Briefing the Parliament on the Government’s stance regarding the United Nations Human Rights Council’s new resolution adopted earlier this month, Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya insisted that the Government believes in adopting a credible domestic process and outlined several steps the Government has implemented to strengthen the domestic mechanism.

“The Government of Sri Lanka does not agree with the conclusions and recommendations in the report concerning international interventions,” the Prime Minister pointed out, adding that the Government believes that external interventions will “exacerbate divisions and jeopardize ongoing national processes.”

As Amarasuriya pointed out among the steps taken by the Government to strengthen the domestic process, establishing an independent public prosecutor’s office with a committee appointed by the Cabinet of Ministers and expanding its composition and consulting experts, the public and Human Rights Commission, initiating a truth and reconciliation commission based on a draft law currently under review, and enhancing independence and capacity of stakeholder institutions by financial, technical and human resource support were prominent. 

The Government of Sri Lanka’s resistance was towards the external evidence-gathering mechanism on Sri Lanka. Issuing a statement following the passing of the resolution Sri Lanka said: “Our fundamental issue with the text is the reference to resolution 51/1 of the 2022 denoting the external evidence-gathering mechanism on Sri Lanka within the OHCHR,” and added that this is an “unprecedented and ad hoc expansion of the council’s mandate.”

Earlier this month (October), the United Nations Human RIghts Council adopted the new resolution, A/HRC/60/L.1/Rev.1, without a vote extending the mandate on Sri Lanka of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) by another two years.

Amidst several aspects the resolution has pointed out to improve in Sri Lanka, the main concern, at the current resolution and earlier resolutions of the recent past, was the renewing of the OHCHR’s evidence-gathering project on Sri Lanka.

The Human Rights Council in its report A/HRC/60/G/1 (dated 4 September) noted that Sri Lanka has continuously objected to the Sri Lanka Accountability Project (SLAP) as it constitutes an external initiative that is counterproductive to the ongoing domestic reconciliation process.

The question that arises along with these developments is how sustainably Sri Lanka has been conducting the domestic reconciliation process.

In her briefing to the Parliament last week, PM Amarasuriya said that while accountability will be pursued through homegrown solutions Sri Lanka will continue to cooperate with the international community for capacity building and technical assistance.  

Yet, how far has Sri Lanka moved in the domestic reconciliation process? Reconciliation as it emerges from a conflict situation naturally becomes a complicated, multi-layered process that necessarily be linked to the local context. In the Sri Lankan context, the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), established in 2010, could be considered the initial effort in key government initiatives on bringing recommendations to the domestic reconciliation process. Following public consultations held at the BMICH, in 2011 The LLRC drafted a report with several recommendations giving attention to the causes of the 30-year long internal conflict. The Commission concluded its task with its final report being handed over to the Mahinda Rajapaksa-led Government with recommendations on how to address the causes and promote national unity.

In 2015, the Good Governance (Yahapalana) Government, supported the resolution passed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. In 2016, this Government convened the Consultation Task Force on Reconciliation Mechanism (CTF). This was tasked with gathering public views on reconciliation. The final report of the CTF led to the establishment of National Policy for Reconciliation and Coexistence in 2017. To date the National Policy for Reconciliation and Coexistence remains as the state policy for reconciliation and coexistence aiming at an integrated, holistic, and comprehensive response that is not ad hoc or piecemeal. The Policy focuses on multiple principles such as conflict sensitivity, cross-cultural awareness, victim centeredness, gender responsiveness to name a few.

In 2015, chaired by former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, Office for National Unity and Reconciliation was established under an extraordinary gazette dated 21/09-2015 within the Ministry of National Integration and Reconciliation. It mainly coordinated key reconciliation efforts to ensure the non-reccurence of conflict. The Ministry of National Coexistence Dialogue and Official Languages established by the extraordinary gazette notification dated 21-09-2015 and within which multiple State institutes such as Coexistence Dialogue Directorate, Department of Official Languages, Official Languages Commission.

The National Policy for Reconciliation and Coexistence led to the establishment of the Office of the Missing Persons and the Office of the Reparation to address the requirements of the affected communities.

As mentioned by the Prime Minister Dr Amarasuriya, in her briefing to the Parliament on 24 October, initiating a truth and reconciliation commission and establishing a public prosecutor’s office could be the latest added to this list – even though it is still in distant view.

Lessons learnt for the reconciliation process lies in the challenges and obstacles the key government initiatives have faced. Among the main obstacles would be political instability and economic challenges. Even though sovereignty and integrity of the country is defined in the Sri Lankan Constitution, elected governments operate with different approaches. This, leading to political instability in reconciliation ideologies, weakens the initiatives and its implementation. Even though economic challenges generally affect such large-scale complicated initiatives, political instability can worsen the situation as it would weaken the political will in implementing efforts in the reconciliation process. Political inconsistency, political instability also lead to lack of progress and lack of commitment of the stakeholders. Reconciliation, as mentioned above, is a complicated and multi-layered process and its results can not be experienced in a short span – the results may even be invisible in the general view. It is a social evolution for a conflict-affected community like ours.

The society we see today as Sri Lankans is not what was perceived in 2009 as the armed conflict ended. And this social evolution will also continue while the grievances of the affected communities remain unaddressed.

If the Government of Sri Lanka strongly believes in moving forward in the home-grown reconciliation process it is important to make it not only justice seeking, grievance addressing but also to draft solutions to suit the future. In the Sri Lankan experience, political inconsistency has paused the multiple reconciliation attempts depicting the image of a failed process. Therefore sustainability of the reconciliation process is vital.

Will the fresh attempts by the current Government, would sustain these challenges and withstand obstacles in the future?