Sri Lanka: FM Samaraweera on Consultations on Reconciliation Mechanisms
( Samaraweera speaking at the Launch of Consultations on Reconciliation Mechanisms in Jaffna)
By Mangala Samaraweera.-25/02/2016
On January 8th President Maithripala Sirisena was elected on mandate for true national unity, reconciliation and accountability. In fact, point 93 of President Sirisena’s 100 day work programme says,
“Since Sri Lanka is not a signatory to the Rome Statute regarding international jurisdiction with regard to war crimes, ensuring justice with regard to such matters will be the business of national independent judicial mechanisms.”
Later, after the new Government was elected, on behalf of the new Government, I requested the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to defer the publication of the OISL Report as the government needed to deliberate on and design the framework for truth seeking, accountability, reparations and non-recurrence.
In September, after having formed a government comprising of the two main political parties for the first time in history, I outlined this framework for reconciliation and accountability at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva based on the four pillars of truth seeking, accountability, reparations and non-recurrence. Later Sri Lanka and all the other countries of the world represented on the UN Human Rights Council co-sponsored a resolution based on the contours of that speech.
The Government of Sri Lanka, the President and the Prime Minister have over the last year repeatedly emphasized our commitment to reconciliation and accountability; and our unwavering commitment to the implementation of the Resolution.
On Independence Day last year, President Sirisena, in a dramatic departure from the insensitivity, short-sightedness and orgy of triumphalism in the recent past, said
“The time and peace required for healing and building sustainable peace and security for all, is upon us. It is now for us to seize this opportunity to ensure the fruits of democracy and citizenship can be equitably enjoyed by all.
A few months later on Remeberance Day, the 19th of May, President Sirisena observed that
“With the ending of the war on May 18 and 19 of 2009, we witnessed a period of peace. We have to ask ourselves with intelligence, experience, knowledge and wisdom; whether we have fulfilled the tasks we should have performed during the post-conflict period.
I think we did not fulfil that responsibility. Prominence was given to the development of physical resources, and there was no importance given to the process of reconciliation among communities.”
Now Independence Day this year, he expressed his commitment in greater detail,
