Transcript 0:00 [upbeat music] Hi, and welcome back to Trendlines, a podcast on global affairs brought to you by World Politics Review. I'm Freddy Deknatel, WPR's senior editor. 0:13 Our usual host, editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein, is away again this week, so the inmates are still running the asylum. Transitional justice in post-war Sri Lanka is at a standstill. 0:24 Its long civil war ended in 2009, but no one knows the fate of thousands of people who were abducted or disappeared during the war. 0:31 Mysli Balla and Shireen Sarur will join us a little later to explain how growing frustration for the families of Sri Lanka's disappeared is fueling a rise in ethnonationalist rhetoric, with troubling implications for the country's stability. 0:44 But first, I'm joined here in WPR's New York office by our two associate editors, Robbie Corey-Boulet and Omar Rahman. Hey, guys. How's it going? Hey, Freddy. How's it going? Looking forward to a long summer weekend. 0:56 Yeah, me too. Labor Day is approaching here. How about you, Robbie? Yeah, I'm, uh, doing well. Also looking forward to the holiday weekend and, uh, hoping Judah isn't too appalled by what he finds when he does come back. 1:08 Yeah, I think we held the fort down here pretty well. Had a busy week, another full publishing schedule after a, a quieter week last week. 1:16 Uh, so I thought for the briefing, before we get into the report that's gonna come later, um, 1:22 one of the stories I wanted to, to discuss was a piece that you wrote for the site this week, Omar, on the suspension of US aid to Egypt, which took a lot of people by surprise, um, and which the Trump administration has framed around hu- uh, h- human rights abuses by Egypt. 1:39 Some people have sort of raised their eyebrows at that, since it doesn't seem like the Trump administration up until now really cared about human rights abuses. What did you make of the move? 1:49 Uh, it certainly took me s- by surprise, and, um, you know, I think you're right with, uh, the kind of direction of Trump's foreign policy and the actual justification that was made raising some eyebrows. 2:00 Uh, you know, there's been a few other, uh, theories posited, and I myself, um, took the position that I think, uh, actually, Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state, may be a- asserting himself and asserting the State Department in terms of differentiating himself a little bit from the White House here, finally, um, after about seven months. 2:18 Um, and I think many things indicate that that may be the case. Um, you know, there was n- nothing I read indicated that the White House was really informed of the decision before the state ma- State Department made it. 2:29 Uh, there were no corresponding tweets from the White House and from Donald Trump. 2:34 And, you know, there was the kind of oddly timed, uh, meeting between, uh, Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, his, you know, emissary, Jason Greenblatt, and Dina Powell, uh, to Egypt in order to discuss Middle East peace, kind of came right after the, the, the decision was made. 2:50 So that was either an ill-timed, uh, meeting and decision, or there's something behind that. 2:56 Uh, and then, you know, the president, Donald Trump, called, uh, Sisi I think 48 hours or less after the State Department made the decision, or at least announced the decision, uh, and kind of was, I think, consoling and confirming, uh, the strong relationship and that they would get through it together, uh, which was, I found, a bit odd. 3:14 Uh, and then, and then there's been indications that this, um, you know, decision to kind of, uh, reexamine aid to Egypt, and Egypt receives, I think is the second-largest recipient of US aid at $1.3 billion, 3:28 uh, to kind of reexamine that in light of what's been happening in Egypt. 3:31 And if you looked at, uh, this kind of stunning, and I, uh, interview with, with, uh, Tillerson on Fox News over the weekend, and I kind of recommend, I don't know how many listeners we have that are Fox News listeners, but, uh, I recommend everybody getting on the internet and watching it. 3:45 I mean, it really was stunning and, i- in the sense that, uh, Tillerson, uh, basically broke with the president. 3:53 He said that the State Department, it stands up for the US's morals and, you know, uh, represents its values overseas. 4:00 And when the, uh, host asked Tillerson about that and about Trump, he said, "Well, the, you know, Trump speaks for himself. The president speaks for himself." 4:08 And it was, I mean, very, uh, kind of a chilling thing to watch. Uh, I recommend doing that, and, and I think it speaks volumes. Yeah, it was a, it was a surprising interview. 4:16 Um, and he wasn't the only, if, if I'm, if I remember other interviews, maybe not on TV, but, um, I think Gary Cohn, his e- his economic advisor, gave an interview to The Financial Times where he expressed, you know, as close to open criticism as you can get today in the Trump administration of Trump's handling of the Charlottesville, um, protests and Trump's reaction to, to, in not condemning, um, 4:41 White nationalists and neo-Nazis there. Um, I think, yeah, it, it's surprising to see, 4:47 on the one hand, is the, is it, is it a bigger surprise to see the Trump administration, such as it, you know, is, you know, a one, one entity, make a decision supposedly on human rights concerns? 4:58 Or is it, is it more of a surprise to see Tillerson actually asserting himself and actually having some impact and doing something that traditionally, um, you would expect a secretary of state to do, but which he has really shown a lot of reluctance to, to fulfill that role so far? 5:13 Yeah, odd that you would have to ask that question, honestly. But, um, yeah, I think the, the bigger surprise would be, uh, Trump, 5:21 the Trump administration, which has really touted itself as this kind of transactional foreign policy and, you know, uh, not standing on these principles in, in terms of, uh, guiding our, uh, guiding this country's foreign relations as opposed to Tillerson after seven months and seeing what's happening in the White House and seeing the kind of turmoil and all that, deciding to, uh, you know, depart a little bit or chart a course away from the president and, and take the reins of the State Department and, and chart his own in foreign policy. 5:51 I don't think that would be that surprising. 5:53 Um- You know, I think if, if you've watched him, uh, he's been a little bit dismayed by the kind of the values and the choices of the Trump White House, and, and I think that's been abundantly clear recently with what happened in Charlottesville and all of that, and having to explain those kind of things abroad is a bit of a challenge. 6:10 I'm sure, yeah. And, and on the Egypt side of things, um, we had a column as well by, by Frida Ghitis this week looking at another angle of this story. Um, if you don't buy the human rights, uh, 6:23 angle from the Trump administration and their explanation, um, Frida is arguing that, um, there's something else at play possibly, and that is Egypt's longstanding ties with North Korea, which, uh, up until now sort of fly under the radar. 6:35 But Egypt has had ties with North Korea going back to the '70s. Um, Hosni Mubarak, the former president, visited Pyongyang, uh, I think on several occasions. There's lots of business ties even. 6:47 Um, and she makes the point that, uh, the suspension of aid is more about sending a message, uh, to other countries that might be in a position like Egypt is, where they are a US ally, they're receiving all this aid, but they're really sort of undermining the attempt to sanction the Thor-- the, the North Korea regime and isolate it. 7:06 Uh, do you think that, um, that could go hand in hand with the other d- with the other explanation? Do you think, uh, you know, you could have both at p- at play? Yeah, I think it's... 7:16 that's a totally valid argument that she made. Um- Yeah. Uh, did, did, did you find that to be... 7:22 I mean, I guess the question more is, is do you think that, um, it, it, it w- we see the administration so disorganized, and you have this, you see a State Department especially that's understaffed. 7:33 Um, but it seems like a, a policy move like this, for example, would actually have more strategy behind it, uh, and more of a sort of policy overview than a lot of things that the Trump administration has done so far. 7:47 So in that sense, if it's also about trying to isolate Egypt vis-à-vis North Korea, um, is that an encouraging sign for foreign policy so far under, under Trump, or at least the State Department's ability to, to, to exert some influence one way or another, whether it's for human rights or for pressuring North Korea? 8:05 Yeah, I don't know how much, uh, impact it'll have as a, as a message, although I do find it to be a very valid argum- argument, and the one that I mention in my article, especially because, you know, Egypt's not, uh, does have longstanding ties to Pyongyang, uh, and, uh, 8:20 but they're not, they're by f- not by far Pyongyang's, like, biggest backers. So y- the US has much less leverage when it comes to dealing with Russia or China, who are the real backers of Pyongyang. 8:32 So, you know, to kind of isolating Egypt and, and, and striking at them in this way, I think, uh, is, is an interesting tactic, but I'm not sure how much impact it would have. Yeah. 8:43 That, it's certainly not the biggest player at all when you're talking about, uh, trying to influence North Korea and, and, and the countries that, that support it. 8:51 Um, Robbie, switching gears a little bit, there was a, a story this week, um, there was a large meeting in Paris between several African, uh, states in- including many North African states. Um, 9:07 the latest attempt, it seemed like, to have some kind of unified strategy from Europe, but across the Mediterranean in dealing with the refugee and migrant crisis, which may be falling out of the headlines a little bit, but really isn't going away. 9:21 Uh, what was going on in Paris? 9:24 Yeah, as you, as you say, it's definitely a, a quieter story, but an issue that, uh, certainly for the European countries that are involved, is hugely important for them politically to find some kind of resolution or some common strategy going forward. 9:38 Um, so Emmanuel Macron, the French president, was the one who convened these talks, uh, bringing together four European leaders and then representatives of three African countries that are either transit points or departure points for migrants making their way to Europe. 9:55 And, uh, one of the main takeaways from the meeting is this idea that they're gonna set up a mechanism that would actually screen migrants and asylum seekers in Africa so that they're not making this journey and then having the screening done, uh, in Europe. 10:12 The ostensible reason for this is to prevent people from making y- this very dangerous journey across the Mediterranean. 10:19 Uh, but I think also it shows the extent to which Europe really would like not to be dealing with the influx of migrants that it's been dealing with over the course of the l- past few years, and they're really willing to try any number of things to reduce that influx, even if it involves making, uh, some questionable compromises with countries in Africa that have, uh, pretty poor human rights records. 10:41 So in a sense, this is, if the headlines of this meeting are France, Macron is, is trying to work more closely with, um, 10:51 countries on the other side of the Mediterranean, countries throughout Africa to have more of a strategy for dealing with the refugee migrant crisis, what, what is actually going on beyond that headline is France is trying to, to sort of pass the buck and get less involved, but it has to get, it has to sort of outsource this first to get to that point. 11:11 Yeah, absolutely, and I think that's consistent with Macron's approach to Africa in general. Um, he's been very engaged with issues on the continent since he took office. 11:23 He's been to Mali not once, but twice to meet with French troops and also promote this regional security force that Europe wants established to fight terror so they don't have to do it themselves. 11:35 Uh, he's also tried to intervene in the political crisis in Libya, convening talks in Paris with the different factions to try to reach some kind of accord. 11:45 Um, obviously a more stable Libya means a more stable Sahel, uh, where there are a lot of French interests and investments. 11:52 So really what Macron's approach seems to be is really intense engagement up front with an eye toward disengaging as soon as possible once these crises get under control. 12:04 How, how much does that represent, uh, a shift from previous French presidents? 12:11 Well, I think Hollande's really, in large part because of the dome- the domestic political trouble he had, uh, for much of his term, really embraced being an active intervener in Africa. 12:24 Uh, we saw that with the Mali intervention. We saw that, uh, in some of his remarks and speeches that he made when he was on the continent. 12:31 Um, you know, saying that the era of Françafrique is over, but also saying that, you know, we'll be a very active development partner and, you know, this is a region in which we'd like to retain, you know, a certain amount of influence. 12:42 Um, so I think that Macron, for him ultimately will be less of a priority, um, and so while it may look like he's very engaged now, that might not be the long-term strategy for him. 12:56 Yeah, and I wonder, too, what, um, or r-rather how much is this a French-led effort vis-a-vis Africa and, and Nor-Northern Africa in particular? Uh, how much does it involve with other European countries? 13:12 'Cause there has also been sort of an EU-wide effort to try to have a bigger framework for responding to the refugee crisis. Um, is this more of a France alone policy? 13:23 No, certainly all these countries that were at the talks are heavily affected. Um, Germany has been at the center of debates over how Europe should be processing migrants. 13:33 Italy has received, uh, you know, a huge number of people coming from Libya, and Spain was also, uh, represented at these talks and increasingly has been receiving, uh, 13:45 what seemed to be the path that was going to Libya shifting in that direction. Um, so all these countries are affected. Italy's been involved, uh, too, in its own efforts trying to crack down on migrant flows. 13:57 Um, recently, the government had to deny that it was actually partnering with Libyan militias, uh, in, in forcibly preventing boats from leaving. 14:06 So while Macron does seem to want to take the lead on this, all these countries are affected, uh, and they all certainly want to see a resolution probably as badly as he does. Mm-hmm. 14:16 And whether that means having to take on more responsibilities or, or, or get more involved, uh, in the short term, um, so that they can basically build up the capacity to, to pass the buck, it sounds like. 14:29 Yeah, I mean, I don't think anybody wants to be dealing with this, uh, for years and years on end. It's already been three years of migration crisis, and I think they would like to move on at some point. 14:37 Yeah, it's a little like kick the can, I guess, and, and who can, uh, who can they pass this on to? Um, 14:44 I guess the other big story this week, among several, um, is ongoing talk that the Trump administration is gonna try to, uh, declare Iran in violation of the nuclear deal. 14:58 Um, there's a lot of questions because it doesn't seem like Iran is actually in violation. Um, but we had a p- another piece on the site this week, uh, that I think you wanted to highlight, Omar, right? 15:09 That, that mentioned some of the costs of Trump or the Trump administration possibly going down this road. 15:15 Yeah, I thought there was a great piece by, um, our guest columnist this week, Neil Bhatia, uh, on that subject, and I think he did a good job explaining why, um, snapback sanctions, if the, if the Trump administration were to try to pursue that, uh, would pretty much be useless and put us at loggerheads with, uh, America's allies, uh, overseas and China and Russia, who are not very likely to, um, to agree to those terms with us and go back on, on, on putting sanctions on Iran. 15:44 Yeah, Neil made the good point that, um, 15:47 in the, in this, uh, area, but also I think it could be applied to a lot of other foreign policy issues, uh, if you pursue a Trump, or rather if you pursue an America Alone strategy, uh, in the context of the Iran deal, an America First strategy in the context of the Iran deal, it's really gonna mean America alone. 16:05 Um, nobody's gonna go along with, um, a new round of sanctions against Iran if they're not in violation of the deal, given all the costs that are at stake. Um, and Robbie, I think there was another piece in 16:19 the African continent, given that you covered that pretty extensively for us, that you wanted to mention too? Uh, yeah. I wanted to bring readers' attention to a piece we had by Yassin Ahmed Ismail. 16:30 Uh, it's about the recent surrender of a former leader of Al-Shabaab, the militant group in, that's based in Somalia. 16:37 Uh, and I think he does a good job of cutting through some of the noise about just how big a deal this surrender is and talks instead about the debate within Somalia over whether to grant amnesty to these types of people, uh, or to pursue prosecutions and how important it is to find the right balance, uh, when trying to defeat the group. 16:59 I thought it was es-especially surprising because I didn't, I hadn't realized in, in reading the article, or until I read the article, that, uh, there's a handful of prominent Al-Shabaab leaders who have either surrendered or apparently defected, uh, and they're ba-basically living pretty comfortably in Mogadishu with state protection. 17:16 One of them, I think, lives even in, in, in, in Doha, in the capital of Qatar. Um, and it's like this question of, of what happens when these guys surrender. 17:26 Um, are they sort of just given a, a reprieve, um, and they're allowed to sort of carry on like, uh, nothing happened? 17:34 Right, and some of them are living like kings, I think, in Mogadishu, uh, which has got to be pretty alarming for people who would like to see the fighting stop. 17:42 Um, uh, but you know, an amnesty program is important for lower-level fighters, uh, and not something that should be completely dismissed. 17:49 Uh, but what Yassin talks about is the need to find this balance between the two approaches. Yeah, and, and the piece that I wanted to mention was, uh, another look at the, the departure of Trump's, um- 18:05 I guess combination, uh, Rasputin or Darth Vader or something else, uh, Steve Bannon, who left the White House earlier this month. Uh, and Stuart Patrick had a, a very good briefing looking at why 18:17 the sovereignty card that Bannon is basically credited with, um, you know, trumpeting US sovereignty over, o- over everything else and having that really shape the nationalist worldview that Trump rode into the White House, that's not going away even if Bannon is gone. 18:33 Um, Trump's sovereigntism, as Stuart puts it, is, is here to stay. Well, thanks a lot for talking, guys. Uh, and I think I'm gonna kick it over to Peter for the report now. Great talking with you, too. All right. 18:46 Thanks, Freddy. And now here's Peter for the report. [instrumental music] It's a war that has lasted on and off for a quarter of a century. 18:57 [firecrackers exploding] Sri Lanka's civil war ended six years ago, but alleged war criminals on both sides have never faced justice. 19:05 But as security services keep a tight rein on the Tamil community, peace is coming at a terrible price for some. People today are living in the midst of fear. People are still being abducted. 19:21 People are still disappearing. In 2009, Sri Lanka emerged from more than a quarter of a century of civil war. 19:29 The Sri Lankan government and army achieved a complete military victory against the rebels of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, but at a heavy price in terms of civilians' lives lost and displaced. 19:41 One lasting legacy of the conflict are tens of thousands of the forced disappearances carried out by security forces on all sides. 19:48 Today, I'm joined by two guests to discuss the issue of forced disappearances in Sri Lanka and how it impacts Sri Lanka's ongoing efforts at transitional justice eight years after the end of the civil war. 19:59 So Sri Lanka is an island nation, uh, south of India. 20:04 This is Mutila Bala, a US lawyer who previously worked with the Center for Human Rights and Development in Colombo and the Center for Justice and Accountability in San Francisco. 20:14 The population is predominantly Sinhalese, and, uh, Bud... the Sinhalese population is predominantly Buddhist. 20:22 Um, there are ethnic minorities, the Tamil minority and the Muslim minority, um, considered a separate ethnic group. Sri Lanka has undergone, uh, three decades of, uh, old civil war. 20:35 And this is Shreen Saror, who works with war-affected women in Sri Lanka's former conflict zones and is the founder of Mannar Women's Development Federation. 20:45 And it, it has been, uh, between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan, uh, state military. Uh, the war ended in 2009, May, and it was, uh, particularly a victory for the Sri Lankan state. 20:59 Uh, therefore, the Tamil minority feels that they have been beaten up, and in that context, currently Sri Lanka is in the process of, um, uh, transitional justice, uh, setting up transitional justice mechanism, uh, due to international pressure. 21:16 One major aspect of transitional justice in Sri Lanka would be to make progress in solving tens of thousands of cases of forced disappearances dating back decades. 21:27 Uh, enforced disappearance in Sri Lanka, uh, has impacted all three of the ethnic communities. Um, so in the 1970s, 1971, and the late 1980s, there were two Marxist insurrections of Sinhalese youth. 21:45 Uh, and in both of these instances, thousands of Sinhalese, uh, were disappeared by state security forces. Um, now, throughout the civil war, which is a separate, um, 21:59 issue entirely, thou- tens of thousands of Tamil people were disappeared, uh, particularly in the north and the east. 22:07 And when the civil war ended in May 2009, uh, there were hundreds of people who, uh, tried to surrender to Sri Lankan military custody, uh, with the help of a Catholic priest named Father Francis, and all of those individuals have disappeared after being taken into, uh, the custody of state security forces. 22:33 Separate from that, um, the Muslim community, which as I mentioned are considered a distinct ethnic group, uh, were also disappeared during the war, uh, both by the LTTE, or Tamil Tigers, and paramilitary groups and state security forces. 22:51 So this is a problem that has affected all three communities, and, um, the scope of the problem is, is enormous. 22:59 Uh, uh, in 2013, the, uh, UN working group for, on enforced and involuntary disappearances produced a list that, uh, ranked Sri Lanka as the second highest among countries in the world, uh, on outstanding cases of enforced disappearances, so unresolved cases. 23:20 Um, and, you know, there have been dozens of, uh, at least a dozen ad hoc commissions of inquiry set up by the Sri Lankan government since the 1990s. Each of them has recorded thousands of, uh, cases of disappearances. 23:38 Uh, one in the 1990s recorded 27,500 complaints, uh, and a more recent one in 2013 recorded, uh, 20,000 complaints. So this is, the problem is massive. 23:54 Um, for people who follow disappearances in Argentina or other Latin American countries, it is on that scale. 24:01 The lived realities of these women that, uh, you know, currently they are the ones who are on the streets, uh, protesting and demanding for justice because many of them trusted Sri Lankan state military at the end of the war, and then they surrendered, many thousand. 24:18 Of, um, uh, men, uh, and women and children who have been connected to, uh, some way to the LTTE, uh, need not to be, uh, actively fighting. 24:29 Some of them are, um, you know, working with the m- with LTTE as part of subgroups like the, the radio programmers and that kind of people. Need not to be people who took up arms. 24:41 Uh, and, uh, they were collectively given rehabilitation. Um, some of them have been released, but we are told many thousand of them have been massacred or rather killed, um, uh, or tortured and killed. 24:58 Um, but families believe that they are in a detention center because many of these people, by busloads, have been taken to undeclared detention center, not official prisons, and they have been tortured, and then thereafter sent for rehabilitation. 25:17 In that context, people, uh, family members, particularly women, mothers, wives, and sisters, are still looking for their missing- Taking a step back from the standpoint of a, a family of the disappeared, someone who, uh, saw their husband that morning and, and, uh, 25:38 h- he didn't come home. Um, that person would take every, uh, step possible to ask neighbors, uh, "Have you seen my husband? Have you, uh, did you see what happened to him?" 25:52 Go to the police, file a first information report. 25:56 Um, but in many cases, police officers are unwilling to record the complaints, uh, of missing persons, um, because the, the people who took the missing person, um, is perhaps politically powerful or, uh, either connected to the state or connected to a paramilitary group. 26:18 Um, so even at the very initial level, families struggle to get their complaints recorded. Um, beyond that, uh, when you look at, uh, what people do, the, e- each of these families, the stories sound remarkably similar. 26:34 People have gone to the ICRC, uh, and registered their complaints. They have gone, uh, to the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka and registered their complaint. 26:45 They have written letters to the president and the prime minister saying, "I saw, um, or neighbor saw my husband being taken by, uh, s- military uniformed individuals or, or, um, uh, police, people in police uniforms." 27:04 So demanding answers. Um, and finally, people have gone before any number of these ad hoc commissions of inquiry. 27:13 These are presidential commissions that have been set up by successive governments since 1990, uh, to address the issue of enforced disappearance. 27:23 And that is the context that you have to understand the fatigue that families feel, um, in engaging with yet another mechanism. 27:34 They have gone before 10, 12, uh, forums to tell their story, uh, and demand answers, and they haven't gotten any. And, and so there, there's a, a level of desperation, um, that 27:49 nothing will be different this time around. Um, so taking a step from, from the context of, of what families go through to, um, uh, 28:01 recent promises that have been made, um, in 2015, the, the Sri Lankan government, the newly elected, uh, unity government of, uh, uh, President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, um, 28:20 have, uh, committed to the UN Human Rights Commission, uh, U- UN Human Rights Council resolution, uh, to launch transitional justice initiatives. 28:31 And one of those initiatives is supposed to be an office of missing persons, uh, and that is supposed to trace the missing. 28:39 So a separate standalone office, unlike these presidential commissions of inquiry that did not produce any answers before, um, the, the goal is that a standalone office, um, is going to deliver perhaps different results. 28:57 Um, so this was the promise. Uh, they also promised that they would, um, set up other transitional justice mechanisms, um, related to justice and truth. 29:09 Um, they promised to criminalize enforced disappearance under Sri Lankan law, um, and sign on to the International Convention on Enforced Disappearances. 29:22 So these were some of the promises made, and we can talk about where, where Sri Lanka has, uh, measured up. 29:30 In Sri Lanka, the Prevention of Terrorism Act, uh, actually, uh, decriminalized disappearance because it allowed people to be kept under custody without a lawyer being pre-present or being present to the magistrate, uh, for more than, uh, like 72 hours. 29:47 So in that context, um, you know, like the international pressure, the Sri Lankan government started moving, uh, very slowly. 29:56 The new government, in its commitment to international community, also ratified the International Convention for Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance in May 2016. 30:08 And OMP, a, a permanent office, Office of Missing. Act was signed, uh, in August 2016. 11 months later, president issued a gazette notification, um, s- assigning the OMP under the Ministry of National Reconciliation. 30:26 And to date, um, we are in the, uh, second year since the government started doing all this work and, uh, the, the ministry, as per the OMP Act, uh, the Ministry of National Reconciliation has to issue a gazette notification operationalizing OMP. 30:43 Now, many of us civil society who have been running around in the country and abroad- Uh, particularly in the Geneva circle, um, got actually take, uh, I mean, taken, I mean, they have, the government has taken us for granted. 30:57 I mean, even last year, uh, Geneva that many of the civil society activists agreed for extension, including myself, thinking that the Sri Lankan government would do something. 31:10 Something in the context of these families of disappeared who are desperate to know what happened to their kith and kin. 31:17 And to date, uh, this government is dragging its feet and what is happening to civil society is civil society is falling apart. There is lack of trust and, uh, civil society has, um, uh, has been divided. 31:32 Uh, in the north and all, people like me can't go and work there because, uh, we have been working, uh, within the international circle, and the government has promised us to deliver something and it has not been delivered. 31:45 And therefore, the families of disappeared are very angry with certain civil society actors who have been, uh, helping the extension process in Geneva. And there is lack of trust. 31:56 Um, uh, even the families of disappeared, um, you know, like the, the leadership has been divided because certain diaspora groups, certain political groups, certain groups with some o- other agenda have been dividing this group. 32:11 I mean, now a good example is tomorrow there are going to be too many protests, uh, in the north and in, uh, in Colombo as well. 32:18 Uh, this shows that they are not united because they can't be united because the civil society is not united in terms of getting them justice because this government has taken us for a good run. 32:29 You would think that the issue of disappearances would be an easy sell. Um, now two things that come up. 32:36 One is that although on paper there has been a, um, change in government and a commitment to, uh, the reform process, it's important to remember that this reform process, these commitments only came about, uh, due to sustained international pressure, uh, over the past four years. 32:56 And this was international pressure led by civil society activists within Sri Lanka, uh, trying to elevate the voices of victims, uh, of the conflict and, and families of the disappeared to, to push for tangible progress. 33:11 So, um, as a result of sustained pressure under the former president, uh, Rajapaksa, who, uh, equated Human Rights Watch and other, uh, human, human rights groups with terrorist outfits, um, uh, the world began to see that, that, um, uh, change was needed. 33:31 So yes, the new government that came to power did commit to, uh, uh, ambitious reforms and in part it was to get the international community off its back. 33:44 The, the thing to remember is that on the ground, uh, the situation has not changed in terms of, um, the, the nationalist elements within the Sinhalese majority community. 33:58 So among the Sinhalese majority community, it is still viewed with great suspicion. 34:05 Um, there is a feeling that the military won the war and now they're being punished by the international community, uh, for issues that only relate to the Tamil community. 34:17 Um, and so they, they perceive that any effort to deal with the past is an effort to tarnish the, the honor of the military war heroes who defeated terrorism in Sri Lanka. 34:33 Um, a- and that mean- meaning bringing an end to the civil war. 34:37 So I think it, it is important to separate what appears on paper to be a commitment to reform, uh, from, uh, in practice, what are the political elements on the ground that, that stymie true reform. 34:54 Um, and, and the problem is twofold. One is that it's very easy to co-opt, um, 35:03 uh, it's very easy to convey to, um, the, the, a distrustful Sinhalese majority that, oh, this is going to be, um, any of these efforts is going to lead to, uh, accountability, uh, locking up our, our war heroes. 35:20 So even tracing the missing, they're going to be gathering evidence about who took, uh, this Tamil person. Um, and that is ultimately going to unravel into, uh, locking up our military high command. Um, 35:37 s- so i- it's easy to spread this narrative without, um, a- a- while obscuring the narrative, uh, that 35:48 these are also Sinhalese people who have been disappeared in the tens of thousands, uh, and Muslim people who have been disappeared in the thousands. So, uh, 35:59 although it should be an easy agenda item, the government is not doing anything to make the case, uh, that addressing disappearances, um, i- is a good step forward for all ethnic communities. 36:13 I think it, uh, it is, one thing is th- this government has to deliver soon as possible. 36:20 It is not only just the OMP, but also the constitutional reform, uh, mm, reform that is, that, uh, that is already happening in the country. The, the, the Tamil political party has invested a lot on it. 36:33 So if the government does not deliver both the OMP and the constitution, the new constitution, I think the moderate Tamil politicians will lose ground. 36:45 And then, uh, UN also to be blamed because UN is also pumping a lot of money into Sri Lankan government, uh, you know- processes, the so-called peace building processes or reconciliation processes. 36:59 And the, the, the push from their side is, uh, I think it's reducing because, uh, they want to see Sri Lanka as a success story. 37:09 So, y- you know, in that context, I think many of us civil society have been, you know, like demanding the UN to be firm with the Sri Lankan government and to operationalize the OMB soon as possible. 37:23 But, um, time has run out, and I personally feel the Tamil people from the north don't want to engage in the OMB process unless we have good commissioners, commissioners coming from victims, representing victims, and also Tamil-speaking commissioners, commissioners whom the families trust. 37:42 If the commissioners at least take some emblematic cases of disappearance and, you know, open up, uh, inquiries, then they can build trust, but time is running out. 37:55 Thanks to Mythili Bala and Shirin Saroor for joining us this week. If you'd like to read more about Sri Lanka's disappeared, you can find their in-depth article on worldpoliticsreview.com. 38:05 If you like what you hear on Trendlines and have come across our articles online, please consider subscribing to WPR. It's the best way you can support our work. We currently have a 25% discount for podcast listeners 38:19 on an annual subscription, which you can sign up for on our website. Just enter the special coupon code PODCAST on the registration page. 38:28 And please consider rating us on iTunes so we can move up the podcast ladder there. It's the best way to grow our visibility. Trendlines is produced and edited by Peter Dory, who also conducts the report interviews. 38:40 You can follow Peter and World Politics Review on Twitter, and you can find links to all the pieces we discussed today in the show notes on worldpoliticsreview.com. 38:49 Thanks for listening, and see you next week for a new episode of Trendlines. 38:52 [outro music]
