'War crimes' and national reconciliation

"War crimes" is the buzz phrase that has been bandied about ever since the Tamil secessionist insurgency was militarily crushed in 2009 amid accusations of widespread abuse of human rights, especially the possible killing of thousands of civilians due to indiscriminate - or, at least, poorly controlled - firing in the battle zone.

During that time in 2009, the political repression in Sri Lanka was so strong that no one dared discuss this issue in public - such was the fear that one would become the next victim. If public discussion had been allowed, it would have been clear to everyone that long before people and governments outside Sri Lanka had begun raising the issue, various organisations within Sri Lanka had been pointing to large scale human rights violations, including deliberate killings of civilians, even as these violations were being perpetrated.

If local groups had been able to publicly agitate (without risk to their own lives) with greater vigour regarding such mass human rights violations, the impression would not have been created that this issue was and is largely foreign driven. How could local activists dare to raise human rights issues when even a government minister during the previous regime publicly and brazenly named certain prominent activists and declared that he would personally "break their limbs"?

Today, many, if not most, people in Sri Lanka - other than the ethnic and religious minorities and, political dissidents - still have the impression that "human rights violations in Sri Lanka" are a matter that is being raised solely or largely outside Sri Lanka and by foreign elements hostile to Sri Lanka. This is because of the suppressing of the voices within the country at the time these violations were occurring.

It is surely a sick irony that the very political leader, Mahinda Rajapaksa, whose regime suppressed these voices, had, himself, enough freedom to raise his voice against the human rights violations that occurred during the Ranasinghe Premadasa regime. The irony becomes more awful - farcical - when that same politician had the freedom, during the Premadasa regime, to travel to the UN Human Rights sessions in Geneva to complain of rights violations at that time in Sri Lanka but, during his own presidency, demonised all local groups who attempted to do the same!

It is this same political leader who basks in the praise of his sycophants that his regime "heroically" resisted the pressures regarding human rights violations and gave a freer hand to the Sri Lankan armed forces to carry out their successful offensives that finally defeated the secessionist insurgency. Indeed, that military success emboldened the previous regime to claim to the world that this was the 'mantra' of Sri Lanka's military success against 'terrorism'. It remains to be seen whether this pseudo doctrine of counter-insurgency will continue to be preached after the fall of that regime.

Since repression disallowed any public discussion of humane and civilised strategies of countering popular revolts, the Sri Lankan public has had to live with distorted, even brutish, understanding of political management of revolts and the art of waging war.

At the same time, the Sri Lankan military has had the shameful experience of being forced by their political masters, under successive regimes, to prosecute wars not against foreign forces of invasion or aggression but against sections of the very citizens they are constitutionally bound to protect. The Police and the armed forces have been compelled to unleash counter 'terror' against movements within the country which were demonised either as 'terrorists' or as 'subversives'.

Such demonization - especially when it is forcefully propagated by a subservient news media - then constrains initiatives to legitimately engage with those movements for long lasting and civilised resolution of conflicts. With such constraints on political strategies for social peace, it is, ultimately, the executors of a military response - the armed forces - that end up with the bad name. Let us see whether those boastful political leaders of the past will now stand up and take responsibility for their actions rather than resorting to political backroom deals.

All these issues need to be discussed, and discussed extensively, within the country by all sections of Sri Lankans. It is precisely this era of 'good governance' that provides that public space for such civilised discussion and clarification of means of dealing with social conflict and revolt. If 'good governance' is to genuinely lead to social justice and social peace, then citizens, both North and South, who have experienced the horrors of unrestrained insurgency and counter-insurgency need to share these experiences. That is how social perceptions between contending social forces - whether ethnic or social class - can be clarified and adjusted to enable social peace.

The issue of rights violations during the time of conflict in Sri Lanka is a complex legacy: of the recent ethnic secessionist insurgency, the previous social class insurgency and, also, the attacks on religious minorities. There is a legacy of pain and feelings of injustice all round. The cobwebs of the rhetoric and psychologies of inter-ethnic hostility and class war need to be cleared if there is to be a properly and delicately balanced management of the past. There are many civil rights bodies that were suppressed in the past but, today, can be drawn in to help facilitate this process.

The world community needs to support Sri Lankans in this painful search for truth and reconciliation. It is not enough for some Western powers to dig up old terms derived from inter-state warfare, such as 'war crimes' and apply them simplistically to an internal conflict. If that is the case, then the same terminology could, and should, be applied to the horrors of the recent wars in the Persian Gulf region and in Palestine.