Lanka's war crimes report: Whitewash or compassion?

But it ends there unless the Sri Lankan government chooses to answer. While the international rhetoric of war crimes and human rights abuses still prevails, there is little or no action in concrete terms. 

Now, rumours signal that the UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Navaneethan Pillay, has decided to postpone her planned visit to Sri Lanka until after the public release of the report of the Commission on Lessons Learned and Reconciliation (LLRC), which is sitting on the desk of President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Recent weeks have seen the government dealing with issues relating to the last phase of the civil war in a more confident manner. One reason may be the quality of the LLRC report, which Minister Basil Rajapaksa says will be tabled in Parliament before the end of the year. Leaked sections of the report indicate that it is not simply a whitewash of the government, and contains strong reservations regarding some government practices. In addition, the Commission appears to have acknowledged the credibility of witnesses’ firsthand experiences of the last phase of the war.

Another reason for the waning of the international pressure on Sri Lanka is the difficulty that human rights campaigners have in keeping international attention on Sri Lanka when the crisis has been over more than two and a half years ago. These days, the euro crisis currency or the breakdown in US-Pakistan relations have far bigger implications for the world than Sri Lanka’s unresolved problems. The result is that at international forums – whether it be a Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting or the UN Human Rights Council – the majority opinion is to let Sri Lanka be.

 

Living together

But, regardless of international action or non-action on the issues, Sri Lanka must move on to reconciliation. The relaxation of international pressure cannot be a reason to put aside or forget the past. On the one hand, experience from different parts of the world shows that reconciling after war can take a very long time. 

Japan, which is a model of democracy and which respects the sovereignty of countries, still has lingering problems with its neighbours, China and Korea, which it invaded prior to the Second World War. France still has a festering problem with Algeria over the massacres of Algerians during the colonial period. Turkey continues to deny the genocide of a million Armenians at the beginning of the last century.

The experience of other countries blighted by allegations of war atrocities indicates that memories do not die. These long unresolved issues continue to smoulder beneath the surface and suddenly emerge in violent clashes over issues of injustice and territory. A memory of injustice seldom fades in the victim. 

The problem is that the party that committed the atrocities is usually desperate to bury the past and forget it. So, it is hard for them to see the need for reconciliation as time passes. But, without reconciliation there can be no lasting peace. 

The challenge of reconciliation in Sri Lanka must be taken on by this generation, and not left to the succeeding ones. This is especially the case as Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims have to continue to live together.

In contrast, the Chinese and Koreans were free of Japan after the war, and Japan was free of them. They could go their separate ways and govern themselves. The same is true of France and Algeria. But, in the case of Sri Lanka, we cannot walk away and live free of each other. 

Sri Lankans of all communities have to live together in a relatively small space which gives little opportunity for separation, and means significant inter-mixing. More than half of the Tamil population lives among the Sinhalese, and the capital Colombo has only a minority of Sinhalese. This is why the people of Sri Lanka need their government to use compassion – not whitewash – in dealing with the victims of the war. Only with genuine reconciliation will we be able to close this dark chapter and then open a new one.