A model for reconciliation

Conciliation between parties to a conflict involves two basic processes.

- BY NEVILLE LADDUWAHETTY

The common factor to both is identifying the perpetrators associated with the conflict and holding them accountable for their actions, because of the belief that atonement for the violations committed help the aggrieved survivors to ease their pain without which reconciliation is not possible. One process involves Voluntary Admission of the TRUTH to the point of admitting guilt on the part of the perpetrators for the violations committed and Forgiveness on the part of the victims. Another process is to establish the TRUTH through mechanisms set up to investigate the scope and extent of the violations committed and identification of the perpetrators responsible, so that they could be punished to the extent of the law, thus assuaging the pain of the aggrieved. This is Retributive Justice.

The features common to both processes are that violations committed are in the PAST, which, in the case of Sri Lanka span, over a period of 16 to 30 years. Under such circumstances, ONLY Voluntary Admission would identify the perpetrators, while in the case of Retributive Justice, the credibility of the investigations to establish the TRUTH, based on which perpetrators are identified, would vary from questionable to inadmissible after the lapse of 16 to 30 years.