The Government says it will take at least a year to implement a bulk of the recommendations of the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC).
President’s Secretary Lalith Weerathunga reiterated the Government needs time and space to address the issue. Speaking in a Government propaganda video titled “Sri Lanka: Reconciling and Rebuilding” aired in the US, Weerathunga said that the pace of the implementation process of the LLRC recommendations is, in his view, fair but not excellent.
“Tell us if there is any better situation of a similar kind of scenario in the world elsewhere, we will take it. But I don’t think there is anything like that anywhere in the world,” he said when asked to respond to concerns over the pace of the LLRC implementation process.
The President’s Secretary also said that it will take at least 10 years for the wounds of the 30 year war to heal.
“I would say within a matter of 10 years or so we could see some kind of fruits in this whole issue of reconciliation,” he said.
Speaking in the same video, President Mahinda Rajapaksa said that it is his responsibility and that of Sri Lanka to address its own issues and not for outsiders.
The President, meanwhile, said he is looking at the South African Truth and Reconciliation process in order to apply such a process in Sri Lanka.
“We have seen how Mandela handled it and I want to study that,” the President said.
Also speaking in the video is Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa who insisted that there needs to be confidence in a local process.
He also said that any soldier found guilty of committing offences have been dealt with legally. Colombo Gazette