Kadirgamar Quarterly - Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute of ...

Prof. Rohan Gunaratna, Head of International Centre for Political Violence and
Terrorism Research (ICPVTR)
The course of Sri Lanka’s history changed on May 19, 2009. Since then, there has been
significant progress in the area of reconciliation. Sri Lanka witnessed progress in three
different areas. First, humanitarian assistance, second, socio-economic development and
third, political engagement.
The first step in the national reconciliation process is the rehabilitation of the ex-LTTE
cadres, particularly those under 18 years of age. About 12,000 former members of the
LTTE underwent rehabilitation. Initially, it was not very clear as to direction Sri Lanka
will move, whether it would be retributive justice, whether those Tamil Tigers would be
prosecuted or if there would be restorative justice, where they will be rehabilitated and
released. I want to share with you that neither the Sri Lankan government nor the Sri Lankan people wanted to prosecute
the Tamil Tigers. To ensure future stability and peace in Sri Lanka, the Sri Lankan government decided to rehabilitate and
reintegrate 11,500 Tamil Tigers.
Of the 12,000 Tamil Tigers, about 500 members of the organization were all children below 18 years of age. The Sri
Lankan government decided to give them opportunities in education. They were almost all educated at the Hindu College
in Ratmalana. Today I’m very proud to say that a few hundred of those Tamil Tiger members who underwent rehabilitation
have entered university. Some of them have even entered the medical school. This demonstrated the spirit of the Sri
Lankan people. Even though they were former combatants, some of them did killings in the North and East and even
outside that area, the response of the Sri Lankan public and the government was to rehabilitate and reintegrate them.
Rehabilitation is the first step in reconciliation. To move beyond this point, Sri Lankan launched a multifaceted reconciliation
enterprise. To build harmony, the Kadirgamar Institute created 12 different clusters in reconciliation. Reconciliation by
engaging the leaders in (1) business, (2) education, (3) information technology, (4) media, (5) religion, (6) community, (7)
security, (8) youth, (9) diaspora, (10) women (11) sports and (12) art and culture.
Hon. Mohan Lal Grero, Monitoring M. P. of the Ministry of Education
I’m afraid my speech is going to be purely academic. Learning moderation, tolerance and
co-existence through education is probably one of the major issues in education today.
The contemporary world is too often a world of violence that belies the hope that some
people place in human progress. There has always been conflict throughout history, but
new factors are facilitating the risk, in particular the extraordinary capacity of humanity for
self-destruction that has been created in the course of the 20th century.
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Through the media, the general public is becoming an important observer, even the
hostage, of those who create and maintain conflict. Education has up to now not been
able to alleviate this poor state of affairs. But it is possible to device a form of education which might make it possible to
avoid conflicts or resolve them peacefully, by developing the quality of respect in individuals towards people of different
cultures and their spiritual values. The idea of teaching ‘non-violence’ in schools is laudable, even if it is only one means
among many for combating the prejudices that lead to conflict. It is a difficult task since people very naturally tend to
over- value their own qualities. They stand very high in their own estimation and those of their group as well, and harbour
prejudices against others. Furthermore, the general climate of competition that is at present a characteristic of economic
activity within, and above all, between nations, tends to give priority to the competitive spirit and individual success. Such
competition now amounts to ruthless economic warfare and to a tension between the rich and poor, between nations
around the world and is exacerbating rivalry. It is regrettable that education sometimes helps to maintain this climate. How
can we do better?
Experiences show that to reduce this risk it is not enough to only organize contact, as Professor Gunaratna said. Contact is
important but to organize contact and communication between members of different groups, for example schools shared
by several ethnic groups or religions, is more important. It is the different groups that are in competition, due to the unequal
status in the environment they share. Therefore, sometimes such contact can on the contrary inflame latent tensions and
degenerate into conflicts.
...to read the full speech please visit www.kadirgamarinstitute.lk