Finding A Resolution That Does Not Polarise Sri Lanka Even More
By Jehan Perera -February 3, 2014
Jehan Perera
US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Desai Biswal who visited Sri Lanka made it clear that the United States would continue to pursue a resolution on Sri Lanka at the forthcoming session of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva. The Sri Lankan government is totally opposed to the initiative spearheaded by the US to have a resolution that calls for an international probe into the human rights issues that arose in the last phase of the war. Ms Biswal also explained her country’s interest in Sri Lanka as being motivated by its values and desire to see peace and prosperity in Sri Lanka and the region. However, this latter motivation is unlikely to impress the ethnic majority Sinhalese population at large whose view of post-war Sri Lanka corresponds to that of the government, which gives priority to post-war economic development over other values.
While Assistant Secretary Biswal was meeting with the country’s decisionmakers and also visiting the North, I was in Avissawella in the Western Province. The government has scheduled early elections in both the Western and Southern provinces and selected the day after the vote in Geneva for these elections. The government appears to be calculating that the voters will be motivated by the spirit of nationalism to give it a victory at these elections, which will be a springboard for further victories at the more important Presidential and Parliamentary elections that are billed to follow in swift order. On the Sunday morning I was in Avissawella, it presented a picture of tranquility and prosperity, with tea and rubber plantations and factories and schoolchildren going to Sunday school in their temples. In conversation with people on the street getting about their daily business it could be seen that Ms Biswal’s concerns about post-war peace and prosperity were largely met, at least for them.
But the problem is that the same does not hold true in the North and East of the country where the war was fought, and even in the hearts of members of the ethnic minorities who live outside of those fromer war zones. The concerns of the Sinhalese majority are different from those of the Tamil and Muslim ethnic minorities, especially where it concerns their sense of security. The recently elected Northern Provincial Council has passed a resolution of its own calling for an international war crimes investigation. The resolution of the Northern Provincial Council has pitted it frontally against the government and is likely to be based on their frustration at the emasculation of the Provincial Council despite its recent election. However, most non-Tamil Sri Lankans would agree with the view that the government is being punished for having defied Western pressure to stop the war and negotiate with the LTTE. Some would even say that the forces of separatism are at work again.
