Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission report cunningly withheld

A report of such importance is relegated to the bottom of the table and held on for a month to be presented to the parliament.

Rajapaksa relaxing in his reading room. Photo: Sri Lanka Guardian

(COLOMBO Sri Lanka Guardian) - It is undisputable that Sri Lanka under President Rajapakse as a regular practice is good at postponing sensitive issues being made public. The much awaited and criticised fate of the LLRC report too is struggling to come out to the surface as a result of the deceptive practices followed in buckling similar reports in the recent past.

The Chairman of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), C.R. De Silva handed over the LLRC report to President Mahinda Rajapaksa on 21 November 2011 at the Temple Trees. There is suggestion in the news media, that the report is now in the hands of the President and is expected to be tabled in the parliament by 21 December in its entirety or only the observations and recommendation given therein to be taken up.

At present the report is in the hands of the President for his reading and consideration in his luxury reading room amidst his pressurising work schedule including his birthday celebrations, opening of the southern high way, presentation of the budget etc., etc.

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Emperor Nero was fair-haired, with weak blue eyes, a fat neck, a pot belly and a body which smelt and was covered with spots. He usually appeared in public in a sort of dressing gown without a belt, a scarf around his neck and no shoes. ‘In character he was a strange mix of paradoxes; artistic, sporting, brutal, weak, sensual, erratic, extravagant, sadistic, bisexual - and later in life almost certainly deranged. ‘In fact, Nero, most likely largely due to the influence of his tutor Seneca, came across as a very humane ruler at first. When the city prefect Lucius Pedanius Secundus was murdered by one of his slaves, Nero was intensely upset that he was forced by law to have all four hundred slaves of Pedanius' household put to death. ‘Nero celebrated by staging yet wilder orgies and by creating two new festivals of chariot-racing and athletics. He also staged musical contests, which gave him further chance to demonstrate in public his talent for singing while accompanying himself on the lyre. ‘In an age when actors and performers were seen as something unsavoury, it was a moral outrage to have an emperor performing on stage. Worse still, Nero being the emperor, no one was allowed to leave the auditorium while he was performing, for whatever reason.’ - Quote from early Emperors Chronology.

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A report of such importance is relegated to the bottom of the table and held on for a month to be presented to the parliament. The executive President who has unrestricted extensive powers even to change a man to a women and a woman to a man has taken the hide and seek route to present the report to the parliament as a time wasting exercise. Whatever legitimacy he may claim to have, he did not follow the same principle, when he abandoned the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) report of his minister Prof Tissa Vitharane on the devolution of powers to politically resolve the historical conflict, by making an debated decision in the parliament.

The President knows that all the international mechanisms will wind down for Christmas and even if there are pressures they will be miniscule to handle during this festive season. The President expects festive season and holidays will dampen any sustained pressures from the international community.

There is strong speculation that the report will be watered down and trivialised by the traditional game of hyphened rhetoric’s and issues will be stage managed whilst the deceptive agenda of the government to extended and fulfil its nationalistic agenda at any cost.

What government fails to realise is ‘There's an Elephant standing in the room. That we just quietly accept. For if we go on over and notice him. We don't know what quite to expect’ and that ‘Was the Giant really sleeping? Or was he really quite awake. Was he snoring, napping, nodding? Or just waiting for his rightful place?’ (The writer is referring to the literal meaning and not the elephant symbol of the Opposition UNP, a party that is a damn squib unable to provide a strong opposition to the repressive government)

Special thanks to the Political Editor from Colombo with Sri Lanka Guardian

http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2011/12/llrc-report-cunningly-withheld.html