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| Sri Lankan film stars wave national flags as they hold a silent protest over the release of a recent UN report accusing the country of war crimes, in Colombo on May 6, 2011. Sri Lanka's president poured scorn on the United Nations over the report which alleged that his military forces may have been guilty of atrocities during the island's civil war. - GETTY IMAGES |
by Shanie
"It is necessary to establish the truth in relation to past events as well as the motives for and circumstances in which gross violations of human rights have occurred, and to make the findings known in order to prevent a repetition of such events in future... There is a need for understanding but not for vengeance, a need for reparation but not for retaliation, a need for ubuntu but not for victimisation."
(May 07, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) That was from the preamble to the Act establishing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in South Africa in 1994 soon after Nelson Mandela had taken office as President after the country had been liberated from years of strife and struggle. The TRC sat for two and a half years, heard written or oral evidence from over twenty thousand persons and finally presented their report to President Mandela in October 1998. In presenting the report, TRC’s Chairperson Desmond Tutu had this to say: "Not everybody will be happy with the report. Many have already started to discredit it in advance. But even should they succeed, what will they achieve? It will change nothing of the facts." Nelson Mandela stated that he was accepting the report, with all its deficiencies, as the TRC’s contribution to reconciliation and nation building.
The model of the TRC as a way of dealing with the past was one that has been adopted by several countries that had gone through years of internal strife. The conflicts that each of these countries had gone through was different but they all involved the state security forces and one or more of armed militant groups. When the conflict ended and peace was restored, the question arose as to how best to deal with the past where the various actors had conducted themselves in breach of acceptable norms in conflicts of this nature. Simply ignoring the past would be to disregard and dishonour the suffering and hurt experiences by the victims. On the other hand, going after the perpetrators of the violence with a vengeance would not have contributed to the reconciliation process that each of those countries was engaged in.
Truth and Reconciliation Commission
A Truth and Reconciliation Commission was a means of restoring the dignity of the victims whilst establishing the truth of the violence and suffering caused by the perpetrators. A scheme of amnesty built into the TRC provided for reconciliation. The mandate of the TRC in South Africa was different in nature from that of both the Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission and that of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Advisory Panel. The TRC was mandated to listen to all parties, listen to their hurts, to establish the truth and make recommendations for reconciliation either through the grant of amnesties or in any other way. The LLRC had a more limited mandate to inquire into the period following the MoU signed by the then UNP government and to recommend measures for reconciliation. The UNSG’s panel was specific to the closing stages of the war, to establish accountability and recommend the way forward for the UNSG. Irrespective of the specific nature of their mandates, all three panels did the right thing by listening to the cries of some of the victims. Listening to these stories was not just to establish accountability but also to provide a form of catharsis for both victim and perpetrator alike.
Professor Daya Somsundaram and some others have documented some of the stories of the victims. Professor Piet Meiring was a member of the TRC and delivered the Kanchana Abhayapala Memorial Lecture in 2000 in Colombo. One of the stories he quoted at the lecture was from the diary he maintained during the TRC sittings. A mother appeared before the TRC and related her story of how, sixteen years earlier, she had sent her fourteen year-old son to buy bread. There was then unrest in the township and somewhere along the way, the boy must have been caught in the cross-fire. For some reason, the security Police arrested the wounded child and subjected him to brutal torture. For two days, the panic stricken mother went around trying to find out what had happened to her son. And then she saw on the neighbour’s television, during the news, her son being pulled down from an open vehicle by his ankles and being dragged across the tarmac. The Police eventually gave her an address where she could find her son. It turned out to be the mortuary. The body bore bullet wounds, a gaping wound on the back of the head and burn marks where he had been tortured. After she had given her testimony, Meiring confronted the mother and asked her why she had travelled such a long way to tell her story. Was it worth it? The mother replied, "Oh, yes, Sir, absolutely! It was difficult to talk about all those things. But, tonight, for the first time in sixteen years, I think I will be able to sleep through the night. Maybe tonight I will sleep soundly without having nightmares."
There are thousands of stories that are told by Sri Lankan mothers similar to that of the South African mother. The LLRC heard some of them from mothers and wives who survived the last stages of the war. The UNSG’s panel also heard the story at least from one father of a student among the Trincomalee Five, and which formed part of the report of the Udalagama Commission, now quietly gathering dust in President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s office. President Rajapaksa himself would be aware of many more such stories from earlier conflicts in Sri Lanka, which he attempted to present to the UN during the time of a previous UNP regime.
Acknowledging the past
Indeed, if we are to truly work towards national reconciliation, we need to be able to listen to the pain and hurt felt by the victims of acts of violence committed by all parties, including the security forces. We need to acknowledge that acts of violence have been committed by all players. The TRC was mandated to inquire and present a complete picture of the past, establish the causes, nature and extent of the suffering taking into consideration the circumstances, factors and context in which these violations took place, the perspectives of the victims, as well as the perspectives and motives of the perpetrators. The objective was to have a set of recommendations that would prevent a repeat of such violations.
It is in that same spirit that we need to view the report of the UNSG’s Panel. Some of the hysterical responses in our country have bordered on the ludicrous. Politicians will want to manipulate public opinion using every trick in their trade to ensure electoral popularity. But what is astounding is the responses from some professionals and religious leaders who should know better.
The Panel was not an investigative body established to prove any charges. It was not a war crimes tribunal. It was an advisory panel that reported to the UNSG that there was credible evidence in respect of certain charges that needed further investigation by the concerned authorities. In this, they were not making a statement more than what was presented in evidence before the LLRC. The Panel found credible evidence that the LTTE had used civilians as human shields, had killed civilians who attempted to flee from the zone in which they were trapped, had used military equipment in close proximity to civilian locations, had forcibly recruited children, had forced civilians into acts of labour and had killed civilians through suicide attacks. The Panel also found credible evidence that the Government of Sri Lanka had killed civilians through widespread shelling, had shelled hospitals and other humanitarian objects and had violated the human rights of victims and survivors of the war and of LTTE suspects and also of human rights violations outside the conflict zone, including media personnel and critics of the government.
The country needs statesperson-like language from her leaders not melodramatic statements about a willingness to be sent to a non-existent electric chair. The Government and its foreign policy advisors must give up the Jekyll and Hyde attitude of denouncing the UNSG and his panel to the Sri Lankan public while discreetly engaging with them in New York. The UNSG offered to withhold the release of the report if the Government confirmed that they were sending a response so that the report and the response could be released together. We missed that opportunity then but even at this late stage, it is good to hear reports that a detailed response is under preparation.
The way forward for national unity
The Panel has made some recommendations to the Government of Sri Lanka, for implementation both in the short or immediate term and in the longer term. None of these recommendations are new or impinge on the sovereignty of our country. All of them were in fact recommendations for reconciliation led in submissions to the LLRC by a variety of Sri Lankan individuals and groups. In fact, the Government had earlier accepted many of them, though implementation has yet to be done.
But one recommendation we need to seriously consider is the setting up of an independent domestic mechanism to establish accountability with a mandate wider than that of the LLRC. A panel of independent persons on the lines of the South African TRC may be one of the mechanisms that will promote national reconciliation. An independent panel that will hear the stories of victims and perpetrators, confidentially if necessary without them being photographed by the military, establish and and make known the whereabouts of victims restoring their human and civil dignity in pursuit of national unity and reconciliation. The people of our country, irrespective of ethnic or religious differences, should be able to empathise with the hurt and suffering of the ‘other’. The objective, as in the case of the TRC, should be for understanding not vengeance. Like the TRC, the panel should be empowered , in order to advance reconciliation and reconstruction, to recommend the grant of an amnesty in respect of ‘acts, omissions and offences associated with political objectives committed in the course of the conflict. It is the duty of all leaders, religious, political, media and civil society, to create the right environment in the country for the establishment of such a domestic mechanism.
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