On the LLRC Report

This is something that I stumbled across while cleaning out some old folders. It was written sometime in 2012 when the LLRC report was first published. 

The Jathika Hela Urumaya, a partner of the Government has criticised the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Committee report, for, amongst other things, exceeding their mandate. While this writer has little sympathy in general with the positions of the JHU it is necessary in this instance to admit that they do have a point. To reproduce the rather vague mandate of the LLRC :

• To inquire and report on the following matters that may have taken place during the period between 21st February, 2002 and 19th May, 2009, namely ;
• The facts and circumstances which led to the failure of the ceasefire agreement operationalized on 21st February, 2002 and the sequence of events that followed thereafter up to the 19th of May, 2009.
• Whether any person, group or institution directly or indirectly bear responsibility in this regard;
• The lessons we would learn from those events and their attendant concern, in order to ensure that there will be no recurrence;
• The methodology whereby restitution to any person affected by those events or their dependants or their heirs, can be affected;
• The institutional administrative and legislative measured which need to be taken in order or prevent any recurrence of such concerns in the future, and to promote further national unity and the reconciliation among all communities, and to make any such other recommendations with reference to any of the matters that have been inquired into under the terms of the Warrant.

The Commission's mandate is restricted primarily to inquiring into the reasons for the failure of the ceasefire, who was responsible and what lessons can be learned. There is a small catch-all clause at the end: to recommend measures to promote national unity and any other recommendations with reference to the matters that have been inquired into.

Into this relatively minor clause the commission has stuffed a lot of recommendations, indeed almost everything of value in the report falls under this category, hence the JHU's annoyance that the commission has missed its primary purpose.

What exactly was that purpose? Was it really to learn lessons on the failure of a ceasefire?

To begin with, it took the Government a whole year after the end of the conflict to decide that it was necessary to set up a commission to inquire into the causes of the failure of the ceasefire, by then a largely irrelevant matter. Commissions of inquiry take many months to do their work (the report was published two and a half years after the end of the fighting) so if they were serious about learning lessons what took them so long to appoint the commission?

Critics have claimed that the commission was purely set up to forestall an international inquiry and its timing, a month before the formation of the UN Secretary General's Panel of Experts supports this view. Thus we have a commission that was set up to defer an international inquiry (which it did not) given a vague mandate to inquire into a matter that was largely irrelevant. If the Government does not appear to be serious about the commission, should anyone else be?

It is a difficult question. The commission heard a lot of useful testimony which they have reproduced at length. It can provide a useful starting point for some discussions on matters post-war, which seems to be the consensus amongst the Government's critics. What then of the Government's position?

We have seen plenty of pictures of the President reading the report at leisure, dressed in a sarong and seated in a planters chair, but we are yet to hear if the Government is pleased or displeased and what, if any, recommendations they intend implementing. The report was released two months ago and while various parties including foreign Government's have stated their positions the official view on the report can only be guessed at.

The official news website of the Government carries a detailed road map of Monetary and Fiscal Policies for 2012 and beyond, there is clearly pressure on the finances but nothing on the LLRC. The Defence Secretary warned last week, at some length, that the country is surrounded by enemies, within and without. Some lessons it appears, are yet to be learned.