A/HRC/45/45/Add.1 the peaks and troughs of what remains an unfinished process. Their persistence in the face of often incomprehensible difficulties and lack of attention is admirable and inspirational. 7. In November 2017, the Special Rapporteur shared his preliminary findings 1 and was encouraged, at the time, by the willingness of some government officials to cooperate and acknowledge that more concerted action was needed. Since then, despite the establishment of the Office on Missing Persons and the Office for Reparations, the Government of Sri Lanka has not moved towards a genuine comprehensive transitional justice policy, nor has it taken ownership of the aspiration to do so. It would be a serious mistake to use the tragic events of 2019 as an excuse to sidestep issues of accountability and redress, let alone to backtrack on hard-won gains. The present report was sent to the Government for comments on 28 August 2019 and was finalized on 24 January 2020. II. Background 8. Following a conflict that lasted over more than 25 years, on 19 May 2009 the President of Sri Lanka declared an end to the civil war between the Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Tamil Tigers). While the North and East of the country were the most affected regions, the prolonged conflict had left no community untouched. The immediate post-war period brought with it the possibility of reconciliation; however, neither reconciliation nor accountability were actively pursued. 9. During the last stage of the conflict, thousands of civilians died or suffered various types of violations at the hands of both sides in the conflict. Those violations included thousands of documented cases of enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention, extrajudicial killing and sexual violence, all of which precipitated massive internal displacement. 2 The precise number of victims still remains to be established through extensive and reliable investigations. 10. The Special Rapporteur has noted the tendency to discuss transitional justice in Sri Lanka as if it concerned only victims of the conflict with the Tamil Tigers and, in turn, as if it affected only the Sinhala and Tamil communities. Doing so leaves out the Muslim and other religious communities that have been affected by the conflict. One need only recall the expulsion of Muslims from Jaffna in 1990, from land that had been theirs for generations, and the lukewarm embrace they received from the majority community. 11. Sri Lanka has a history of violence and human rights violations and abuses that long predates the beginning of the recent conflict. It would be a gross simplification – and a form of manipulation – to reduce that history to an intercommunal dimension. Indeed, it should be recalled that the 1971 insurrection, the 1987–1989 violence and the violence perpetrated by the Tamil Tigers against Tamils, are examples of intracommunal violence. 12. Sri Lanka has suffered not only from poor intercommunal relations but also from weak institutions that have either facilitated violence, violations or abuses, or that have found themselves incapable of ensuring accountability even for intracommunal manifestations of violence. Hence, in Sri Lanka all communities have victims. 13. In a context in which there should be a generalized (even if not symmetrical) interest in providing redress and in preventing violence across communities, a comprehensive transitional justice policy that seeks to satisfy, promote and protect the rights to truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence (as a matter of fundamental rights, that is, regardless of any consideration other than that a human right has been violated or abused) could make a significant contribution to the recognition of victims, not only in light of their suffering (as plentiful as it has been) but, crucially, by virtue of their being equal rights holders. Moreover, such a policy could help establish minimum conditions of trust, 1 2 See www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22274&LangID=E. A/HRC/30/61. See also the outcome of the investigation of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Sri Lanka (available from www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/RegularSessions/Session30/Pages/ListReports.aspx). 3