sri lanka's commissions of inquiry - Law & Society Trust

other sources, including many that speak to the experiences of other
countries. Further it endorses recommendations of others and suggests
that the State further explore such recommendations rather than
providing concrete recommendations of its own. Notably, the Report
does refer to the Sansoni Commission and its Report, and quotes from
the report. 84
The Report is the most comprehensive documentation by the State
to date of a period, the early 1980s, that was critical in the unfolding
of Sri Lanka’s ethno-national political history. Nonetheless, the
Commission’s findings are limited. As pointed out by Suriya
Wickremasinghe, Secretary of the Civil Rights Movement of Sri
Lanka:
Where the Welikade massacres were concerned for instance [the
commission] did hardly any – if any – investigation of its own. It
relied on me (CRM) for practically everything (for instance, even
the inquest proceedings were supplied to it by us) and seemed
more than happy with just our material. What it should have done
is taken our material as a starting point and then followed up
from there, with all its powers of investigation and summoning
witnesses, which we didn't have…. 85
The Report does not follow the structure of the mandate and does not
devote a separate chapter to the question of responsibility. Instead, the
substantive findings are structured according to events – the burning
of the Jaffna Public Library, July 1983, Sunday 24th July 1983, and
ethnic violence at Welikada Prison – in which responsibility generally
and in respect to particular individuals is discussed to varying degrees,
depending on the information made available to the Commission.
84.
The reference to the Sansoni Commission and its Report is found in the concluding
comments of the Commission Report. In fact, the “Truth Commission” excerpts from a
quote by Rev. Fr. Paul Caspersz S.J., who is quoted extensively in the Sansoni Report.
Interestingly, both the Sansoni Report and the Truth Commission Report rely heavily on the
words of others rather than reaching their own conclusions.
85.
University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), “Scripting the Welikada Massacre and the
Fate of Two Dissidents”, Supplement to Special Report No. 25, 31 May 2007, p. 2.
71