‘What
Sri Lanka Is…’: Acknowledging The Ethnic Conflict In Post-War
Reconciliation
Sign post for the military police in
Jaffna, in Sinhalese and English only.
By Ambika
Satkunanathan -
August 16, 2012
The Sri
Lankan government has appropriated the term ‘reconciliation’ to construct a
narrative of post-war Sri Lanka in which the rights of non-majority communities
are being protected, and their concerns addressed. In reality, the policies and
acts of the state show scant regard for the rights of non-majority communities,
dismissing the ethno-political nature of the conflict and the need for a
political solution as irrelevant.
The
argument presented by Sanka Chandima Abayawardena in ‘Reconciliation
in Sri Lanka means the youth must lead the way’ – that reconciliation
initiatives should be conceived and driven at the local level by Sri Lankan
youth – appears reasonable and benign. However, the experience of people in the
conflict-affected northern areas illustrates the extent to which Abayawardena
has disregarded complex ground realities, while calling upon pressure groups to
understand ‘the nature of the country – what Sri Lanka is…’.
This
article focuses on recent research conducted among the Tamil community in the
north.
Equating calls for justice with revenge: What do the
affected say?
A welcome sign in English
only.
The
call for an international intervention to establish responsibility for war
crimes has been dismissed by Abayawardena as a political move aimed at
‘persecuting the Sri Lankan political and civil leadership out of anger’.
Commentators such as Michael
Roberts have argued
that the ‘bitterness wrought by the ethnic conflict’ could be fuelling the
need for retribution that they assume many Tamils feel, which in turn might lead
to the fabrication of allegations of war crimes. There are also those who claim
that persons affected by the armed conflict only wish for a better standard of
living, jobs, access to education and healthcare, and are not concerned either
about violations of human rights and humanitarian law that took place during the
armed conflict, including the last stages of the war, or a political solution to
the ethnic conflict.
