(ICES Research Paper 4)

Abstract

"This essay raises some issues about justice in post-war Sri Lanka in relation to the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) and selected women who testified before the commission. It contextualises the LLRC within two dominant schools of thought on justice, and takes into account several factors that shaped its formation and functioning. It also speaks to a paradox: of why the LLRC attracted hundreds of witnesses from within Sri Lanka and approximately 5,000 written submissions when its very legitimacy was in question by both international and local actors, and in some cases by the witnesses who came forward themselves. Did this overwhelming response to the LLRC simply point to the (by now) common understanding that victims of violence must, of necessity, give public witness to atrocity inorder to record, shame, voice grievance, assert dignity, celebrate the exceptionality of their survival, and cope with their daily lives?... By discussing, in particular, what some female witnesses hoped to gain from the LLRC, this essay explores what the commission meant for these women survivors of war, and by extension, the gendering of post-war justice itself.