Defence Seminar 2014:

‘Justice and peace go hand-in-hand’

By Dhaneshi Yatawara

With the closing of the theatre created by Defence Seminar 2014, a great deal of expertise and experiences were exchanged on the challenges a rising nation would face on the path to peace. During a few side discussions and interviews, experts and think tanks from the South Asian region and other areas, comments and comparisons were made on the Sri Lankan situation.

A section of the participants at the Defence Seminar

Sri Lanka now in an advanced stage in the peace process following the elimination of terrorism from the island, needs to find more ways to improve and move forward in this challenging times. When the world is a global village we cannot see Sri Lanka as an isolated nation. Whatever happens in the region, affects us. Thus the outside point of view becomes important.

Public expectations

Speaking to the Sunday Observer, Director of the Indian Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, Dr. Suba Chandran said that in general South Asia has succeeded in bringing violence to an end.

“Most of the countries are in a post-terrorism era. Peace processes are going on in areas such as Jammu and Kashmir and many areas of the South East, in India, Baluchistan in Pakistan and in Sri Lanka terrorism has come to an end. There is no more violence. The region is in a post-terrorism phase,” he said analysing peace processes in general.

As Dr. Chandran said with the regaining of peace public expectation shoots high. “The public expects the end of terrorism as presence of peace. It’s a huge expectation. Whereas the capacity of the state is not enough to deliver all those expectations at the pace the public want,” he said.

Director, Indian Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, Dr. Suba Chandran

Founding Director, Organisation for Policy Research and Development Studies, Afghanistan, Mariam Safi

Public expectations are high and the capacity of South Asia to deliver is not so high. Whatever the state promises to deliver tomorrow, the people needed it yesterday – that’s the level of expectations of the common man especially in a post-terrorism scenario.

During the disturbed times, Government mechanism collapses. When peace arrives the Government does not expect the public servants to return to work immediately as there is need for some sort of an infrastructure to conduct the service.

“But the Public expectation is different. For example, as a father I would want my children to get the education which they should have had ideally and all benefits to reach my people as soon as peace arrives,” he said.

But officers in the Education Service, principals and teachers will face problems in restarting schools immediately with peace, due to administrative and logistic problems. Thus a clash between the Government and the public expectations arises.

Peace

This is the challenge Sri Lanka is facing. Especially in an all-inclusive governing style. We as a region are meeting these challenges in our own style in our own ways. For example Nepal is trying to learn from Sri Lanka in conducting their peace process – like their Truth and Reconciliation Process with is like the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission in Sri Lanka, he said.

People are talking about two things – That is peace and peace with justice. At times these two need not necessarily be the same, he said.

Does this mean that the reviving process is slow? “I don’t think that it is slow given the capacity of States to deliver people’s expectations. But as a region we are on the right track,” said Dr. Chandran.

In South Asia we were heavily dependent on Western theories – whether it was reconciliation or reconstruction and all this heavy jargon, we borrowed it from elsewhere. Most of the work on reconciliation, conflict management and conflict resolution they were written by western scholars with much field work and empirical data from African countries. We do not have that much of an investment in the South Asian content to come up with South Asian theories as to depict how we would like to reconcile. Many of us academics believe that the South African model is a good example for reconciliation such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. But the other side of argument, which I also believe, is that we need to forget, forgive and move on. It is high time to do that. Many a times when we talk about accountability and justice for what happened in the past we will never be able to let our wounds heal. And in the process we will create more wounds for the sake of achieving justice, according to Dr. Chandran. “In Nepal when I was talking about this they didn’t like it. People said that is what the State also want to do. The Army and the Maoist group want to forget the past. But the people are asking so what happens to all those lives and things we have lost? So they want justice,” he explained. “If we try to look at justice alone peace may be prolonged. We may arrive at peace but it will be prolonged. My point is that let us not do anything to increase the cost of peace,” he added. We need to ensure that we will not reopen our wounds,” he added.

Substitute

“When it comes to accountability and justice people want to fix things – find who committed mistakes and wants to fix those sections. They believe in the closure. This idea of closure is entirely a western one. I’m not sure whether this concept would help us to move ahead. In south Asia we believe in fate and moving ahead. How to tackle this demand for fixing?

It is not a very nice thing to say ‘forget, forgive and move on’. But for the larger interest of our children I do not want to know what happened. In fact I have interviewed women who have suffered India and Pakistan partition and who have come from the other side with their children. They have lost their husbands, parents and brothers. They say that my children are better and my grandchildren are much better. So I can forget.

If not there will not be inner peace,” he explained.

In any conflict affected society you get three sets of generations. One is the generation that saw the good part of the living and the disturbed times.

The second is the generation that was born during the disturbed time. And the third is the now generation which has nothing to do with terrorism.

The first generation is very vehement. There is always this other generation who want to fix things. They cannot be blamed too.

To tackle the demand for fixing, Dr. Chandran suggests that any affected State should effectively address the underlying problems that caused the problem giving the people the sense that the Government is amending the wrongs while convincing the people to forget, forgive and move on. “Gujarat is a good example in this case,” he added. With this the audience for those who want to revive the disturbed times, can be reduced.

Transitional justice

Talking about the international pressure on Sri Lanka to find what happened during the humanitarian operation, Founding Director, Organisation for Policy Research and Development Studies, Afghanistan, Mariam Safi said that slowly factors are surfacing to say that the Sri Lankan Government acted according to international laws while eliminating terrorism though the perspective in the international arena was negative.

“Today, what I see in Sri Lanka is that people are trying to put their past behind and trying to move forward. When people sense a stability in their communities, economic development then people feel that things are falling in right track. But I would only caution on elements in the process of achieving transitional justice in society – like in reintegrating rehabilitated LTTErs back into society. Why I say this is because lives were lost over the years and people are expecting a sense of closure and a sense of justice. So that is one side I see,” she said.

“This was a very important fact for us in Afganistan as we were dealing with an insurgency. So I know how important the elements of transitional justice are to the people,” she said. So how does Afganistan look into the grievances and emotional side of the people? “Well so far these issues still side tracked.

Reconcilation

This was done by certain leaders who used to be among the tribal fighting forces and now a part of the Government.

Their argument was that they will deal with it later as Afganistan is not yet stable,” she explained. “There is a demand for transitional Justice in Afganistan and people have not forgotten. People need to be given a sense of justice if we are to see stability in Afganistan,’ she added.

In the process of reconciliation or revitalising in a peace process the most affected are the women. There are a significant number of women-led families in such communities. But in general, in any country, are they getting a fair chance in the peace process? “War affects women more than any other.

Even though women were not a part of the conflict they can be an effective part in the peace building process. In the case of Afganistan, there are many strategies created to make women inclusive in the national action plan. Trying to put up women at a decision making level. This step was important because almost half of the Afgan population is women,” she explained. “In the reconciliation processes I got involved in Afganistan in 2010, a huge peace council was created. This was a 70-member council and only 19 were women. Yet their presence was purely symbolic,” she said. “Women who were directly involved with the peace process were saying that sometimes they were not allowed to sit at the negotiating table.

Though we as Sri Lankans do not hear a huge debate over this it is high time to seriously consider whether the women are participating adequately in reshaping their own communities.