GPPi researcher calls on Sri Lanka to pursue meaningful reconciliation

The Hindu has published an op-ed by GPPi Research Associate Gerrit Kurtz on reconciliation in Sri Lanka. In the article, published 19 April 2014, Kurtz calls on the Sri Lankan government as well as the Sri Lankan Tamil political leaders to bridge their differences and acknowledge the suffering that all sides endured during the civil war.

Sri Lanka exited a 26-year long civil war in May 2009, when the Sri Lankan government declared victory over the rebel group of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Subsequently, the Sri Lankan army erected a number of ​“victory memorials” in the former battle zone.

The narrative of a victory against ​“terrorism” and the acceleration of economic development as a consequence contrasts the dominant feeling in the north and east of the country, Kurtz observes. There, people mostly remember the suffering during the war and, in particular, the loss of their loved ones to the forced recruitment of the LTTE or the indiscriminate firing of the Sri Lankan Army, as human rights groups consistently allege.

Five years after the end of the war, these divergent narratives continue to divide the public space in Sri Lanka. With international attention by the UN Human Rights Council increasingly focused on reconciliation and ongoing human rights violations in Sri Lanka, bridging those narratives can provide the first step in long-term conflict resolution. One visible sign of this effort, Kurtz suggests, could be a common memorial for all casualties of the war in the capital city of Colombo.

In the piece Kurtz calls on India – Sri Lanka’s most important partner and still an influential regional hegemon – to use any leeway from its recent abstention from the Human Rights Council vote on an international investigation of alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka to press the Sri Lankan government on tangible reconciliation efforts. Ultimately, this would also further India’s long-standing objective of greater autonomy for the north and east as a political solution to the conflict.