What Is The Scope Of National Reconciliation?

By R.M.B Senanayake -June 5, 2014 

R.M.B. Senanayake

People including scholars are talking about National Reconciliation in Sri Lanka. They are blindly following the Transitional Justice model proposed by western scholars to deal generally with post conflict situations. They say former enemies may have a long history of violence between them and may find themselves faced with the challenge of implementing a new negotiated structure for the future management of their differences. They then argue that one of the biggest obstacles to such future cooperation is that, because of the violence of the past, their relations are based on antagonism, distrust, disrespect, hurt and hatred. But how true is this in the case of the Sri Lankan context.

But what I noticed even during the long war was that there was little or no personal animosity by the Sinhalese to the Tamils in the South. I am not sure about the border villages but leaving them out I think there was no mutual animosity between the ordinary Sinhalese and the Tamils. During the 1983 riots many Sinhalese befriended Tamils. Similarly there is no personal hatred towards the Sinhalese among the Tamils. But the models of transitional justice postulated by western scholars take such animosity and the need for reconciliation for granted. One of the biggest obstacles to resolution of the problem they say is the violence of the past, when their relations were based on antagonism, distrust, disrespect  hurt and hatred.

But right from 1956 the Tamil campaign against ‘Sinhala only’  was opposed with violence mainly by mobs commissioned by interested politicians . They were not a spontaneous outburst of anger by the ordinary Sinhalese against the Tamil politicians . The situation changed after the LTTE emerged with war and violence. Even then  Tamils lived among the Sinhalese in the South and several Tamils from the North took refuge in Colombo to escape the extortion and demands of the LTTE.

So here in Sri Lanka, despite both communities having suffered severely during the war, my impression is that except in border areas and with the army, the Tamil people are not having personal animosity towards the Sinhalese as such.

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