Minister Ramalingam Chandrasekaran in the AKD government has come in for strong condemnation from the Tamil families of enforced disappearance persons for saying ‘they won’t come back’.
“It’s hard to believe those who were victims of enforced disappearance from the North and East will come back” Minister for Fisheries, Aquatic, and Ocean Resources in the new government led by Anura Kumara Dissanayake told recently, which has come in for sharp criticism by the families particularly the association led by Tamil women who are peacefully protesting and searching for their beloved ones for 15 years now.
He was speaking to a Tamil journalist from a leading daily from Colombo. Answering one of his queries, Fisheries Minister Chandrasekar said since it is a decade and a half now they have disappeared, it would be hard to believe they would come back.
“In our election manifesto this time we had promised to find a solution to those who disappeared and investigate into cases relating to it and bring those responsible for it before the law. None know what happened to those who disappeared. You can treat the physical wounds of those affected but can’t provide any medicine for the mental trauma of the families of those persons. Now that it is 15 years since the war ended, it is hard to believe victims of enforced disappearances will come back”.
The Association for Relatives of the Enforced Disappearances (AERD) North East Provinces a civil society group created to search for the tens of thousands of people who disappeared during Sri Lanka’s armed conflict, has expressed a deep sense of anguish over the remarks of the minister. Leeladevi Ananda Nadrajah Secretary of the ARED says the NPP minister’s comments have come as a shock to them who have been searching for their loved ones for over 2837 days now. The parents and others affected by the war are shell-shocked she says.
“He says those who have disappeared for 15 years are gone forever. This has really shocked us who are searching for them. We have been searching for our children for 15 years and have been protesting peacefully for over 2800 days. More than 300 parents who were part of this peaceful protest have lost their lives without knowing the fate of their children. Despite that, we are continuing our protests”.
A Minister who does not understand the mental trauma of the parents who are searching for their loved ones is very distressing for them and we condemn his remarks in the strongest terms, Leeladevi Anada Nadarajah further said.
“It is deeply distressing a Tamil Minister has commented upon like this without understanding the mental trauma of these mothers, fathers, and wives. We have already been emotionally traumatized. Already for the past 15 years, we have undergone unspeakable anguish mental stress, and strain. We are physically and emotionally drained. The losses we have suffered are immense. In such a situation, we strongly condemn the minister’s comments.
University students also oppose comments
The President of the Jaffna University Students Union also has questioned the comment of the Minister for Fisheries, Aquatic and Ocean Resources. He also recalled the activities of the party the minister represents, the Students Union leader says the minister could have commented as such because, the atrocities done by his party too will come to public light.
Jaffna University Faculty of Arts Students’ Union President Manoharan Somapalan, who questioned Minister Ramalingam Chandrasekhar’s comment to the Colombo based Tamil daily that it was not possible to believe that Tamils who were forcibly disappeared would return, insisted that the minister should first reveal what happened to the disappeared.
“If it is said that those who disappeared have disappeared, then you should first say what happened to those who were forcibly disappeared. I am saying this as a responsible citizen more than the President of the Arts Faculty Students’ Union. If something has happened to those who disappeared, then a case could be registered in the International Criminal Court. When such a case is filed, those related to it will be brought to court and made to stand in the witness box”.
“The party he belongs to also committed genocide before 2009. They are in no way better than others. Hence, fearing their own genocide acts may come out, he might have said such a thing” added Manoharan Somapalan.
‘14 people alive’
The Office for the Missing Persons (OMP) functioning for the past seven years, has recently found out that 14 people are alive after screening through thousands of complaints.
A member of the OMP, Thambiah Yogaraja, in a media briefing in November 2024 has said, details about them cannot be disclosed now.
“Our office has confirmed the fate of 17 persons. Among them, 3 have died. We have collected the information regarding the balance 14. We have found out those 14 are alive. However, we are not in a position to reveal details about it now. After obtaining the approval of the concerned, action will be taken to reveal the respective details”.
Speaking in Killinochi, the OMP member Thambiah Yogaraja added further the complaints received by their office has exceeded 20,000.
“Our OMP has received more than 21,630 complaints. Among them, there are duplicate entries and complaints received from the tri-service forces. After deducting those applications, 14,988 files with details were handed over to us for investigation, out of which initial investigation into 6,788 cases have been completed. Amongst them, interim relief has been granted to 3,800. As such an amount of 200,000LKR has been awarded to each of the complainants”.
He further added, that based on arrangements to issue untraceable certificates, action has been taken to issue the same to more than 3000.
The ARED has strongly criticized the OMP established on the 28th of February 2018, when Ranil Wickremesinghe was the Prime Minister. The affected families and relatives of the enforced disappeared persons have repeatedly pointed out that the said OMP, which they have already dismissed as a sham, has not even found a single individual who had disappeared.
Tamils have dismissed the OMP as unacceptable to them and continue to stress an international accountability mechanism to find the truth and render justice to those affected and punish the perpetrators of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
