I think the most promising avenue is this. In my meetings and exchanges with people in the north, for example, they make a very simple point. They say the government is saying that we are all one people now, that we should not be talking about being Sinhala, Tamil, and Muslim, or whatever, that we're all citizens of Sri Lanka, that we all belong to one country and we're all equal citizens. They make the point that equality has to be founded upon self-respect, dignity, and mutual respect, and in order for them to have that mutual respect, etc., they can't be told to forget about what happened to them. There needs to be an acknowledgement of what happened. What follows from that is we can debate the various mechanisms and processes, but what they want is an acknowledgement by the state, by the government, of the situation they went through and which they have come out of. It is only on that basis, on the basis of that acknowledgement, that they can even begin to think of themselves as equal citizens.
On November 21st, 2013. See this statement in context.