Numbers Game: Politics Of Restorative Justice
S.Sivathasan
What is the above subject? Appellation of a Seminar.
Held at: Marga Institute, Colombo.
Held on: May 16th, 2013
Occasion: To launch a publication
Produced by: Independent Diaspora Analysis Group (IDAG)
“GAME FOR THE CHILD, AGONY FOR THE MOUSE”.
So runs a Tamil proverb highlighting the point that an event can be both a pastime and a tragedy at the same time. Making a game of numbers massacred is appalling. Even if the purpose be a call to the adversary not to inflate the figures, it is equally defiling. The choice of the wrong word is prejudicial to the analysis, casting misgivings about detached study or objective conclusions.
A Report on the seminar appears in Ground Views of May 29th. It was said at the seminar that “citing large and inaccurate figures raised issues… Continued recycling of spurious figures can only inhibit the healing process”. Soon after the war some of us computed the likely figures of those entrapped in the final stages of the war. We based it on the census figures of 1981 for the Wanni, subsequent official estimates by the Department of Census and Statistics, extrapolation based on national magnitudes, estimate of internal migration and guesstimate of emigration from the Wanni. Also reckoned alongside were statistics of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and official figures of refugee assistance recipients with which we were conversant. My position as Secretary Rehabilitation in the North East Provincial Council and immediately subsequently as Advisor in the Central Ministry of Rehabilitation, gave me access to such information.
