Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Committee Report: A Valuable Process than an End Product

The Report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Committee (LLRC), which was made public in December 2011, is a major achievement for post-war Sri Lanka. Mandated to generate a report on the facts and circumstances which led to the failure of the Ceasefire Agreement and the sequence of events that followed till the end of the war—whether any person, group or institution directly or indirectly bears responsibility, institutional, administrative and legislative measures which need to be taken in order to prevent any recurrence of such concerns in the future, and to promote further national unity and reconciliation among communities—the Commission’s Report met with comment, criticism as well as appreciation within Sri Lanka and in the international community. The Report brings in representations from all sections of Sri Lankan society and provides a series of recommendations on issues of dispute, the situation on the ground, and the need for reconciliation, amity, and national harmony. When all issues are taken into consideration, the progressiveness of the Report lies more in the process it created and the multiple narratives it brought in from the periphery, rather than as an end product in itself.

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