LLRC report ready by Nov 10

Chaminda PERERA

The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) yesterday said that its final report will be ready by November 10 to be submitted to the President.

The Commission comprising eight members finalized the report which is being checked by proof readers.

The Commission was established by President Mahinda Rajapaksa on May 15, 2010 to report on the lessons learnt from the incidents that took place from February 2000 to May 19, 2009, their causes and recommendations to avert such developments in the future.

According to commission’s media consultant Lakshman Wickremesinghe, the Commission’s term of office will expire by November 15 and a skeleton staff will be employed at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute where the Commission office is located for a few months to preserve the documents received by the Commission. He said that the staff will undertake filing of these important documents to be sent to the archives where documents and reports of earlier presidential commissions are kept.

Wickremesinghe added that the Commission has no legal right to make the final report public nor print it for public interest.

“It is the President who has to decide whether it is made public or not,” Wickremesinghe added.

The LLRC headed by former Attorney General C.R. de Silva PC submitted an interim report to President Rajapaksa in September 2010 and it conducted sessions in all parts of the country, including, Mullaitivu, Killinochchi and Jaffna districts.

The President appointed an Inter Agency Advisory Committee to ensure the implementation of the interim proposals which were presented by the Commission based on extensive testimony after having met civilians and the people affected by the conflict during its public sittings.

The mandate of the LLRC has been influenced in part by the South African experience and the Iraq Inquiry of the United Kingdom. The Commission was set up under provisions of Section 2 of the Commissions of Inquiry Act (Chapter 393).

Members of the public, diplomats, senior government officials and politicians testified before the Commission and a number of persons gave evidence in camera too.