Sri Lanka Marks Anniversary of Civil War’s End With New Focus on Reconciliation
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
The anniversary of the end of Sri Lanka’s three-decade civil war on May 19, 2009 is usually marked with celebration and triumphalist military parades. Not this year.
Six years after the Sri Lankan government led by Mahindra Rajapaksa declared an end to 27 years fighting against the Tamil separatists, an unprecedented focus on reconciliation marked commemorations on Tuesday, despite criticism from the island’s Tamil politicians that the change in tone does not go far enough.
Instead of tough-talking speeches by Mr. Rajapaksa, who was defeated in elections earlier this year, in which he vowed to defy international pressure to investigate allegations of war crimes committed during the last phase of the war, Sri Lanka’s new administration marked the day by in more somber fashion.
It renamed the official event “remembrance day” in place of “victory celebrations” for instance.
A report released by the United Nations in 2012 estimates as many as 40,000 civilians could have died during the last few months of the conflict. Following a resolution spearheaded by the U.S. the United Nations Human Rights Council initiated an investigation last year. A preliminary report on the probe’s findings will be presented at its next sessions in September.
In the past four months the island’s new President Maithripala Srisena has released political prisoners, returned military-held land to the original Tamil owners and pledged to properly investigate charges of civilian deaths.
“My government will give priority to reconciliation. Since the end of the war a lot has been done to rebuild infrastructure but not the damaged hearts and lives of our people,” Mr. Sirisena said in his address to the nation on Tuesday.
Efforts of the new government were acknowledged by the Global Tamil Forum, a diaspora organization fighting for minority rights in Sri Lanka.
“It is a welcome move, a distant silver-line at the end of the tunnel, or at least as a first step, on the long road to achieving a peaceful future,” said GTF President Father S.J. Emmanuel.
Sri Lanka’s main Tamil party refused to attend the government celebration preferring to hold their own memorial in a former battleground however. Tamil National Alliance leaders lit oil lamps and offered flowers at a makeshift memorial in Mullivaikkal village located in the northeast of the island. The area is where the final battle took place in 2009 and thousands of civilians are alleged to have died in the bloody last days of the war.
Under the previous government Tamil memorials were banned and organizers of such events frequently arrested. Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam linked remembrance activities continue to be extremely sensitive. Police in the nothern district of Mullaitivu last weekend obtained a court order banning such events for a fortnight.
“The international community must do everything within their purview to procure justice for those innocents who passed away during the last stages of the war,” said Northern Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran, a senior member of the new administration. He together with other officials attended the event in the north on Tuesday in defiance of the court order.
The Wall Street Journal India