The Defence Ministry has finally admitted civilian casualties in the latter phase of our civil war. This is a welcome move. Less welcoming, however, is their posture.

Their broad perspective is ‘trust us, everything is fine.’ To that end, they trot out multiple Tamil spokespersons touting this government line. In that, they go a bit too far.

Years after the end of war we still live under Emergency Law. The last man who dared run against the President is in jail. The government saw fit to ram through an amendment extending his term without implementing the laws already on the books (devolution, the Constitutional Councils). Is life better than during the war? Undoubtedly, but this a subterranean benchmark. Is life as it should be? Undoubtedly not.

There are many who are proud to be Sri Lankan but ashamed of our government. That is a crucial line to draw. In their poorly produced documentary ‘Lies Agreed Upon’ the Defence Ministry responds point by point to Channel 4’s equally dubious ‘Killing Fields’ documentary.

Both skew the reality based on government procured footage for the former and likely LTTE sourced material for the latter. The Tamil civilians in the middle have gone from being cannon fodder to camera fodder, an improvement mainly in that they are alive.

In ‘Lies Agreed Upon’, Tamil civilians are documented thanking the government for not raping or killing them and for providing food and shelter. This is simply humiliating. These are simply the basic duties of a government. What of the right to legal process? What of the right to leave the camps, or to be given notice as to why they were detained? What of the right to government service in their national language? None of this is discussed. It is simply, trust us, everything is fine.

It should be obvious that everything is not fine. In peacetime, every single election has been marred by every type of rigging before the box. Use of state resources, proxy violence, post-election intimidation and arrest are now standard practice for every election.

Economically, the country is thumbing its nose at its main business and tourism partners and running to the arms of China, a nation which provides high-interest loans and few visitors. The government is looking for money anywhere possible, including its attempt to raid the pension funds of private sector works to pay the bloated public sector and gamble on the bubbling stock market.

With no sense of economy, however, they continue to seek out billion dollar projects like hosting the Commonwealth Games in Hambantota, building infrastructure to serve the President’s home district. This folly, like Mihin Air, is policy motivated by personal whim. That airline, now seeking recapitalization is beloved only by its namesake. The idea of a urban Hambantota that could use such infrastructure again exists only in his mind. Instead of developing much needed development and attention to major cities like Jaffna and Trinco, he is pushing to harm the national treasure of Yala – our wildlife – because he wants to develop near his hometown.

So, can we trust the government that everything is fine? Certainly not. And this has not even begun to address their content during and after the war.

When baited by LTTE forces in the diaspora, the government has reacted not with reason, honesty and reconciliation, but with defensiveness and lies.

Was the Channel 4 documentary completely honest? No, and it and other forces for prosecution are certainly influenced by LTTE lobbies abroad. Like the LTTE itself, however, they exaggerate the underlying truth.

The Sri Lankan government ended its civil war by bombing, shelling and shooting its own citizens. It later imprisoned those citizens without charge, ‘removed’ anyone they did not like without legal process and retains their territory under force of arms, still refusing to devolve constitutional rights to its people.

This is the truth disagreed upon, that the government line is not true, that everything is not fine, and that they have done terrible wrong and continue to deviate from the right. In fact, the government cannot be counted upon to deliver reconciliation because it was only under intense pressure that they admitted any civilian casualties at all. Prior to that, the official line was that no civilian blood was shed at all.

This ‘see no evil’ attitude pervades their execution of all political and economic af

fairs, ranging fro

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Truth Disagreed Upon

m the obviously incompetent running of the Cricket Board to routinely corrupt tender processes to opaque transactions with the Chinese and selling sovereign Sri Lankan land to foreign companies.

It is, however, vital that the Sri Lankan people see these evils before the financial and moral debt is placed upon further generations. While anti-Sri Lanka vitriol from abroad is misplaced, the government replaces it with jingoistic, poorly produced responses which play only to its base at home. It does nothing to reach out to the vast majority of diasporals who are either disinterested or realistic and thus Sri Lanka’s reputation continues to suffer in the world at large. So while we commend the government for finally admitting some civilian casualties, we would like them to see that there have been casualties in all aspects of their governance. From freedom of speech, to freedom from torture to the freedom to get service in all national languages, the government has repeatedly come up short and repeatedly said, ‘trust us, everything is fine’.

Things, however, are not fine. Indeed, according to this government we are still in a state of emergency. If they say that everything they’re doing is right and good, why not lift the Emergency, implement the Constitution and carry on in the light of day. Then, and only then, will Sri Lanka emerge from a state merely better than war to a state all Sri Lankans can be proud of.