Challenges and Barriers for the Reconciliation in the Post War Period of Sri Lanka (Special Reference to Northern Province)

Abstract

The Sri Lankan government engaged in a war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). And they declared the end of the 30 years’ war with LTTE on May 2009. After the end of the war, reconciliation has become the first task of the peacebuilding discourse in Sri Lanka. Although the civil war has finished through the war victory, the ethnic conflict is still going on with the absence of physical violation movements with each other. But there are great possibilities for a restoration of the civil war. Hence, it is necessary to distinguish the major factors which will lead to a reproduction of war in the future. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to identify the challenges and barriers for the reconciliation in the post-war period of Sri Lanka. This study has used questionnaires to gather the primary data and previous research, books, online web articles were used as secondary data. The survey was conducted in the Vavuniya district with a total sample of 100 and it represented Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim ethnicities. According to the findings, it was found that the possible factors for the restoration of civil war in the future are the lack of consensus within the political actors of government regarding the post-war reconciliation; the lack of confidence among the ethnic groups about the policies of reconciliation; the contradictory policies among the government, NGOs, civil society organizations and international community for the reconciliation mechanism; and the inequalities of government policies regarding language. Although the war has ended, still Sri Lanka has failed to eliminate the risk of war in the future. Therefore, the lack of a formal mechanism of national and international policies for the reconciliation can identify as a decisive factor for the reproduction of civil war in the future.