Positive step towards durable harmony

A first but vital step towards the establishment of a single and united Sri Lanka was taken in Parliament on Wednesday when a motion was initiated to set up the long awaited Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on resolving issues related to our conflict. As indicated in our news report from Parliament, the PSC would be charged with reporting back to Parliament within six of its establishment, on the constitutional and political measures that need to be taken to enable the creation of a united and single nation, wherein all persons and communities would be fully empowered and live in harmony.

Thus, hopefully, the yearning in many a progressive breast of a strife-free Sri Lanka would steadily take concrete shape. All that we ask is that the PSC, which would be representative of the totality of our political parties in Parliament, applies itself to its task with steadfast commitment and work with the vital consideration in mind that time is of the essence. Since it would be a widely representative body, the PSC's final recommendations and prescriptions for a united nation, would constitute the collective thinking of the Lankan polity and would, therefore, be highly consensual. Besides, the just needs of all of Sri Lanka's communities and social groups would be addressed, if the norms according to which such Parliamentary bodies are expected to function are observed and if the prescriptions of the PSC are implemented.

On the matter of implementation, the PSC would not need to have any qualms because the country has the assurance of President Mahinda Rajapaksa that he would most willingly go along with the PSC's decisions on resolving the grievances of our communities. Therefore, the obligation is now with the PSC to come out with its recommendations on laying to rest our strife, one dimension of which ended with the elimination of the LTTE in May 2009.

But the crushing of the LTTE militarily does not ensure that the roots of the crisis too have been done away with, and it is to address these roots that the PSC would be appointed. The task of the PSC, however, would be rendered easy by the fact that the conflict has been commented on and written on voluminously and even tirelessly over the past 30 years or more. Besides the findings of the many All Party Conferences which have been sitting on the grievances of our communities, there is the very useful APRC report which is close at hand for consultation and study. There is also a profusion of reports, publications, seminar papers and the like which have been brought out over the decades by think tanks, socially-conscious institutions and other concerned sections, which could be referred to by the PSC on the tangled questions relating to the conflict.

Therefore, the hope of all thoughtful sections is likely to be that there would be swift and decisive moves towards resolving the grievances of our communities once and for all. Given that all that the PSC needs is there for the asking by way of theoretical inputs and scholarly thinking on the questions concerned, the public is justified in entertaining the hope that the deliberations of the PSC would not be long-winded.

We call on all concerned quarters to give of their best to the deliberations of the PSC. If petty political considerations and short term gain are shunned, a durable solution could be found to the grievances of our communities. The need is urgent to give the national interest precedence over sectional and narrow concerns and this principle must be scrupulously observed by the members of the PSC.

The PSC effort could be seen as really being aimed at nation-building. That is, the aim of its exertions is the building of a polity where equality of opportunity and condition would be prime features. This is nation-building in its essence. It should be apparent from all that this country has been through over the decades, that we cannot fall short of these ideals.