A Midsummer Nights Dream at PMs

Office

These will be going to the world as the official recommendations

and observations of a task force appointed by the Prime Minister
and which functioned under the Prime Ministers Office and which
held meetings with stakeholders throughout the country.
By C. A. Chandraprema-January 25, 2017,
12:00 pm

Former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga receiving

controversial report prepared by 11-member Consultation Task
Force on Transitional Justice and Reconciliation at the Presidential
Secretariat on Jan 3.
In January last year, the Prime Minister appointed an 11 member
body styled the Consultation Task Force on Transitional Justice
and Reconciliation comprising of the following individuals.
Manouri Muttetuwegama - Chairperson , Paikiasothy
Saravanamuttu - Secretary, Shantha Abhimanasingham PC,
Visaka Dharmadasa, Dr. Farzana Haniffa, K. W. Janaranjana, Prof.
Sitralega Maunaguru, Mirak Raheem, Prof. Gameela
Samarasinghe, Prof. Daya Somasundaram and Gamini Viyangoda.
This task force should not be confused with that other
reconciliation body headed by former president Chandrika
Kumaratunga which functions under the presidential secretariat.
What we are referring to here is a body appointed by the Prime
Minister, functioning under the Prime Ministers Office.
The task that this body was entrusted with was to seek the views
and comments of the public on the proposed mechanisms for
transitional justice and reconciliation, in the October 2015 UN
Human Rights Council resolution on Sri Lanka. This task force has
now put out a voluminous report making among other things, the
following observations and recommendations.
1. The establishment of a secular state as a starting point for
reconciliation.
2. The cessation of military involvement in civilian affairs,
economic activities and civil administration.

3. Return of civilian lands acquired by the forces.

4. The release of detainees (LTTE) who have not been charged
under the PTA or other laws.
5. The repeal of the PTA.
6. A political and constitutional settlement of the conflict as a
pivotal prerequisite for reconciliation.
7. The occupation of land by the military and other state
agencies such as the Forrest Department, is an impediment to
reconciliation,
8. As is the secondary occupation of lands and fishing waters by
members of other ethnic communities.
9. Symbolic reparations in the form of official acknowledgment
and apologies should be made by the state.
10. Monuments to be erected for lives lost in incidents such as
massacres or disappearances.
11. Observance of Maaveerar Dinam be allowed to continue.
12. Families of deceased LTTE cadres, be permitted to hang a
photograph of their son or daughter in LTTE uniform, in their
homes.

13. The restoration of burial plots of LTTE cadres to family

members and the removal of all buildings subsequently erected
on them.
14. The establishment of a Truth, Justice, Reconciliation and Nonrecurrence Commission (TJRNRC) as an investigative body that
would refer cases of criminal acts to a prosecutorial body.
15. No amnesties would be granted by the Truth, etc Commission.
16. The findings of the Truth etc Commission to be included in
school text-books.
17. A Special Court and Prosecutor be set up to try war crimes
with the participation of international judges, prosecutors and
investigators.
18. No LTTE members should be prosecuted by this Special Court
because they have been through rehabilitation or have been
prosecuted under the existing judicial system. The focus instead
should be on leaders of the LTTE who were allied to the
government or LTTE leaders assumed to be living abroad.
19. Phased demobilisation of security forces with an attractive
early retirement package which could include pensions,
admissions to schools for children, alternative civilian
employment etc.

20. A national policy on victim centeredness is recommended and

page 152 of the main report stresses the need for victims to own
the Truth etc Commission.
21. The indispensable role of civil society in a transitional justice
process be recognised legally.
22. District level State officials are to be instructed to work with
civil society.
23. Funding of the judicial mechanism could be from the UN and
the shortfall met through international voluntary contributions.
These will be going to the world as the official recommendations
and observations of a task force appointed by the Prime Minister
and which functioned under the Prime Ministers Office and which
held meetings with stakeholders throughout the country. In short,
these will be passed off as things that the government and the
people are prepared to do. Yet those of us who live in this country
know that these views are not by any means representative of the
views of the majority of the population. These are the same old
views that we have been hearing for years from the foreign
funded NGOs in this country. Nobody in this country is going to
accept that these are views that have been formed after
consulting the public. This reads more like a wish list written by a
group of foreign funded NGO owners in a state of deep
intoxication.
For an elected government to even acknowledge this as an official
document of the state would be akin to doing what Puck did in A
Midsummer Nights Dream. Only one of the recommendations
made by this task force the one calling for international
participation in the war crimes judicial mechanism received some

publicity but a section of the government was quick to shoot it

down saying that nothing of the sort will happen. Fortunately for
the government, this document quickly disappeared from the
public radar due to intervening incidents. But it will continue to
hang over the government like a Damoclean sword unless it is
formally disowned by either the President or the Prime Minister.
Take that recommendation that the government should seriously
consider establishing a secular state. What they mean by this is
the removal of the special place accorded to Buddhism in the
constitution. Sri Lanka has never been a theocracy. The special
place accorded to Buddhism in the constitution is an
acknowledgement of an age old tradition which is dear to the
majority community in this country. Even though Buddhism is
accorded a special place in the constitution, the state does not
discriminate against other religions in this country. Quite on the
contrary even in an era when religious freedom was unknown in
Europe, the Sinhala Buddhist Kings upheld religious freedom in
this country.
Some of the other recommendations such as returning land
acquired by the military and repealing the PTA have been around
for a long time and needs no comment. But what is interesting is
the observation made by the task force that even land occupied
by other state agencies such as the Forest Department and the
Mahaweli Authority impinges on the freedom of the people and is
therefore an obstacle to reconciliation. If the observations made
by the task force are turned into policy, then it would logically
follow that Minister Rishard Baithiudeen would have to be given
complete freedom to do just as he pleases in the environs of
Wilpattu. They have also talked about the secondary occupation
of fishing waters by members of other communities an obvious
reference to fishermen from the South visiting the East coast for
seasonal fishing. These are fishermen moving from coast to coast

in what has been an age old tradition among the fishing

community in this country.
The recommendation made about apologies to be tendered by the
state to victims, sits oddly beside the fact that these supposed
victims were officially designated even by the FBI as the deadliest
terrorists in the world. The task force recommends the restoration
of the LTTE cemeteries and that permission be granted to
commemorate deceased members of the LTTE. Even though these
recommendations and observations are touted as having been
formulated after consulting the public, how many members of the
public would have asked for the commemoration of deceased
LTTE cadres? If anything should be memorialised it is the fact that
they were got rid of. It is true that the JVP openly commemorates
the Sinhala terrorists who tried to overthrow the elected
governments in 1971 and 1987-89. Allowing them to be portrayed
as innocents killed for no reason by the government of the day
was a cardinal mistake made by short sighted politicians.
But at least the JVP has given up armed revolution and has come
into electoral politics whereas the remnants of the LTTE and the
Tamil Diaspora overseas still harbour ambitions of a separate
state. As such permission granted to memorialise the LTTE in the
manner recommended by the Prime Ministers task force will be a
case of keeping the separatist dream alive and lionising the LTTE
combatants who fell trying to achieve that goal. That is the surest
way of radicalising a new generation. The JVPs commemorations
however do not radicalise anybody because they do not
commemorate brave revolutionaries who fell in the quest to
establish a socialist regime in Sri Lanka but innocents who were
killed by two different governments for no reason. Even so this
writer acknowledges, that the JVP too should never have been
allowed to commemorate fallen terrorists.

An interesting point to note is that the so called Truth, Justice,

Reconciliation and Non-recurrence Commission (TJRNRC)
recommended by the Prime Ministers Task Force will not be
authorised to grant amnesties. It is to be purely an investigative
body that would refer cases to a prosecutorial body. Yet the main
feature of the South African Truth Commission from which this
supposedly derives its inspiration was its ability to grant
amnesties. Once when Bishop Desmond Tutu, who headed the
South African Truth Commission was accused of granting
amnesties to murderers, he said that it was necessary to put the
past behind them if a new South Africa was to emerge from the
old and he asked his critics whether they wanted to turn South
Africa into a Sri Lanka - stuck in interminable conflict and
recriminations.
Another curious observation is that while the judicial mechanism
on war crimes is to try members of the armed forces, no members
of the LTTE are to be tried because they have been through
rehabilitation or have been prosecuted under the existing judicial
system. The PMs task force observes that the focus instead
should be on leaders of the LTTE who were allied to the
government or LTTE leaders assumed to be living abroad. So the
LTTE leaders who left the LTTE and sided with the government are
to be penalised for having left the terrorist movement while those
who remained with the terrorists are to be exempt from
prosecution. Coupled to all this is going to be the phased
demobilisation of the military. Furthermore, the government is to
adopt a victim centred approach the victims of course being
former LTTE combatants and the next of kin of deceased LTTE
combatants who are to have ownership of Truth etc Commission.
When one looks at the totality of the observations and
recommendations made by the Prime Ministers task force on
reconciliation and transitional justice, it appears to have been

drafted not even by the NGO owners who have put their names to
it, but by the LTTE rump hiding in Europe.
Posted by Thavam