Hard-won legacy?

SRI LANKA’S tentative steps to formulate a domestic accountability mechanism is pushing the Government towards an unforgiving battle to balance short-term political goals with long-term peace for the country. 

As a first attempt to carry out recommendations listed in the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), which calls for the Government to take an “all-inclusive political process of dialogue and accommodation” and urges Parliamentarians to “take the lead in a spirit of tolerance, accommodation and compromise,” the Government has participated for talked held between the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Global Tamil Forum (GTF). Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera sat in on talks between the two organisations that talked about assisting internally displaced people and also formulating rehabilitation programs with the help of all stakeholders. 

While the meeting did not dwell on accountability, it has nonetheless raised the spectre of the “LTTE rump” in the minds of politicians at home. So much so the Foreign Ministry has attempted to distance itself as a full member of the talks and taking pains to give Samaraweera a wallflower role. 

This cautious stance is understandable as former President Mahinda Rajapaksa has taken the opportunity to slam reconciliation attempts by the Government as an “Eelam policy” during a recent rally and pro-Rajapaksa Parliamentarians have since then rarely lost an opportunity to chorus their disapproval of engaging with diaspora communities. Yet none of these groups will explain how Sri Lanka can achieve sustainable peace without the proactive engagement of the diaspora, a fact that was highlighted in the LLRC, which was in fact a product of the Rajapaksa administration.

 The Defence Ministry is also reviewing a list of 16 Tamil diaspora and human rights groups banned in Sri Lanka by the former government. The Sirisena administration hopes to engage with moderate diaspora groups to gain international support for its reconciliation efforts and plans to hold a “diaspora festival” this year to boost relations. All steps that would be hailed by moderate voters. 

Yet, the danger of openly working on sustainable peace for Sri Lanka is like playing with a double-edged sword. Many political analysts warn Rajapaksa will not hesitate to use the ghost of the LTTE as his trump card and whip up a frenzy of protest, thinly veiled as patriotism and standing by the armed forces, ahead of polls. A fledgling reconciliation process would be a poor match for such an onslaught and could well become another missed opportunity.  

Yet taking the hard road has already won the Government praise. Recent efforts were commended by the US and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein at the 29th session of the United Nations Human rights Council (UNHRC) this week. Hussein, in particular hailed the Government’s attempt at stability asking them to “consult broadly with all political parties, civil society, and above all victims and their families, to ensure full national support and ownership of these processes.”

Human Rights Watch, delivering a statement at the sessions, insisted the Government’s efforts should go even further, “at a minimum, include a majority of international judges and prosecutors,” the global human rights watchdog said. Bringing true peace to Sri Lanka at long last could well become President Maithripala Sirisena’s legacy but it will be a hard-won one.