Experiences Of Reconciliation: Burma, Cambodia, El Salvador And South Africa
By Laksiri Fernando -August 19, 2013
Dr. Laksiri Fernando
[The following is a presentation on the subject delivered at a workshop titled “Beyond Conflict” organized by the Sri Lanka Reconciliation Forum, Sydney, at the University of Sydney on 17 August 2013.)
The concept or the mechanism of reconciliation has a special origin in Australia. In 1991, the Federal Parliament unanimously voted to form the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation and it functioned until 2001. That is the first known mechanism for reconciliation. The experiment was emulated in New Zealand and Canada thereafter. The Council had three main objectives: (1) to educate all Australians about indigenous issues (2) to improve economic and living standards of indigenous people and (3) to acknowledge the unfair and often inhuman treatment of indigenous people throughout history. The third objective was about the truth and accountability which became the corner stone of reconciliation processes in many other countries thereafter.
A parallel development was at the UN. In the same year, in 1991, the UN Security Council asked the Secretary General to work on preventive diplomacy, peace-making and peace keeping and the SC came out with what was called An Agenda for Peace in 1992. There he said, “I have added a closely related concept, post-conflict peace-building.” The two concepts became merged very easily thereafter, and we alternatively call almost the same thing/s as ‘Reconciliation’ and/or ‘Post-Conflict Peace-Building.’ Read More
Dr. Laksiri Fernando
[The following is a presentation on the subject delivered at a workshop titled “Beyond Conflict” organized by the Sri Lanka Reconciliation Forum, Sydney, at the University of Sydney on 17 August 2013.)Lessons From China, Myanmar And Africa To Sri Lankan Policymakers
Charitha Ratwatte
A recent 10-day tour of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), covering four cities – Beijing, Xian, Shanghai and Guiyang, gave a group of Sri Lankan professionals a glimpse of the potent might of the Dragon Kingdom.
It contrasted with a tour one of the touring party had made in 1982 of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and the People’s Republic, which showed the same Chinese descendants of Confucius and the Emperor of the Middle Kingdom, once resplendent in the Forbidden City in Beijing, thriving under four diverse systems of government.
The PRC is well on its way to dominate the world, as it did before the Europeans colonised huge parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America and fought the Opium War to force China to open up its markets.
But the visitors also realised that China has to learn some hard lessons before this can happen, peacefully. The choking smog and the formidable Forbidden City in Beijing, the awesome Terra Cotta warriors and the entrepreneurial Muslim street of Xian, the mercantilist might of Shanghai and the awesome Huangguoshu water fall near Guiyang are all mind boggling, but the lessons to be learnt are something else, entirely.
