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Item A Study on Theoretical Aspects of Post War Peacebuilding(Reviewing International Encounters 2018,The Research Center for Social Sciences (RCSS), University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2018) Thalpawila, O.N.Post-conflict peacebuilding processes have received wide recognition in the last two decades since the escalation of a number of intrastate conflicts in different parts of the world. Though several countries have concluded peace accords to control the recurring violence, new conflicts keep cropping up across the globe now and then and therefore the issue is now drawing greater attention. In Sri Lanka the civil war ended in 2009 and still there are some critics on peacebuilding process. The objective of this paper is to examine the theoretical aspects of the post-conflict peacebuilding as a direction for ongoing peace process in Sri Lanka. The secondary data have been purely based for this study and they were collected from the UN publications as well as other scholarly published works. The failures of the current prevailing strategies compelled the UN to adjust its own strategies for consolidating peace. It has been generally agreed that the concept of post-conflict peacebuilding was popularised by the United Nations with the work of Boutros Ghali and further developed by following several UN documents. The UN approach on post-conflict peacebuilding, focus on several key areas such as security, political setup, development, humanitarian aspects and human rights etc. Later, while agreeing with the UN notion, several institutions and scholars also developed some new ideas on post-conflict peacebuilding according to their experiences and so modified and elaborated the concept. For instance, they added the concept of transitional justice, which looks into the issues of justice, truth telling and reconciliation, as these are considered essential elements of peacebuilding. This development could be seen when the great powers intervened in the state building of certain fragile states in the late 1990s. For instance, Ramsbotham, Miall and Woodhouse presented a post-war reconstruction/withdrawal matrix in 2011, which details several phases in security, law and order, government, economy, society and international intervention transition sectors. Finally, the study identifies some important characteristics of the concept. First, post-conflict peacebuilding is a significant long term process largely initiated in the context of negative peace, aiming to create positive peace in order to produce a sustainable peace. The post-conflict peacebuilding activities address two aspects of working areas. Firstly, it addresses the immediate outcomes of the war such as in the fields of the security sector, repatriation of refugees and resettlement of IDPs, physical reconstruction, etc., which connect to the humanitarian aspects. Secondly, it overcomes the structural violence and issues in the political, economic, and psycho/social areas by removing structural contradictions and injustice to achieve positive peace in conflict affected societiesItem Achieving Holistic Peace beyond a Military Victory: case of Sri Lanka.(1st International Studies Students’ Research Symposium-2017 (ISSRS 2017) ,Department of International Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Gallage, H.The small island state of Sri Lanka is in a period of revival after the end of a civil war which was fought for several decades. The roots of this conflict traces back to certain administrative decisions of colonizers as well as of successive governments which expanded the conflict into a fully-fledged civil war between the Sinhala majority and the Tamil minority represented by the terrorist organization, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. After three decades of persistent fighting the war came to closure in 2009 but the question of peacemaking left to answer was perhaps even more challenging. Eight years after the end of war, elements of violence still prevail which not only make it almost impossible to call the peace gained sustainable and holistic, but also probable for a conflict to resurge. Therefore the objective of this research is to analyze the post-war context of Sri Lanka and thereby determine a holistic model of peace which is sustainable beyond the military victory gained back in 2009. The research takes up a qualitative approach and to that end it gathers secondary data that assess the post-war situation of the country. The analysis is largely based on the theoretical analysis of Johan Galtung’s theory of negative and positive peace in relation to post-war Sri Lanka. A careful assessment of the post-war data of Sri Lanka for the period of 2009-2016 suggests that the peace gained following the military victory is negative while lacking peace in its positive, holistic sense. The research findings manifest that although Sri Lanka has been unified territorially its numerous ethnicities are yet to be reconciled into one tightly knitted inclusive society to create the Sri Lankan nation that transcends narrow ethnic disparities. It also concludes that it may require years of commitment and significant upheaval of the attitudes of the public. But if that can be achieved, its results can be relished by many generations to come who shall not be burdened again with the agonies of war.