By Dr.Jehan Perera
The participation of Deputy Minister of National Integration, Muneer Mulaffar, in a conference on “Building a peaceful pluralistic Sri Lanka through Social Cohesion and Coexistence” organized by the Association of War Affected Women (AWAW), together with other peacebuilding organisations, was the highlight of the event. The Minister spoke eloquently on the government’s commitment to national integration. The event was attended by more than 150 participants, drawn from clergy of all religions, civil society, the academic community and several embassies. The Minister’s participation and speech on the occasion gave two important signals to the participants and the country at large. One message was that the government considered the national reconciliation process to be one that merited its time and effort. The other message was that the task of civil society and citizens was important for the wellbeing of the country.
The constructive role of civil society, which was evident at the conference on “Building a peaceful pluralistic Sri Lanka through Social Cohesion and Coexistence” is that civil society can prepare the ground for the government to engage in problem solving. NGOs are able to go to the grassroots and explain to the people the decisions that the government makes in the national interest. The conference, in which Minister Mulaffar participated, was an example as it sought to build on an initiative taken by senior Buddhist monks to break the deadlock with the Tamil Diaspora on the issue of national reconciliation. In April 2023, the two sides met in Nepal where they formulated a set of principles, known today as the Himalaya Declaration, on which national reconciliation could be built.
The statement, prepared by the convenors of the Conference and which was handed over to Minister Mulaffar, summarized the sentiments of religious clergy, civil society and the academic community who had participated in consultations that spanned over a year, and across the country, since the Himalaya Declaration had got publicized. The statement, built on the Himalaya Declaration, comprised five sections, namely, political reforms (with a focus on constitutional reforms), transitional justice (dealing with the past), equal protection and equal rights, Malaiyaha Tamils (with a focus on the historical injustices they had been subjected to which continue to this day) and good governance (rule of law and strengthening state institutions) for a better and more just Sri Lanka.
FURTHER CONSULTATIONS
As a follow up, the convening organisations also intend to have consultations with political parties with a view to building cross party (bipartisan) support to implement the reforms that are agreed to. The long history of failures of successive governments to resolve the ethnic conflict has been due to the negative role that opposition parties have always played to scuttle governmental initiatives to settle the problem. Therefore, the opposition parties need to be brought on board by the government this time and civil society is ready to assist in this task.
At the recently concluded general elections, the government obtained support from the ethnic and religious minorities, comprising Tamils and Muslims in particular. This enabled it to win all over the country, including seven out of the eight districts in the North and East in which the ethnic and religious minorities predominate. At the consultations, the view was expressed that the electorate in the North and East had placed their trust in the government to resolve their problems. This was described by a Jaffna university academic as the people in the North and East wanting the government to solve the problems directly without going through “middlemen”.
However, it is important that Tamils and Muslims should be included in government bodies set up to enact the system change for which the government was elected. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has recently appointed a Presidential Task Force, with the heads of the armed forces and no Tamil or Muslim representation, with the goal “of elevating society to a more advanced status through a social, environmental and ethical awakening”. It consists of 18 members. But absent from the list of members are Muslims or Tamils. Given that Sri Lanka is a multiethnic and multireligious society, their inclusion, too, is necessary so that the task force will get a more rounded view of the problems at hand.
LOOKING FORWARD
The fact that the Tamil and Muslim people want the government to solve their problems without going through intermediaries is due to their loss of faith in the approaches of the traditional Tamil and Muslim political parties. Their problems still remain and they want them solved. The situation of the Malaiyaha Tamils is a relevant example. They were denied their citizenship rights at the dawn of Independence. The Malaiyaha Tamil people continue to suffer from that act of discrimination. They continue to live in line rooms and do not have a home on a piece of land to call their own. The policy decision taken by the previous government to grant them seven perches of land to build their own homes is yet to be operationalized.
The same holds true for the Tamil people of the North and East. Some of them lost their lands to the military many years ago and have yet to get them back. Some of them have lost their children and do not know where they are or what happened to them, even though some of them were handed over to the military by their parents. At a more basic level, the Tamil-speaking people continue to receive official communications from the government in the Sinhala language even though Tamil is also an official language in the Constitution. A more recent, and more volatile, issue is that of ancient religious sites where they feel threatened while others feel unfairly treated.
During the consultations, a view was expressed that the Tamil and Muslim people did not ask the government to do big things but to start with small things. Indeed, the government has given back some private land that was taken over by the military back to their owners. It opened up a road that was closed for over 30 years. It gave the Tamil people the right to memorialize (which was already provided for in law) without facing harassment by the police. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has also affirmed that the government is laying the legal groundwork for the conduct of Provincial Council elections. There is a lot to look forward to. For Sri Lanka to achieve lasting reconciliation, the government needs to ensure that members of all communities are part of its mechanisms that engage in problem solving at all levels of governance.