A peacebuilding model should not be in the hands of NGOs and INGOs as it mostly is, where foreign agendas can be easily imported. While all countries have much to learn from each other and this knowledge can be sometimes routed through non-governmental entities, this learning should be mutual and holistic, without leaving room for the insidious and non-contextual.
A senior retired security official, holding the rank of Major General, in a recent conversation narrated how a General of a South American country years back had given a talk in New York on a peacebuilding model as applicable to that nation and had commented that it could be replicated by Sri Lanka.
In that context, guerrilla warfare, insurgency or terrorism had occurred in a different backdrop. The social context and the problems could not be compared to the Lankan scenario. The security official said, “While it is useful to look at different global contexts to understand the seeds of conflict and examine peacebuilding in these different circumstances, it is up to a nation and its people to work towards a local model for national unity.”
Unity and national security
This is what should be Sri Lanka’s priority. The people must understand that we are responsible for our people; all our people, whatever ethnicity or religion. To have a segment of them unhappy or feeling that their rights are violated and that they have only outside entities to depend on to obtain redress is detrimental to the country’s unity and national security.
From 1983 to 2009, the country was in the throes of unspeakable terror, trauma and bloodshed. The time since 2009 was our chance to think our internal strategy for peace rooted in humanity, by engaging different voices within the country. Soon after May 18, 2009, we should have initiated action to assess the damage done by the LTTE to the country and the details of murder and atrocities to the masses (irrespective of the ethnicity of communities).
The anti-LTTE feeling was so high among the Lankan Tamils by May 18, 2009 that had we done this immediately after the battle against terrorism, the Government would have received ample support from these citizens to give testimonials and carry out assessment tasks. The UN may have been adequately educated to look at our problems differently.
The most unwanted complication for a country is for its people to consider leaders of other nations as their hope for justice in their home country. We have to consider this with all seriousness and never give any community in the country reasons to have such sentiments. This is where we need a strategy.
A battle started as a guerilla warfare resorting to acts of terrorism is warped radicalisation that is a cancer in society. Any Government and its Security Forces will always attempt to quell such a crisis, if political action to prevent such circumstances from arising has failed.
Lessons learnt from such events are clear; we need wise political and social action to prevent any tyrant or opportunist forming their brand of terror as Velupillai Prabhakaran did. We must also at all cost prevent social unrest that is segmented across either religion or race and use every possible opportunity to create peace than division.
As of now, the biggest enemy of the Tamils is the Tamil diaspora. These are the collective words of my Tamil friends, most of whom are based in the North.
Genuineness
Anyone who is observing Tamil politics in the country would have noted that former Chief Minister of the Northern Province C. V. Wigneswaran known for his real or acted intolerance of any possibility of peace, had nevertheless in a rare moment of possible genuineness had somewhere around 2016 -2017 lost his temper with the Tamil diaspora at a meeting and demanded to know why they could not understand that good relations should be maintained with the Sinhalese.
He also said that the Sinhalese perspective should be understoodby the Tamils. It is a pity that this speech of his was not recorded for posterity. It should have been played at the 2021UNHRC session, especially for the benefit of United Nations High Commissioner for Human rights Michelle Bachelet. Probably after listening to that rare awakening of consciousness of Wigneswaran, Bachelet may understand that she does not understand what she says, when she refers with so much chagrin to the term ‘Sinhala Buddhist Ethno Nationalism.’
It is indeed ironic that a world body so pre-occupied with considering human rights does so, selectively. While it recognises Tamil rights as it rightly should, it should not in any way be at the cost of the rights of the majority of the people of this country; the Sinhalese. This idea is preposterous, but it is this kind of thought that is so fashionable today, the age of selectivism centric human rights. How can it be a racist crime for a Sinhalese Buddhist to ask for the related culture and rights to be safeguarded when it is not a racial abomination for a Sri Lankan Tamil or a Sri Lankan Muslim to do so? It is this kind of fragmented international thought processes that create disunity. This is why we need to counter this by creating a strongest possible national framework for unity.
Unlimited notions
A South Asian scholar in a personal discussion described the UN in jest as having unlimited notions, especially the Western countries that seem to have so much power in the world body. This is partly what has created the Geneva crisis for us. Our fault is that we seem to wake up to Geneva at the 11th hour and that for 12 years, we seem to have not realised that the true allies in this international fiasco are our Tamil citizens (alongside all our people). Recovery is not easy for a country to go through the throes of terror and bloodshed, especially, for a country that has been ruined by Colonial rule and grappling with many aspects of neo-colonialism that manifests through diverse subtle and overt control mechanisms.
These control mechanisms are often woven into the myriad of international interferences that come with its share of assumptions and pre-conceived notions in unlimited proportions. We as a nation have to think how best, even late as it is now, how best to close some memories, how best to listen to each other, even the aspects which are difficult and through such striving create a sense of common patriotism where every Sri Lankan who is a Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim or Burgher would feel a great reluctance to let down Sri Lanka in the eyes of the world.
This cannot be done without the State playing its role; without deep empathy and sensitivity – the hall-mark of great leadership that will take practical steps to make all Sri Lankans to feel that their country of birth is the safest, nicest, best place to be in and that their leaders are the only ones who could solve their issues. This is not some utopian fairytale.
Leaders, such as Nelson Mandela used the highest level of will power, introspection, empathy and honesty to achieve this, taking an apartheid ravaged, racially and economically divided country and replacing suspicion with kind action. A leader can summon these abilities, especially any Buddhist leader, because qualities of compassion, empathy and loving kindness are primarily Buddhistic. We do not need leaders who are boot wipers of the West to create a sensible and humane national unity model. We need not trap ourselves in resolutions created by those whose idea of truth and justice are so convoluted that looking for truth and justice in that mess would not get anyone anywhere.
Manipulation
One cannot have battles as a permanent festering sore within our hearts or allow it to be one which will foster manipulation at a local or a global level. We need to take charge of our destiny; speed up the judicial system pertaining to alleged roles during the armed conflict against a democratically elected Government and citizens, create awareness in Sri Lanka and elsewhere on the normal lives led now by rehabilitated former LTTE cadres. It is imperative that the State continue in this line and consider further rehabilitation as parallel mechanisms to encouraging the closure of the past.
Cases where those who are trapped without money to hire lawyers to legally defend themselves, or where the charges may be flimsy or baseless need to be seriously looked into, whatever the context, as we should be building for ourselves an image of a nation which puts Buddhistic wisdom and compassion to practice.
We need to solve within this country the issues of those categorised as missing (including the large numbers of military personnel categorised as missing in action) and end that chapter as rationally and sensitively as possible while continuing with the work that has been done to release to the owners land in the North held by the Security Forces; it is a fact that a significant amount of land has been released.
We must find ways to strengthen the economic, cultural and religious rights of the people of Sri Lanka and use heritage, spirituality, traditional knowledge and entrepreneurship as key mechanisms to bring people together. We must not forget that economic insecurity is a root of all evil and find ways to see to it that this chronic affliction is removed from all districts.
We are now two months away from May 18 – the day that ended 30 years of terror and bloodshed. Why cannot we consider the commemoration of a day or even a week dedicated to peace and unity beginning May 18th? This can induce us to think of all 365 days as those where peace and unity can be commemorated. It is steps, such as these that will ensure that we are no longer manipulated by those who do not live in the country, but who keep alive post war trauma for selfish interest.