ONUR Takes Lead In Reconciliation Process

By Easwaran Rutnam

Kumaratunga said she hopes the policy will be accepted by the Government and made the National Policy on Reconciliation.

The former President is the chair of the Office for National Unity and Reconciliation (ONUR).

ONUR is responsible for formulation and coordinating the implementation of the policies and programmes to build national unity and reconciliation. ONUR says its principle role is to ensure a durable peace through building bridges between everyone.

The Board of Governors of the ONUR consist of eminent persons who have excelled in their professional lives and representatives of multiple religious, ethnic, professional and academic backgrounds.

The staff of ONUR also represents diverse backgrounds and professional experience.

Priorities of ONUR – Moving beyond LLRC (i.e.LLRC+). ONUR seeks to build on existing national mechanisms related to the LLRC recommendations on Reconciliation, in essence is a stepping-stone to national unity.

ONUR has completed a mapping process, which identified relevant LLRC recommendations that fall within the mandate of ONUR.

Some of the recent developments with ONUR intervention in this regard include initiatives in the areas of language, education, political dialogue for reconciliation, setting up of a grievance unit and empowering women, issuance of ‘Certificates of Absence’ for families of missing persons and facilitating comprehensive development planning.

A domestic mechanism to address the post-war issues of truth and accountability has been designed and will be set up.

Top military officers will be held accountable in the domestic process when investigating incidents related to the war.

Former President Chandrika Kumaratunga said that the accountability process will begin either this month or next month with the establishment of a Special Court.

She said that low ranked soldiers will not be chased after in the war crimes probe but the main line of command will be held responsible.

The former President said that even former senior LTTE members, including Kumaran Pathmanathan alias KP, will also be held accountable if there is evidence to prove allegations against them.

Kumaratunga also said the government will accept foreign technical assistance in the domestic process but not foreign judges.

ONUR has come up with a road map on National unity. ONUR says it believes a multi-pronged approach to achieving national unity is important in the Sri Lankan context. In this regard, ONUR believes that the process of building National Unity and Reconciliation in Sri Lanka is connected to multiple aspects affecting lives of people, whether they are from the North, South, East or West of the country.

 

Celebrating Religious and Cultural Diversity

A programme is also underway, in coordination with the Ministry of Education to create awareness on events of cultural and religious significance, to be introduced among students of all communities in Sri Lanka.

Commencing with Thai Pongal festival early next year, the programme will specifically cover 8 culturally and religiously important celebrations to foster intra and inter ethnic, religious, cultural understanding and mutual respect among school children. ONUR will work closely with the respective school networks both National and Provincial in carrying out this initiative.

Arts and Culture as a means to achieve national unity and reconciliation is a key long term initiative of ONUR,which will work in partnership with a diverse group of artistes from various fields of Arts and Culture in Sri Lanka.

This group hails from diverse backgrounds both in terms of the diversity of the type of artistic endeavours they are involved in as well as the social, ethnic, religious, linguistic backgrounds.

Among the many activities planned for next year, a large scale festival of arts and culture is expected to be launched in the middle of 2016 with the events and follow up activities spreading across the country in multiple locations.

The selection and decision making with regard to the activities will be made by a working committee of artistes guided by the ONUR for the purpose of greater transparency, autonomy and effectiveness. Performances including tele dramas, other forms of theatrical and musical expression are encouraged as part of the countrywide initiatives leading up to these.

ONUR will also endorse various initiatives which make a positive and sustainable contribution toward national unity and reconciliation. For instance, the ‘Secca Team’, Sinhala language tele drama focusing on a theme of unity and reconciliation, telecast on Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation during Saturday prime time has been endorsed by ONUR.

Meanwhile in September 2015, the Office for National Unity and Reconciliation (ONUR), invited by the Secretary General of Parliament, conducted a session titled ‘Using Parliamentary Mechanisms in Promoting National Unity and Reconciliation’ which highlighted the importance of celebrating the diversity of Sri Lankans, during the workshop conducted for the newly elected MPs of the Parliament of Sri Lanka following the elections of August 17, 2015.

ONUR expects to take this initiative further with future engagements with elected officials at national, provincial and local government level to create awareness, consult and work together with them towards building National Unity and Reconciliation.

Identifying the fact that education is an extremely important sector for supporting a transformative process in post-conflict societies and in creating the mindset of the younger generation to encourage social cohesion, reconciliation and fostering unity; ONUR with Ministry of Education and the relevant Provincial Ministries of Education, have jointly identified a range of short, medium and long term initiatives that will facilitate creating awareness among the young generation on the importance moving forward as Sri Lankans with national unity and reconciliation.

Some of the identified existing initiatives will be scaled up for better efficiency and effectiveness including student/teacher exchange programmes and the promotion of arts, culture and sports for reconciliation.

Discussion is underway to design a road map for mainstreaming national unity and reconciliation within the education system. Some significant milestones suggested in this process consist of reviving Citizenship Governance & Peace Education and practice in schools and the promotion of the Trilingual Language Policy.

 

Women for Reconciliation

It has been brought to the notice of Office for National Unity and Reconciliation that there exists a serious gap in the services and opportunities available to war affected women, especially women headed households.

It is yet unclear how many women were directly or indirectly affected by the war and continue to be marginalized and abused in the post-war context. The ONUR sees the importance of establishing women’s committees at both district and national level to empower ‘women for reconciliation’.

ONUR is already working with several organisations, that are active at grass-root level to facilitate livelihood development initiatives for Female Headed Households who were deprived of opportunities due to the direct impact of the conflict.

A structure to assist Female Headed Households, war widows and other marginalized women in accessing entitlements and state services will be put in place in consultation with other state institutions and be supported by ONUR for effective implementation. This unit will ensure access to facilities to bring a sense of normalcy to their lives.

The unit will handle grievances by receiving, reviewing and give appropriate responses. A hotline with a dedicated short code will facilitate communicating with the Unit.

 

Securing Language Rights of all Sri Lankans

ONUR has observed that the members of the public in seeking services from public institutions face enormous difficulty to use their mother language in their correspondence and during visits. This situation arises due to non-availability of adequate number of officers with bilingual/trilingual competence in public institutions. These institutions do not have access to persons competent in such skills.

Therefore, the setting up of a database of Resource Persons with Bilingual or Trilingual capabilities was initiated to address the national language needs that the citizens face on a day-to-day basis when dealing with public institutions.

ONUR called for applications from persons with these skills.The response from the public has been very positive which has enabled ONUR to facilitate and contribute towards the initiatives taken by State institutions in implanting the national languages policy.

ONUR hopes the impact of this initiative will result in public institutions being able to serve the general public in their language of choice. This ensures equality and non-discrimination in the long term.

ONUR has identified three key areas to assist with in regard to language related challenges faced by Sri Lankan Society.

1. Initiative to facilitate creation of bilingual positions in the public service

2. Automated technology solutions for translation with access to every citizen

3. Plans are underway for Language Teaching and Training to be formalized for public officials and citizens through the use of technology.

Supporting the provision of Psycho-social counseling and well-being facilities to families and communities that need such facilities is also a priority and an initial step in the reconciliation process. Many state agencies and civil society organizations have implemented programmes to provide such facilities. ONUR has realized that a mechanism to coordinate and upgrade such programmes is absent in the field.

Further, the need to adopt a long term comprehensive programme to complement current ongoing programmes is felt as urgent and important. The agencies working at present in the field are understood to be facing challenges such as capacity, funding, quality, etc.

A Task force with eminent, knowledgeable experts will formulate short term interventions and a long term policy for provision of Psycho-social support.

 

Comprehensive District Development Plans

ONUR together with the Ministry of National Policy and Economic Affairs, has formulated a comprehensive 5-year District Development Plan for the Northern and Eastern provinces.

Since the end of 30 years of internal strife, there have been financial and technical assistance extended by the Government, Donors and Civil Society Organizations for the socio-economic-infrastructure improvements.

Most of the programmes were implemented independent of each other, displaying lack of coordination leading to repetition, overlap, duplication of the programme.

While these two provinces were chosen due to the extensive disturbance to normal life and unequal development due to 30 years of internal strife, ONUR and NPD (National Planning Department) believe this could be a model to be used in the rest of the districts, as well in enabling an inclusive development agenda for each district in Sri Lanka.

The process of comprehensive development planning included stakeholder consultation from the local communities, the first time such extensive consultations with stakeholders have taken place in the planning of Government Development Programmes.

Civil Society Representatives who attended meetings were appreciative of the fact that an open and transparent consultation was carried out without limiting such discussions to officials only.