is the same as the previous government. It is the same as governments in most countries. Most countries would not want international involvement because for them sovereignty is important; a country and its people should decide for themselves and not have the international community intervening. It makes sense. There is this wise saying from the past that countries do not have permanent friends, they only have permanent interests. We see that’s true in today’s world in the way traditional allies are behaving towards each other. So you can’t rely on the international system as the international system is not functioning very well. If you look at what’s happening in Gaza, in different parts of the world, the international system is not something that you can place your trust in. You can, in the end, place your trust only in yourself. I think that’s the basic line that the government is taking. But it is important that the government should then, instead of simply rejecting what the international community is asking, have a viable alternative. What the international community is asking is to look into your past and see what happened. That’s a correct question to ask. It’s a question that people in our country are asking, especially the Tamil minority. But now increasingly even people from the Sinhala community are asking what happened during the time of the JVP insurrection when the Sinhalese were the main target of the violence that was taking place. I think it’s fine that the government says we don’t want international intervention. But then it should have an acceptable alternative to that – a domestic mechanism that takes care of those problems. There’s always scope for learning from other countries because other countries have gone through similar processes. It’s not as if only our country has had violence and human rights violations. Other countries have had it in greater degrees. We can learn from those countries and have people coming and advising us by being technical advisors, helping us to formulate our mechanisms, guiding us on the way and helping us in making judgement calls. But in the end, I think it is correct that Sri Lankans should be the ones who decide. The problem is that the Tamil people, because of the long years of experience, don’t have much confidence in domestic mechanism because they feel they will not look after the interests of the minority but look at the interests of the majority. We have to find a way to overcome that problem and one way would be to give the representatives of the Tamil people an equal voice, an equal power, in selecting those who are in the domestic mechanism. That way they can feel that people that they trust are in it. People of integrity who presumably are appointed to those bodies will take the struggle forward. Of course, even what they recommend might then not be implemented. That also has happened in our country. But if the correct people are chosen, people with integrity, they will take the struggle forward.
Through your work at the grassroots, do you see that there’s a big divide between people in the North and South or is there more empathy building up between the communities?
The vast majority of people are concerned about the economic hardships that they’re having. That’s what they’re giving attention to. On that issue, there’s no difference between the people in one part of the country or the other. They will feel the same and they will feel empathy for one another. But if it comes to a specific ethnically divisive issue then, of course, they will tend to think differently. People now are much more wise and aware that ethnicity and nationalism have been used to mobilise their vote, that politicians have taken those stands and made a big noise about those things in order to win their vote. But then when they come to power, they do something entirely different so people know that issues of ethnicity and nationalism are manipulated. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t remain in the people. People will think differently on issues of the devolution of power, how much power should be devolved to the North and East or to the provinces and whether there should be a truth commission that goes into war crimes and then punishes the soldiers who may be found guilty of it or not. There will be differences on these issues but I think it’s less than before. An important reason why it’s less is because of the circumstances in the country. After the economic collapse, people realised that the political leaders who were heading the country, who said they loved the people and were very nationalist, were actually were robbing the people. Then they brought in a new government to power. This government is taking a different stand; it has been openly saying it is against racism, that racism is bad andextremism is bad. Because it is saying those things and behaving in that manner, I believe that the level of racism in society, the division in society, is also reduced significantly reduced. It shows the importance of leadership. Leadership can take us in a bad direction or in a good direction. Sri Lanka, unlike most countries of the world at this present time, is going in a better direction than a worse direction and we should be happy about that.
Do you believe that Sri Lanka can one day become a truly reconciled and pluralistic society?
Reconciled and pluralistic society will always be the ideal. And we must strive for the ideal. But it’s an ideal. You are always have to work for it. These things are never given. Even in western countries countries that appear to have reached a higher level of democracy and development than our country, you find that it’s a constant struggle against racism. Respect for pluralism is sometimes difficult because people are most familiar with their own community. There is always the issue of majoritarianism.Majority rule can easily be converted into permanent rule by the majority and result in oppressing the others. It’s something that has to be always worked against. The need for pluralism and reconciliation will always be there. It’s like even in personal relationships you have to always work at it because otherwise you can drift apart.
