The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) submitted its 18-month long inquiry report to parliament on December 16. It is neither comprehensive nor conclusive. In fact, it fails to advance accountability for victims.

LLRC has called for appointment of a special commissioner to investigate alleged disappearances and criminal proceedings. It also recommended the setting up of an independent advisory committee to examine the detention and arrest of persons in custody to address concerns about indefinite detention without due process under an anti-terrorist law. A human rights education programme for army and police, a centralized database of detainees; addressing grievances from minority communities, including Muslims in the north and Tamils; and improved governance are among its other important suggestions running into some 60 –pages.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) is not happy with the LLRC output. It opines that the recommendations have “serious shortcomings” and fail to “advance accountability for victims of Sri Lanka’s civil armed conflict”. In fact, HRW along with other agencies and diplomats has questioned the impartiality and credibility of the commission. Their demand is an international inquiry and it has not found favour with Rajapakse government.  

As Jehan Perera, director National Peace Council, avers, the problem with LLRC is its limited mandate. Primarily, the Commission was set up to learn why a 2002 truce failed, and recommend ways to prevent the resurgence of ethnic conflict in the country. And this is not fixing accountability for HR crimes, which is the demand of the human rights organizations and Western governments.

Jayasuriya Welimuna, who heads Sri Lanka chapter of Transparency International, echoes the same view.  The LLRC could only hear evidence, but not investigate, he points out. The way out, according to Perera is appointment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission based on the South African model. The Commission should have the mandate to go beyond the last phase of Eelam War and cover the entire duration of insurgency which was three –decades. His point is that the allegations heard during the final phase were not isolated instances and were heard during the early phases of the war against the LTTE.

The government has not yet responded to the demand. It is unlikely that the Rajapakse brothers, who run the government, will accept the demand. More over, LLRC report itself notes that recommendations of the past commissions have gone unimplemented, and thus gave ‘rise to understandable criticism and skepticism regarding government-appointed commissions from which the LLRC has not been spared’.

Despite its very clearly pronounced shortcomings, hope is not lost on LLRC report. Some sections of the North, which was traumatized and victimized during the Eelam War, see the recommendations as the first step towards reconciliation.

The LLRC report will enable the country to address accountability issues and concerns on human rights, says Dinesh Dodamgoda of Colombo-based NGO, International Centre for Promoting Reconciliation.

Victor Karunairajan, who returned home from abroad after the war ended, says that more work needs to be done at the grassroots level to unite [people from] the Sinhalese and Tamil communities. ‘Economic development in minority Tamil communities is a must’, he told humanitarian news and analysis service, IRIN. The service is an off-shoot of UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.