Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC): findings and what happened next

The final phase of Sri Lanka's armed conflict with the LTTE, which ended in 2009, and reconciliation afterwards.

Implementation, as of 3 April 2012Implementation of the LLRC recommendations was not verified from a fetched official or monitoring source.

What the inquiry found

The commission concluded that "the security forces had not deliberately targeted the civilians in the no fire zones", while civilian casualties occurred in crossfire.¹
It found that the LTTE's "targeting and killing of civilians who attempted to flee" contributed to civilian casualties.¹
On hospital shelling the commission said it was "not in a position to come to a definitive conclusion" on responsibility.¹
The commission said "The conflict could have been avoided" had southern political leaders agreed a fair solution, and held Tamil political leaders equally responsible.²

Recommendations included investigating incidents of civilian deaths and prosecuting where wrongdoing was found, and fully investigating disappearances after surrender.¹
They also included a special commissioner on disappearances, criminalising enforced disappearances, a central detainee database and an advisory committee on detention under anti terrorism law.³

16 December 2011The report was tabled in Parliament by the Leader of the House.^1,3
19 December 2011IRIN reported that Human Rights Watch said the recommendations had "serious shortcomings", and that rights groups and diplomats called for an international inquiry, which the government rejected.³
22 March 2012The UN Human Rights Council adopted resolution 19/2, Promoting reconciliation and accountability in Sri Lanka, by 24 votes to 15 with 8 abstentions.⁴