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As organised and natural processes of post-war nation-building are continuing in Sri Lanka, it is important to infuse the discourse with a critical component of democratisation: The need for public participation and ownership of programmes of nation-building. Such will undoubtedly contribute to the sustainability of initiatives and the maximising of its dividends. Who participates – to what degree, at what stage, and in what capacity – is therefore critical.

Comparative experience shows that nation-building processes with structured opportunities for broader public participation can widen the range of issues addressed, including the structural causes of conflict; to help produce broadly legitimate peace and reconciliation agreements; strengthen the capacity for inclusive political participation in future governance and to facilitate a degree of political reconciliation.

The possibilities for more participatory models are revealed from South Africa to Northern Ireland, Guatemala to Mali, and the Philippines to Papua New Guinea-Bougainville.

"The problem of scale means that it would be difficult for every member of a society to meaningfully participate directly at the national level, although there may be more scope at the national level"

To this end, three modes of public participation in a peacemaking mechanism in Sri Lanka can be considered.


Representation through multi-party negotiations: South Africa’s negotiations and Northern Ireland’s Belfast Talks
Multi-party negotiating forums act as the deliberative or decision-making body to decide the political future of the country, potentially formalised through public referendums or constitutional reforms. Political party structures serve as the channel to promote constituency interests and values; negotiators are able to consult party members and public constituencies and potentially bring them along in the process. Multi-party negotiations can potentially create opportunities for new political groupings to emerge. Various decision-making procedures are utilised for formalising agreements, including ‘sufficient consensus’, voting and public referendums.
The impressions of South Africa’s Eldred De Klerk are valuable: ‘During the transition, South Africans started to debunk misperceptions and myths about each other. As trust increased, they began to make the political compromises necessary for a mutually acceptable future. They soon learned that the benefit of engagement was in the process itself as well as in the outcomes…And to this end all stakeholders – and as many people as possible – needed to be engaged and the process to be as transparent and accessible as possible.’ (http://www.c-r.org/sites/c-r.org/files/13_Public%20Participation%20in%20peacemaking_2004_ENG_F.pdf)



Consultative processes accompanying peace negotiations: Guatemala’s Civil Society Assembly and the Philippines National Unification Commission


Such a mechanism typically engages organised civil society, either as diverse sectors or those located in specific regions or localities. The focus is on identifying conflict issues and making recommendations to address them; the process can influence the official negotiating agenda and substantive agreements. Consultations can happen at different ‘levels’ including local, provincial and national and involve different groupings. Heterogeneity in society means diverse groupings potentially in the same forum, creating the possibility of forging common ground on contentious issues that can contribute to practical change and facilitate a degree of reconciliation. Processes have the potential to take debates outside elite circles and into the public sphere, thus helping to open the process to ordinary people and contribute to social consensus.

Guatemala’s Enrique Alvarez and Tania Palencia Prado shared conclusions on the national public participatory mechanisms: ‘The peace accords finalised in December 1996 brought a formal end to a war that had lasted intermittently for 36 years. They included almost 200 substantive commitments that, if fulfilled, would bring significant changes to the structure of the Guatemalan state and society…The scope of the accords was due partially to several mechanisms that enabled representatives of organized sectors of civil society to discuss problems largely untouched in public debate for decades…’ (http://www.c-r.org/sites/c-r.org/files/13_Public%20Participation%20in%20peacemaking_2004_ENG_F.pdf)



Direct participation at local level: Mali’s inter-community meetings, Columbia’s municipal constituent assemblies, South Africa’s local and regional peace committees

This model engages all those with an interest in the ways of reaching and implementing an agreement, sometimes involving thousands of participants. It is generally suited in a local context and typically aims at generating a ‘pragmatic space’ between those inter-dependent communities by addressing issues within their control.
These localized processes can help to generate a new approach to politics and create spaces conducive to national reconciliation.

As Kare Lode noted, ‘It was only when thousands of people …engaged directly in inter-community peacemaking that the path to national reconciliation opened. The involvement of all those most affected by the conflict in open and inclusive decision-making meetings was able to achieve what official political negotiations could not: A transformation of the conflict and consolidation of peace.’ (http://www.c-r.org/sites/c-r.org/files/13_Public%20Participation%20in%20peacemaking_2004_ENG_F.pdf)
Public participation should also be understood within the wider context of the right to effective participation in governance. To this end, citizenry as a whole, as individuals and as groupings, need to take their role as citizens seriously, something which is not always the case in Sri Lanka. The responsibility of citizens can never be absolutely abrogated through social contract, as a residuary responsibility remains with the citizen and is non-alienable in an absolute sense as expounded by jurists of the theory be it Hobbes, Locke or Rousseau.

The problem of scale means that it would be difficult for every member of a society to meaningfully participate directly at the national level, although there may be more scope at the national level. Thus the number of potential dilemmas concerning accountability and representativeness of the participants must not be overlooked.  Several methods have been used to help address this in the political representative context: Delegates were chosen through public elections and referenda were organized to ensure both a constituency mandate and consent to the agreements reached.

The consultation mechanisms did not include such formal measures; yet although influential, the participants were not charged with the responsibility of making legally-binding agreements about their country’s future. More salient criteria might be whether they truly represented the diversity of public interest and opinion and whether they were able to generate a broad social consensus in support of the process and agreements reached.

Whichever model or combination is adopted or indeed adapted for the Sri Lankan context it must ensure that it suits the local realities, both politically and socially. A challenge, however, will be to inculcate in citizens the need and value of participating in nation-building endeavours with both a sense of responsibility and ownership. Education and awareness-raising can be an useful first step.
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