Sri Lanka: CBK — The leader stands with victims

Madam Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga (CBK), an architect of reparation and restorative justice in Sri Lanka, is an essential political power player to be read and understood. Her political uniqueness, I believe, is centralized on the pain of victims’ of social repercussion regardless of their affiliations

 birthday tribute to former President of Sri Lanka Madam Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, Chairperson of the Office for National Unity and Reconciliation (ONUR)

by Nilantha Ilangamuwa-Jun 30, 2018

Jun 30, 2018

( June 30, 2018, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) It is her birthday June 29. She has turned seventy-three. A long journey. She is one of the most important political personalities the country ever produced but quite often, unfortunately, misunderstood by the populist political culture prevailing in the present. That is indeed, one of the most miserable missing links in the political culture in Sri Lanka, where the substantive political reading on those who governed the system is almost zero but negative criticisms or empty eulogizes are common.

Those who governed the systems of the country produced various political character in the history of Sri Lanka. There are various attempts to find the uniqueness of those who ruled the country. None of the leaders are inseparable from the violence which was inherent in the system for many decades. There are handful of responsible parties who understood the gravity of the violence which caused harm to the country and the citizen. Understanding the violence is nothing but reading through the victims’ perspective and standing with them is a rare ambition that anyone could maintain.  Reconciliation is meaningful social process when the authority or political power has courage and discipline not to stand for victims but standing with the victims.

Sri Lanka, an island nation has undergone through various stages of violence resulting in losing unaccountable numbers of innocent lives. Vanquishing political opponents and those who struggled against the socio-economic depravity has been pretty much common political practice in the country for decades. As it was in China during Mao’s regime, in Sri Lanka too, kill the chicken scare the monkey was sort of motto used to spread social fear. This nihilistic practice has led not to solve the social problems but to further deepening the wounds of the nation by making life meaningless and stressful mockery. Therefore it has led to series of armed conflicts, which wiped out dynamic and creative generations. The vacuum created after has never been filled.

But who has the ability to mourn them and take precautions to prevent recurrence? Political culture was in such bad condition where the victims of the conflicts were labeled as the things of the past.

When the system is refusing the facility to mourn for those who die, the result is stereotyped prejudices embedded as the ruling elements of the governing body of the nation. I believe, by and large, the missing link of our political mechanism is prevailing in this aspect.

Are we a nation of inability to mourn? Why has our facility to mourn not been nationalized but much politicized? A nation where hundreds of thousands of men and women got buried in the spoil-soil hardly see a national policy which applies to all equally and equity to mourning for lost lives.

They lost for us, they left for us, and therefore we have the moral responsibility to find justice and making their lives memorable. Who has the courage to step forward and find the long lasting solution?

This is where, Madam Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga (CBK), an architect of reparation and restorative justice in Sri Lanka, is an essential political power player to be read and understood. Her political uniqueness, I believe, is centralized on the pain of victims’ of social repercussion regardless of their affiliations.

By being a political victim, Madam understood the substance of victimization of the citizen. First, by losing her father when she was a school child, then as a wife of two kids losing the husband, later narrowly escaping the assassination plot by the most ruthless and unfair terror outfit, the Tamil Tigers, her life itself is narrative of reparation and needfulness of restoration of justice.  It is not easy for anyone to go through such political complexity while experiencing sublimes of solitude.

( CBK with her children, Yashodara and Vimukthi in London in 2017 — Photo courtesy- Sri Lanka Guardian Special Arrangement )

What, according to her political text one appreciates is that human pain has no colour, race, ethnicity, caste, religious, class, etc. Tears have no different taste as per personal diverties. Pain is common; tear has the same taste. Understanding this common factor will be resourcing and encouraging to change the attitude towards the pain of the victims and understanding the agony she or he goes through.

By opening the society into greater political dialogue even by accepting responsible parties of those who took loved one’s life, CBK’s political wisdom led into finding the scientific meaning to the crimes that occurred in the country. This tendency of finding every data of the crimes by retrospective approach is one of the unique political ambitions that CBK has revealed up to date. This is, I believe, the very beginning of the practice of victimology in Sri Lankan context. There are genuine ignorance on the part of various governments exercising governing power to address and dig up the truth of the bitter and violent past.

But, CBK’s political wisdom placed on the exact opposite of the traditional political behaviours and attempted to address the root causes of the disease without playing with symptoms by using rhetoric. It is the beginning of the victimology in Sri Lanka.

Originating from a French word, victimologie, victimology came into linguistic practice in the mid-50s. Many theories based on the concept have been written and many attempted to understand the legal point of view of this very subject by defining.

However, most of the debates were constrained in the academic community, and it has hardly touched the ground.  It is rare to read the political understanding and genuine practice of victimology under political authority.  The political ideology of Madam Chandrika Bandaranaike was able to put these theories into practice. Finding truth to deliver justice was one of the main aims of her administrations, but distorted political attitudes and desires of those within the administration who sabotaged the greater effort.

Scientific examination of mass graves such as in Sooriyakanda mass grave and Chemmani mass grave are not just politically motivated attempts to win the voting base but serious steps taken to address the bitter truth of the society from the retrospective approach – through lessons learnt about ourselves. Those were the beginning of the practice of victimology in Sri Lanka. This is where restorative justice has begun. But, later, unfortunately, those who ruled the nation gave lesser priorities to this very area and the nation lost the greater opportunity to be together.

Yes, she loves painting; a painting by CBK 

A leader who can live with the truth is the leader who is willing to find the truth. A leader who is willing to find the truth is the leader who will be genuine in delivering justice. A leader who is genuine in delivering justice is the leader who will never leave the victims but stand with them. A leader who is standing with the victims is the leader who will restore liberty of common man in the nation. A leader who is ensuring liberty of common man is the leader of freedom. CBK is a leader who fought for freedom of common man. But unfortunately, poor readings of her political wisdom and strategies led many communities to have lame viewpoints about something much deeper than met the eye.

In this context, I quote the sage words of late-Eli Wiesel to more appropriately understand the depth of the political wisdom of CBK. Eli Wiesel, a survivor of holocaust in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech reads as follows;

“I swore never to be silent whenever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Whenever men and women are prosecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must–at that moment–become the center of the universe.”

We as a nation must be proud that we at least we have a handful of people who are genuine in caring about others’ pain and they have attempted to find justice for all by considering it as the need of the moment. Strategies applied in the programs conducted by the Office for National Unity and Reconciliation (ONUR), established after the 2015 Presidential Election, is one of such institutional example out of dozens.

Let me quote excerpts of the CBK’s speech at the inauguration of the national consultation of ethnic reconciliation, Colombo, on July 26, 2002.

“ … I only wish to state that as the Head of State of this country but even more so as a citizen of Sri Lanka who loves this country as dearly as every one of you here, as a mother and as a woman who hopes that my children and yours will no more be called upon to experience the horrors that our generation was compelled to experience to live through in the last 20 years of our history, and perhaps even more especially the last 20 years, the last 19 years to be most specific, will not have to live through those experiences – and that they could look forward to a brighter future for our country, a country in peace marching forward to that destiny that all our peoples so richly deserve after all these years of immense suffering, sadness and tears…”

The lady has proven that rectitude reconciliation without truth is nothing but a farce. Therefore, CBK marches forwards to address the truth by taking a retrospective approach to address the crimes committed against unarmed men and women in this nation.

Let’s wish you a very happy birthday, Madam!