A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Sunday, September 30, 2018
Serious doubts over Sri Lanka’s political will to find its disappeared
Sri
Lanka’s president handing over the task of determining the fate of
thousands of forcibly disappeared Tamils, to a group of ruling party
politicians has cast doubt on the government’s political commitment to
deliver justice to victims.
P
resident Maithripala Sirisena has appointed a ten-member cabinet
committee to implement urgent recommendations of the Office on Missing
Persons (OMP) meant to address the issue of enforced disappearances.
“There are also concerns that the appointment of this sub-committee
could be a delaying tactic to further undermine the process, especially
as there is no timeline given for its activities,” says the Johannesburg
based International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) in a press release containing damning evidence of the the dismal human rights record of two of the committee members.
Put together by ITJP, the human rights credentials of the head of the
cabinet committee, Wijayadasa Rajapakshe and another member Mahinda
Samarasinghe raises questions about their suitability for the job.
“Is the Sri Lanka Government serious about its Office of Missing Persons?” asks ITJP.
'Terrorist propaganda'
Most recently, Minister Samarasinghe rejected any suggestion that rebel Tamils who surrendered to the military were killed despite a member of parliament from his own party saying otherwise.
ITJP recalls that the minister has previously denounced reports of
enforced disappearance as terrorist propaganda and outrightly dismissed
the idea that Tamils disappeared after surrendering at the end of the
civil war.
“A
ppointing individuals like Mahinda Samarasinghe appears to be a
deliberate attempt to subvert the entire process, which is already
struggling for legitimacy with many Families of the Disappeared. It is
also extremely offensive for the families, many of whom handed their
loved ones over to the security forces at the end of the war never to
see them again,” said the ITJP’s Executive Director and transitional
justice expert, Yasmin Sooka.
As Human Rights Minister during the Rajapaksa Government, Mahinda
Samarasinghe continuously defended their record and continues to deny
state wrongdoing to this day.
“His appointment does not show political commitment to establishing the truth about enforced disappearances,” said Yasmin Sooka.
ITJP also questions the appointment of Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapaksa as head of the cabinet committee.
His record on “minority affairs, alleged support for religious
extremists and intolerance of freedom of expression and homosexuality
hardly make him the right person to oversee the implementation of a
rights-based approach to disappearance,” says ITJP.
ITJP has already documented more than 300 cases of those who did not return after their surrender to the Sri Lankan military in 2009 May.☐