Sri Lanka’s post- conflict future
Road to reconciliation:
Firstly, we have done much more in the last five years in terms of
basic infrastructure. While infrastructure alone is not enough, without
it there could be no development, in particular in areas deprived of
basic connectivity for so long. Secondly, we have begun to attract the
kind of investment the country deserves and are able to direct it
towards regions that suffered from neglect previously. I mean not only
areas previously under terrorist sway, but also those areas full of
promise in the south and the northwest that successive governments
neglected, because their leadership was immovably urban.
Text of the
speech by Prof Rajiva Wijesinha at the Royal Commonwealth
Society, London on September 17, 2010 |
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Thirdly, we have at last begun to implement the provisions about
language that were introduced into our Constitution in 1987. We have
much further to go, but at last Government has had the courage to
promote bilingualism by regulation. 300,000 public servants should be
bilingual by 2013 in terms of the current training program, while 500 of
the 5000 new Tamil police officers envisaged have already been
recruited.
Human resources development
Fourthly, we are ready now to ensure equitable human resources
development through the provision of choice. Though the statist system
we had bore rich dividends in terms of basic education, it did not
encourage excellence. Also, the system of positive discrimination that
had been introduced initially to help rural students hit the better
education minorities hardest. Unlike their equally discriminated against
brethren in Colombo, they had no viable alternatives. Ensuring that our
talented youngsters all over the country have programs to develop their
skills is vital, and this is amongst the most important reforms being
advanced currently by government.
Fifthly, we have, more quickly than had been anticipated and
certainly more quickly than in any comparable situation in the world, we
have brought things closer to normalcy for the principle victims of
Tiger control, the nearly 300,000 displaced and the almost 12,000
fighting cadres, most of whom had been conscripted against their will.
To put down very simply the current position:
* Fewer than 15,000 still remain in the Vavuniya Welfare Centres, out
of the over 280,000 who were there initially, and these enjoy full
freedom of movement. Another 12,000 are still not resettled, but are out
of the camp, though 9,000 of these return as required. Interestingly
enough, when freedom of movement was permitted towards the end of last
year, after security checks were complete, comparatively few people took
advantage of this, preferring the full support package they were
provided within the camps, including all education and health
facilities.
* This means that 250,000 have settled down again, most of them back
in the areas in the North from which they had been displaced.
* Eight hundred and ninety seven square kilometres have been cleared
of mines, out of the 1,744 initially estimated as contaminated. Seventy
five percent of the clearing was by the Sri Lankan forces, though we are
also grateful to agencies such as HALO and MAG and a number of Indian
groups which assisted in the work.
* Of 11,696 former combatants, 3588 have been sent home including all
former child soldiers. Vocational training for the others is proceeding
apace and another 400 will be released by the end of this month and a
further 1000 next month. It is assumed that about 700 may have to face
legal process, but government believes that the rest were most probably
innocent victims rather than perpetrators of LTTE terror. The
International Organization for Migration assists with the rehabilitation
program, as does the Hindu Congress.
* Emergency regulations have been relaxed, and further liberalization
is planned over the next few months.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we have at last begun to move
beyond the polarization that was imposed upon us for so long, so that
problems that might have been solved with reason and sympathy turned
into bitter conflict.
Language policy
I should expand on what I mean by this, which may necessitate going
into the background in some detail. Let me start by noting that we
certainly created a number of problems for ourselves in the first
quarter century after independence, springing largely I believe from a
restrictive language policy that had repercussions also with regard to
education and public service employment. In a context in which we were
also victims of statism such restrictions caused enormous damage.
But what should have been a political problem, demanding a political
solution, turned into violent conflict with repeated attacks on Tamils
from 1977.
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Resettled children at school,
December 2009 |
Soldiers helping to clean up a kovil
in Kilinochchi for Thai Pongal, January 2010 |
These were not attacks by Sinhalese in general, but they seem to have
been encouraged, if not initiated, by some members of the government of
the time. Sadly, given that government also claimed to be closely allied
to the West, and also that Human Rights was not as important then as
winning the Cold War, there was no criticism in the West then of the
monstrosities that took place.
Those attacks obviously contributed to the polarization that took
place, not helped at all by the government both postponing elections and
instituting a constitutional amendment that in effect drove out the
major Tamil party from Parliament.
This was grist to the mill of the various terrorist movements that
had sprung up, and it also contributed to more active involvement by
India.
This culminated in the Indo-Lankan Accord of 1987 and a program of
devolution, which was accepted by almost all terrorist groups, which
then entered the democratic process.
The exception was the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which took on
those other groups then as well as the Indian army. They were aided over
the years by Sri Lankan political parties which blamed their rivals for
the failure to reach a political solution, while suggesting that the
Tigers were little lambs whose desire for peaceful compromise was being
thwarted.
Tamil leaders
This foolish or cynical practice did untold damage to the body
politic, in particular because it encouraged in the Tigers the belief
that they were irresistible and, worse, it made Tamils abroad
concentrate their favours and their finances on extreme terrorists.
Meanwhile the Tigers were picking off moderate Tamil leaders, from
Amirthalingam to Tiruchelvam, so that by 2001 the TULF began to
subscribe to the Tiger claim that they were the sole representatives of
the Tamils. Their leader who resisted this, Anandasangaree, was
sidelined, a new party called the TNA was started that subscribed to the
view that the Tigers alone spoke for the Tamils and, with a little help
from the government elected in 2001, the Western world adopted this
viewpoint too - even though the 2004 election showed that, even in the
East, the monolith had begun to crack.
Drunk with power then, the Tigers refused to compromise, and walked
out of talks with the UNP government in 2003 and the subsequent UPFA
government in 2006, after they had deigned to attend a couple of rounds
in that year, after their three year absence.
They were by now engaging in forced conscription of at least one
member of each family, though sadly the UN, which was supposed to
protect the people of the area, did not draw attention to this, and we
were finally only informed of the situation by the Norwegian ambassador.
Given all this indulgence, assuming that military victory would be easy,
the Tigers launched two massive attacks in August 2006, to attempt to
over-run government forces in the Jaffna and Trincomalee Districts.
They failed. Government, using unusual strategies that the West might
well study if it wishes to minimize civilian casualties as well as its
own in theatres of conflict such as Afghanistan, managed systematically
to drive the Tigers into smaller and smaller territory.
The ploy of dragging civilians along with them as they retreated,
aided and abetted by international commentators who suggested this was
happening through free will, meant government had to move more slowly
than it would have liked, and suffer more casualties. But the strategy
paid off, in that in time even the Tiger cadres, or rather the less
hard-bitten amongst them, started disobeying orders, and a breach in
defences led to nearly 150,000 civilians making their way to safety in
April 2009. Nearly 100,000 more were rescued in May, when the Tiger
leadership was finally destroyed, making a total of 280,000, including
those who had got away earlier, in welfare centres.
There were also around 10,000 former combatants who had surrendered
themselves, with around another 1,000 being added from the Welfare
Centres after investigation.
To be continued
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