Sri Lanka's Post-conflict future

The road to reconciliation:

Continued from October 1, Friday

Text of the speech by Prof Rajiva Wijesinha at the Royal Commonwealth Society, London on September 17, 2010.

i) Establishment of 6th form colleges functioning in the English medium for talented students of all races and religions. The rationale is that our existing system of education divides people up, with Sinhalese schools and Tamil schools and even separate Muslim schools. This leads to children, especially in rural areas, not having opportunities to mix and work together. Whilst the ideal would be schools in every division that cater to all communities, with classes in the different mediums of instruction, that might take time. English medium schools for a few classes across the board would be a start.

They would also provide enhanced opportunities for relatively deprived children nationwide. English is seen by many as a language of opportunity, sadly restricted to the privileged few. Small-scale work in English teaching and teacher training as part of the Confidence and Stabilization Measures project of the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights, while I was Secretary, made clear the desperate thirst for English in the North and East, and ways in which we can not only satisfy such aspirations but also institutionalize them would be invaluable.

ii) Encouragement of a culture of synergy and entrepreneurship, through fine tuning curricula at Vocational Training and other Educational Institutes. We must remember that one of the most emotive issues that led to terrorism was the policy of standardization introduced in the early seventies with regard to University admission. Though I believe the policy was not racist in inception (unlike the subsequent reintroduction of a similar system in 1978, by a government that first abolished standardization and then revived it in response to racist allegations by a Minister in Parliament), it hit the young people of Jaffna hardest. Institutionalization of mechanisms to ensure that talented young people not only meet regularly, but also learn and create together in the fields of culture and sports (Ministries of Cultural Affairs and Sports). The youngsters of Colombo, though they suffered greater deprivation in terms of losing places at universities, had other alternatives, those in Jaffna had none.

It is vital therefore, even while encouraging private sector alternatives for able students deprived of state universities because of their geographical location, to also devise other mechanisms for training for productive employment by the state.

Though we have got over the statist assumptions of the seventies, we have not yet developed a culture of self-reliance through our educational system, a culture in which the state is there to provide opportunities and a level playing field, but in which individual initiatives and enterprise are also vital.

iii) Expansion of recruitment of minorities to government positions, in particular to the police and the armed forces. Government has begun improvements in this respect, but more can be done. The pilot project of a few years back, which enabled commissioning of Tamil officers even at the height of the war, through expansion of the Cadet Corps to include specially trained English teachers, can be expanded.

Again, though applications to the police have increased, following the end of threats from the LTTE to those who joined such government service, there are still deficiencies with regard to basic qualifications, for instance for Tamils from the estate sector. It is desirable therefore to establish pre-training institutes, where students from deprived backgrounds could be trained in subjects useful for police work (three languages for instance, mathematics, and aesthetic subjects that will facilitate empathy), so that they can also thus obtain the required basic qualifications.

iv) Enhancing training for officials, including language training, to ensure sensitivity to the needs of particular groups. Sadly, though an Institute for Language Training was set up a few years back, it has not been able to develop courses that are deliverable through distance learning techniques, nor recognized qualifications that can be obtained through external teaching as well as examination. We need to develop new thinking to fast forward the acquisition of language skills at appropriate levels, including much more use of drama in education.

v) Improvement of non-formal mechanisms for redress of grievances, in particular for the vulnerable, through Consultation Committees, Women and Children's Desks at police stations, School-based local welfare associations etc. These are areas in which policies developed towards the end of last year, through concerted attention to human rights as a cross-cutting issue, should be taken forward through a dedicated agency. Coordination is vital, but cannot be done by any single Ministry, and though the Ministry of External Affairs has basic responsibility for Human Rights, that can only be in terms of international obligations. Promoting local initiatives requires greater effort, but this must be seen in terms not of remedial action but rather of initiatives designed to promote positive attitudes and forestall abuse.

In particular we need also to develop a different judicial philosophy, rather than the adversarial punitive methodology now prevalent. Much more attention should be paid to conciliation and arbitration, greater concern with social work and support, discussion groups for the vulnerable, in particular single mothers. We must also work on swift restitution of deeds and papers that are missing, with mechanisms to allow individuals to affirm their rights swiftly instead of waiting on tedious procedures to establish legal forms.

These and such measures to promote a citizen centred approach to development are vital. But I should note my worry that the importance of this aspect of reconciliation, which is forward looking, has been comparatively ignored, given the pressures to dwell on the past. These pressures are understandable on the part of the remaining supporters of the LTTE, so as to revive tensions, but all those truly concerned with peace and reconciliation should remember that the future must take precedence over the past.

At the same time, measures to increase confidence should also be pursued, and in this regard I was delighted that the Human Rights Action Plan, which my Ministry drafted last year, was placed before Cabinet last week. With the installation of a new Cabinet, responsibility for this passed to the Attorney General, who had in any case been overseeing the final drafts after the dissolution of Parliament. Despite his immense responsibilities in other areas, he was able to move this forward too, and I hope we will be able to finalize and adopt the plan before the end of this year. In addition, we should move swiftly in areas in which action has been agreed, better training for the Police, reforms with regard to Prisons, and as also suggested above, streamlining of judicial procedures to make them more responsive to public needs.

I believe then that Sri Lanka is poised for rapid development with greater stress on equity than ever before. For that purpose we need to ensure greater pluralism and continuing consultation of all our people. We also must promote empowerment, through better and more varied education, through structures that promote consensus and better attention to areas left out of decision making in the past.

And we must also develop programs to fire the imagination of all stakeholders, including those of our citizens who left in understandable fear and anger twenty five years ago. For too long they thought the only answer to injustice was greater injustice in the form of totalitarian terror. I hope we will be able now to convince them that their energies and their talents can also be used to ensure a better life for the people they left behind, who suffered badly but who stand now on the threshold of sustainable prosperity.

Concluded