Objective Of Committees: Produce More Committees, Not Results

The LLRC report did a fair white wash of the ‘humanitarian war’ upholding the government view that military operations were conducted  with humanitarian considerations being  given priority but it did call for further investigations into aspects  which was  its main  objective such as: attacks on hospitals by heavy artillery, disappearances  of people taken into custody and firing into ‘no fire zones’. The report   was presented to parliament on December 16 last year but there are no moves to be seen to inquire into areas of investigation suggested by the LLRC.

Instead the full focus has been turned  on the proposed Parliamentary Select Committee to make further recommendations for constitutional amendments: 13th Amendment. The LLRC flag has ceased to flutter and now it is on the 13th Amendment plus or minus. The TNA is being verbally walloped for not agreeing to participate in the parliamentary select committee forgetting the fact that they too are representative of most of the Tamil population. Various dollops in the form of economic development are on the cards they are being told. It does appear that the country has come back to square one where the Tamil  people  are offered what the government thinks they want and denied what they really want.

Delay is success

One of the basic objectives of ‘Commitology’ as described by Parkinson is delay. That is why a camel has been defined as a horse designed by a committee. The UN Human Rights Council is said to be in Geneva this month or somewhat later. They will obviously be told to hold their fire till Sri Lanka completes her investigations.

In conclusion we must confess that we are at a loss to understand how President Rajapaksa will collate the conclusions reached by all his APC committees, the LLRC, the proposed  Parliamentary Select Committee and the APC he had proposed last week. Is he to feed all the proposals of his committees into one of the super-computers of the Sri Lanka government and draw out a solution? We only hope the results will be better than the computerised GCE A’Level results.

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