The pragmatic motivation for the appointment of this Commission is likely to have been to enable the Sri Lankan government to deal with international pressures on issues of human rights in the last phase of the war and good governance in the post-war phase about which several international organizations and governments had been expressing their concerns.
by Jehan Perera
(October 19, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Presidential Commission on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation has sought a report from the police to provide it with information about the situation of detained LTTE suspects in government custody. This action has been in response to the complaints made to it directly, and in person, by relatives of those detained or missing persons. Over the past two months since the Commission began its public sittings it has met a large number of people who have come before it to give evidence. The opportunity for this came because the distraught relatives were able to make use of the opportunity provided to them by the appointment of this Commission by President Mahinda Rajapaksa five months ago in May this year.
Most of the Commission’s sittings have been in Colombo. In addition the Commission has also gone to the main towns in the war zones of the North and East. The issues that have generated the most amount of media publicity have been those associated with the failed Ceasefire Agreement of 2002 and the peace process that accompanied it. The media publicity has served a public education function that is befitting of a major national initiative. The hearings of the Commission in Colombo have generated more analytical and cerebral evidence. The issues pertaining to the ceasefire and the failure of the peace process have generated discussion on Sri Lanka’s sovereignty and international relations and on the merits and demerits of the government’s attempt to negotiate with the LTTE.
However, the ground situation as it affected the civilian population during the war that came up at the Commission’s hearings in the North and East have not been reported with the same degree of thoroughness by most of the media. This is unfortunate. The emphasis on the lessons learnt from the failure of the ceasefire and peace talks will hopefully be only of academic use for Sri Lanka. This is because an intransigent militant organization like the LTTE with a leader like Prabakaran is unlikely to rise again any time in the foreseeable future. On the other hand, a discontented ethnic minority population coupled with ethnic majority nationalism can once again fan the flames of ethnic conflict.
It is striking that there has been a paucity of information regarding the Commission’s hearings in the North and East. While the Tamil language media covered those hearings extensively, this was not the case with the non-Tamil language media. The failure of the English and Sinhala language media to cover those hearings deprives people living outside the North and East of important information that would enable them to come to their own judgments about the failures past and the changes necessary to ensure peace in the future. The hearings in the North and East generated participation from those sections of the population who were directly affected by the war, and it is important for the rest of the population to know what they went through.
Pragmatic Motivation
The pragmatic motivation for the appointment of this Commission is likely to have been to enable the Sri Lankan government to deal with international pressures on issues of human rights in the last phase of the war and good governance in the post-war phase about which several international organizations and governments had been expressing their concerns. The appointment of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission could prove to be a suitable governmental response to ease the pressures on this issue. The international governments generally give deference to national initiatives that are taken with regard to internal issues of governance. They would generally prefer to give the government the benefit of the doubt rather than to pre-judge the issue.
When considering the experiences of other formerly war-torn societies, it can be seen that the role of lessons learnt and reconciliation commissions in them was not only for fact finding and analytical purposes. Those commissions were also motivated by the desire to permit the war-affected people with an opportunity to tell what they experienced and to achieve some measure of satisfaction through getting their stories out. At the hearings in the North and East, it was evident that there were many more people wanting to come before the Commission and obtain relief from it than it was possible to accommodate. This would be on account of other institutional mechanisms for war-affected people to vent their grievances and obtain remedies for them.
The grievances of war affected people would range from being unable to locate where their relatives may be, to giving the correct picture as to what they experienced during the war, to seeking compensation for what they lost in the war. They would also wish to highlight the difficulties they are faced with at present and make an appeal to those who have the power to change their present circumstances for the better. A very positive aspect of the evidence that was given in the North and East was the willingness of some people to say publicly what happened to them and their neigbours despite the absence of witness protection mechanisms.
There is no doubt that the Presidential Commission on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation would be restricted in its ability to respond in full measure or resolve the problems that were brought before it. Indeed in referring the matter of the LTTE suspects to the police, the Commission explained that its mandate did not empower it to undertake individual investigations. Further the appointment of the Commission by the President, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of the country’s armed forces would indicate a tension between the need for accountability and the need to protect the government forces.
Bigger impact
The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission was appointed in the context of the international call for an independent international commission to investigate the allegations of human rights violations and war crimes committed in the closing stages of the war. The joint statement by three highly reputed international organizations which declined to appear before the Commission sets out some of the criticisms against the Commission. In their joint statement, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and International Crisis Group said that the Commission "not only fails to meet basic international standards for independent and impartial inquiries, but it is proceeding against a backdrop of government failure to address impunity and continuing human rights abuses."
In particular they pointed out that the Commission’s mandate did not require it to investigate the many credible allegations that both the government security forces and the LTTE committed serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. They also pointed out that most of the Commission members had a history of working for the government and some had been personally supportive of the President and his government. Two other weaknesses they pointed to was the absence of protection mechanisms for those who give evidence when there is a climate of impunity in the country, and the fact that efforts of many previous commissions of inquiry have come to naught.
However, there are some Sri Lankan organizations that have appeared before the Commission. This is on the grounds that the limitations in the mandate and composition of the Commission do not negate the opportunity that it presents to those who wish to have their views heard and recorded. The National Peace Council, which is an NGO with a mandate to work for peace and inter-ethnic justice and reconciliation in Sri Lanka, was one of the organizations to give evidence before it. Most of its peace education and reconciliation work has been with grassroots communities. The opportunity to engage with a high level body such as the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission that can affect national policy on the subject was deemed an opportunity to be grasped.
As a member of the delegation from the National Peace Council that made its submissions before the Commission, I found the members to be interested and open minded in their approach. The Commission may nor may not accept the observations that were made and analysis that was offered, but the overall sense was of a fair and respectful hearing which will be part of an official record for the future. This itself will have its impact and create its own ripples, even as the butterfly which flaps its wings that cause tremors in the farthest reaches of the universe. If more of an impact is to be obtained, it will be necessary for the Commission to address the roots of the ethnic conflict that gave birth to Tamil militancy. This will call for a recommendation regarding a political solution that devolves power and shares it, rather than further centralizes it.
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