Many private grudges were settled under large label of terrorism - PM

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe says that although Sri Lanka’s three-decade long war and the events which took place during it will not leave the peoples’ mind, that does not mean it should be a “barrier” to reconciliation and healing.

“The war is a fact. What took place is a fact. It won’t go away from our minds. But it doesn’t mean that it should be a barrier to reconciliation and healing.” 

“But we’ve realized that, as the international community has done, it is a long process,” he said, delivering a speech during the annual get-together organized by the Colombo branch of the old boys’ association of Hartley College, Jaffna. 

“So let’s get to know the truth,” the PM said, adding that for that there are two important issues which the government is now focusing its attention on.  

One is at least we want to know what happened to all those people who are missing in the North and the South, he said. Wickremesinghe said that the government has brought in the law to establish a Missing Persons’ Office and that it will be passed in Parliament one of these days. 

“There are people who still think that their loved ones are still living. That’s a painful process that we all have to go through and we learn from South Africa,” he said.  

Secondly is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he said. “The truth should lead to reconciliation.” 

The prime minister said that Sri Lanka is looking at its own version of a TRC and that they have been helped by the Council of Religions, comprising of all the leading religious figures who want to see what role they can play in ensuring there is reconciliation between the communities. 

He stated that there will be some instances where there is possible to take legal action. “In some cases it’s not possible. Some of them are dead,” Wickremesinghe said. 

He said it’s not merely a question of the army having to fight, and the civilians in the North and East suffering or LTTE targeting various political figures in the South or the Muslims being attacked in their mosque. 

The PM said that there were so many forms and that at one point “you could never make out who was attacking whom and in the process a large number of private grudges in the North and the South also got settled.” 

“Land disputes, money disputes and even some family disputes we know were settled under this large label of terrorism,” he said. 

“But all that is a part of the past. Let’s look back on it and think of what has happened.” 

He stated that it is the only way to “address the feelings we have and the same time not giving away to despair or hate.”