The international community is looking to Sri Lanka for a success story

By Tom Malinowski-Sunday, April 05, 2015

Though this is my first time to Sri Lanka, I have followed events here for years. I believe that Sri Lanka is not unlike other multiethnic societies that experienced conflict. Most ordinary people in such societies want nothing more than to live, work and raise their children together. When they look at each other, they see neighbours. When they look up at their pagodas, temples, churches and mosques, they see different manifestations of the same idea. The last thing they want is to disturb the peace that makes possible everything that is good in life.

But in every society there are grievances, and it is not hard for irresponsible people to exploit those grievances to set people against each other based on ethnicity and religion. For 30 years, Sri Lanka endured such a conflict. The Sri Lankan people experienced some of the evils that now bedevil other deeply troubled parts of the world – including terrorism, driven by a fanatical ideology, employing suicide bombing, hurting most of all the people it falsely claimed to defend. Cruelty on one side hardened hearts on the other; abuses and grievances mounted on both. Victory by one side on the battlefield brought an end to the fighting, but did not heal the division.

Tom Malinowski

I would suggest that Sri Lanka experienced what America learned 150 years ago and many other countries have since, that you cannot really win a civil war. A civil war is like a fistfight with a mirror. You can land powerful blows, crack the glass, and bloody your hands. But in the end, you still have to deal with your own reflection.

The opportunities that existed in 2009 to bring the country together were not seized.

So after 30 years of war, Sri Lanka struggled for five more years to achieve reconciliation, and to hold on to the traditions of democracy, tolerance and civil society for which it had long been known, but which civil war always weakens. For five years, there were tensions between Sri Lanka and the international community over these issues.

Now is a pivotal moment in Sri Lanka’s history. Sri Lanka has a chance to achieve reconciliation, justice and true peace. That will require, in part, looking backward, to acknowledge the suffering of the innocent and account for the wrongdoing of the guilty, on every side. Sri Lanka can finally close the gap between competing narratives so that all of its people can read their history from the same text. But most of all, we hope Sri Lankans will keep moving forward.

The Sri Lankan people and their new government have taken a great leap already to reclaim their traditions of democracy, tolerance and civil society. The women of Sri Lanka are critical to this reconciliation process as well. You cannot build peace with only half a nation’s voices at the table. Women of all backgrounds have suffered alongside their husbands and brothers and sons, so they have an equal stake in seeking justice. Sri Lanka also needs them—their perspectives, their talents, their skills.

Supporting women to play a role in peacebuilding is not a new concept. It is an idea that the United States has emphasised for over a decade now at the United Nations, and it is an idea that women and men around the world have embraced as a cornerstone of peace and prosperity. The U.S. government has long supported programmes in Sri Lanka to increase women’s political participation at the local, regional, and national levels. Women’s perspectives enlarge the scope of conversations about peace and reconciliation; they draw attention to critical priorities that might otherwise be overlooked.

After so much suffering and conflict, the road ahead will not be easy, especially when not everyone is pulling in the same direction. In every society, there are those who want their people to be angry, divided and afraid, because they know that the people will only support them if they are angry, divided and afraid. But, we know now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the vast majority of Sri Lankans want to live a united and democratic country, not divided between victors and vanquished or Tamil and Sinhalese. These divisions are a diversion. In the end, everyone benefits when there is democracy, transparency and trust, and everyone, not just one party, suffers from impunity.

The United States welcomes actions taken by the Sri Lankan government to rebuild trust with the Sri Lankan people; and we stand ready to support efforts in establishing a just and lasting peace. All around the world, there are countries that are going through, in their own ways, what Sri Lankans went through here. Read the headlines from Yemen to Iraq to Afghanistan to Burma, and you will see why the international community wants Sri Lanka to succeed. Not just for the country’s sake, but for all our sakes: The world needs Sri Lanka to keep showing that a society divided by ethnicity and faith can find peace through democracy and dialogue.

The writer is Assistant
Secretary for the office of democracy, human rights and Labour US