Saliya Pieris, President’s Counsel and Chairman of the Office of Missing Persons, has spoken some interesting words at an event called ‘No more disappearances’ held to mark the International Day of Enforced Disappearances.
He opines that accepting that enforced disappearances had occurred in the country for at least four decades is the only way Sri Lanka can achieve reconciliation. We don’t have the full speech but it is likely that his elaboration was more nuanced. After all, if ‘accepting disappearances’ makes for reconciliation, then it would be pretty simple. Someone says ‘yes, this happened,’ and everyone says ‘hurrah!’ and that’s it — we are a reconciled nation.
People have different notions of what ‘reconciliation’ means. TNA parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran for example says that even though not all problems of Tamils would be resolved by it, a new constitution is non-negotiable and that the Sinhalese must accept this. Again, we don’t know if he detailed what this ‘new constitution’ is all about for, theoretically, ‘new’ does not necessarily mean ‘good’ or ‘better’.
He’s only said ‘simple majoritarian rule is unjust’. Well, we don’t know how ‘simple minoritarian rule/manipulation’ could be ‘just’. If he means devolution of power then of course he has got to match that particular ‘solution’ with grievances that can be established, he has to move from myth models to fact, he has to talk about all the economic, historical, geographical and demographic realities that make mockery of devolution as currently articulated.
Pieris’ contention merits serious comment because it is about dealing with the less tangible but more resilient demons of conflict: memory, grief, anger and the desire for retribution. Dealing with these are necessary even if they are not sufficient preconditions for reconciliation.
The picture is dark and not unknown and yet it is a picture that needs to be painted, a story that has to be narrated again and again. After all, the lack of narrative, has all but obliterated memory of the worst period in post-Independence Sri Lanka in terms of rights violation, brutalization of society and bloodshed if you want to go with killing-rates: the period from 1988 to 1990 aka ‘The Bheeshanaya’. This is how Pieris puts it:
‘If we speak of the numbers of missing in Sri Lanka, it is one of the highest not only in Asia but also in the world. We have to accept that people had been forcibly disappeared for at least four decades. Accepting this is the only way to achieve reconciliation.’
Again, we don’t know if Pieris spelled it out, but he’s hit on the most important element: ‘there are some elements who are still unwilling to accept that incidents of enforced disappearances had taken place in the country.’ He adds, “for some, still, the perpetrators who are responsible for making people disappeared are heroes and the victims are traitors.’
He is correct. The entire narrative of war crimes and disappearances, the stories of crimes against humanity and all related horrors has been dominated (and Pieris knows this) by a strange (pernicious?) focus on the last stages of the conflict, i.e. the months leading up to mid May 2009 and the Nandikadaal Lagoon. We’ve heard what the UN agencies have said. We have heard what the International Crisis Group (ICG) has said. We’ve also heard the rights outfits in Sri Lanka who would have us believe that they represent ‘civil society’. It’s all about those last few months.
All of a sudden, it’s as if ‘horror’ was evident only during that brief period. No blood, no bullets, no grief from July 27, 1975 (when the Jaffna Mayor Alfred Duraiappah was shot dead by Velupillai Prabhakaran) to the point when the LTTE had no place left to drag several hundred hostages. It all happened thereafter, it seems. So, no horror or grief in the early years of armed conflict when soldiers retaliated to LTTE attacks by slaughtering Tamil civilians. No horror when the Indian Peace Keeping Forces did the same. Nothing when different Tamil militant groups slaughtered each other. Nothing when the LTTE killed Tamil academics, clergy, civil society leaders, professionals and politicians. Nothing when suicide bombers of the LTTE did their work targeting civilians.
Pieris speaks of four decades, which takes us back to at least 1978. That leaves out the horrors of 1971, but forces us to contend with all the gory stuff at the end of the eighties where JVP terrorism was upped by several notches by UNP terrorism, both largely on unarmed peoples.
All this needs to be ‘accepted,’ Pieris would accept, I’m sure for there were disappearances in all periods flagged above. We have to acknowledge and we can’t be selective in this. We can’t allow outcome preferences discolor approach in this process, as politicians, political parties and communities have done.
Every single person who was maimed, dispossessed or killed outside the legal process (being killed in battle is clearly a separate issue, but ‘disappearing’ prisoners of war is not) is a victim, regardless of his/her political views, aspirations or even method-preferences. Every person who maimed, dispossessed or killed outside the legal process is guilty. Such a person is no hero but one who has scarred his/her family, community, country and all citizens. The traitor-hero narrative has on place in this even if the ‘solution’ is not necessary one of taking eye for eye.
The entire process is of course fraught with all kinds of angst on the part of all concerned parties. Why us and not them, people ask. Why only us, they ask. Justice for all else justice for none, is another cry that will no doubt be raised.
Perhaps there should be some ground rules about the repercussions since wounds are still new, memories not deadened and anxieties (real or imagined) constantly being articulated.
Nevertheless, we must begin where the OMP suggests we do: acknowledgment in the general sense. Of course, there’s fear, anxiety and long painful histories that get in the way. One community or its representatives could very well think ‘If we acknowledge and they will not do likewise, where will it leave us?’ On the other hand, those who take that risk are the truly courageous. They, in my book, obtain moral high ground. They set the pace, they give direction, they design the parameters of all future engagement. They do all this, but only if they resist the urge to say ‘ok, your turn and if you remain silent, that’s it…you can kiss reconciliation goodbye!’
In other words, acknowledgement should not come with caveats. Humility is what might carry us through. Let’s hope the OMP understands this, fleshes things out and resist the tendency to make misleading assertions. It’s not only the OMP that has been forced to walk on eggshells. Each and every citizen has to do so too, unfortunately. We can’t stand still just on account of this reality.
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