International Inquiry: Putting The Cartwright Before The Horse

By Dayan Jayatilleka -June 11, 2014 

Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka

In her farewell address to the UNHRC, Madam Navi Pillay drew attention to the need for healing the wounds of Sri Lanka’s civil war, which she rightly noted, had yet to be done. To this intent and purpose she commended cooperation by the Government of Sri Lanka with the comprehensive international inquiry that her office has undertaken. What is bitterly ironic is that the healing of wounds cannot take place by means of a lacerating external inquiry or even an overly extensive and premature internal one. The international inquiry will do just the opposite of assisting any process of healing. It will generate resentment and hatred among the overwhelming majority of the people of Sri Lanka.

The appointment of Dame Sylvia Cartwright, former attorney general of New Zealand as head of the international inquiry into Sri Lanka, is hardly likely to have a positive resonance on the island. Her most positive and notable achievement is the best evidence of what is wrong with the international inquiry into Sri Lanka. She was a member of the UN hearing into war crimes in Kampuchea.  That inquiry stands in complete contrast to the proposed inquiry into Sri Lanka.

The Kampuchea inquiry was into war crimes committed by the militarily defeated Khmer Rouge. It was instituted decades after the episodes being inquired into (during which I was an undergraduate who published a series in the Lanka Guardian analyzing and denouncing Pol Pot). It was a joint tribunal, established with the blessings of the Kampuchean government.

Obviously if the international inquiry into Sri Lanka were about the war crimes of the defeated Tamil Tigers, the Sri Lankan government would have welcomed and facilitated it. If the Sri Lanka inquiry such as it is presently crafted, were to take place a few decades down the road, perhaps a different Sri Lankan administration in a different Sri Lanka would cooperate with it having significantly modified its terms of reference. Decades down the road, there could even be a joint commission of inquiry.

Those are not the contours of the international inquiry into Sri Lanka which Dame Cartwright will head. Thus the dynamics and outcome will be different, as will the response of Sri Lankan public opinion and any elected administration (or political party which is strategically serious about being elected to office).

While the Sri Lankan government cannot be faulted for refusal to cooperate with the international inquiry, it can and must be condemned on several other counts.                             Read More