Prospects for Post-Conflict Reconciliation and Development

Can Singapore be used as a model?

In conversation with Professor John Richardson

PROSPECTS FOR POST CONFLICT RECONCILIATION AND DEVELOPMENT IN SRI LANKA: CAN SINGAPORE BE USED AS A MODEL? Tuesday, 27 April 2010 at 12 noon Registration starts at 11.45 a.m NUS University Hall, Lee Kong Chian Wing, Level 6, Nexus (map) To RSVP, please click here Closing Date: 23 April 2010 For more information, please click here

Abstract
Once it was Sri Lanka, not Singapore that was touted as a potential development ‘success story in Asia. More than twenty-five years of protracted ethnic conflict blighted that promise. Now the government’s military victory over the Tamil Tigers and Mahinda Rajapakse’s strong electoral mandate appear to offer Sri Lankans new hopes for reconciliation and economic development. To realize those hopes, Sri Lanka’s leaders must learn from their nation’s tragic history or be doomed to repeat it. Singapore’s less violent and more prosperous development trajectory has important lessons to offer. These lessons are of value not only to Sri Lanka’s leaders but to leaders of other Asian nations facing similar challenges.

Programme