Sri Lanka conflict report to be released in Tamil next week

The report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) was made public in December 2011 but was only released in English.

The government this week made public its action plan which dealt with the anticipated time scales to implement all the recommendations.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa's secretary Lalith Weeratunga who heads the panel to oversee the LLRC recommendations said the Sinhala and Tamil versions of the LLRC report would be issued next week.

The LLRC was Sri Lanka's answer to international calls for investigation into the alleged human rights abuses during the last stage of the military campaign against the LTTE.

An expert panel of the UN secretary general demanded that Sri Lanka start a credible investigation into rights abuses.

Since the LLRC report was made public Sri Lanka was put under pressure to implement its recommendations in order to achieve reconciliation with the Tamil minority.

The Tamil language issue, one of the deep rooted causes of the ethnic strife, was addressed in the LLRC recommendations.

Action to make it compulsory that all government offices have Tamil speaking officers and that no district or province should be categorised in terms of language are two key such recommendations in the LLRC aimed at achieving language parity.