Sri Lanka’s head of the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) has been slammed for ‘spinning yarns’ to the international media by claiming there was no evidence that those who surrendered have disappeared.
Rebutting claims that those who surrendered went missing, Mahesh Katulanda, the chairman of OMP has told Reuters that there was no evidence, and adding that the majority of those who disappeared had been abducted by the LTTE or factions opposed to it.
Such denial of information regarding the forced disappearances accepted by not only war victims and international human rights organizations but even the OMP office itself undermines the credibility of that particular institution, said a prominent human rights activist.
“He says, there are around 50 people in other countries, and others were killed by the L.T.T.E. But I’m saying these are just spinning yarns. The reason why I’m saying that they are baseless is because those parents have clearly handed over their children to the army. So when the chairman of the OMP makes a statement like that, how can someone come to this institution to file a complaint, trusting that they would do what is needed.”
Britto Fernando, the President of Families of the Disappeared (FOD), made this allegation on Thursday morning, October 27, after staging a silent protest in front of the Office of Missing Persons.
The chairman of the OMP has further stated that although there’s reports about disappearances, his office had uncovered about 50 cases of people reported missing who were living abroad.
Denying claims of a genocide of Tamil civilians during the war’s final offensive in Mullivaikkal, he was reported as saying the army had instead rescued 60,000 civilians.
The human rights activist pointed out that the chairman of the OMP should not make the statements that are required by the government, emphasizing that every government that came to power have made such statements to cover up the killings they had committed.
“You are here to tell the truth. Not to tell the things that the government wants you to say. The government is the one which tells this story. Every government that came into power said the same thing. Why? Cause none of these governments have a spine to admit that the people they killed are dead. And then they say that these claims are lies,” said Britto Fernando.
Britto Fernando challenged Mahesh Katulanda to reveal the details about the 50 people that his office had alleedly found to be living abroad.
“ Now we are demanding him to reveal who those 50 people are and bring them back to this country.”
Britto Fernando, President of the FOD, said that the OMP is going in the wrong direction. He further emphasized that they are trying to bring the Office of the OMP ‘to the right path’ without being silent about what has occurred.
“Therefore we think that the OMP is walking on the wrong path. After struggling for 30 years to get an institution like OMP, we will not let them tell these baseless statements. We will try to bring it to the correct path and we will keep trying. All I have to say is that they have stated some baseless facts.”
The war victims who have been in a continuous struggle led by Tamil mothers for more than 2075 days, are demanding an international investigation to reveal the truth about their disappeared loved ones as they have no confidence since the establishment of the OMP office.
The group of the families of the disappeared who held a silent protest in front of the office along with the relatives of the families of the disappeared on the occasion of the International Day of the Disappeared, held the banner which says “Reveal the truth, serve justice and put an end to the enforced disappearances”. They also handed over two letters containing their demands to the director general of the Reparations Commission and the chairman of the OMP.
K.J Brito Fernando, in his letter addressed to the Chairman of the OMP, has indicated that as far as his organization is aware, the OMP office has received nearly 19,000 complaints including the disappearances of members of the armed services.
The human rights activist has further stated that according to former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, there are sixty thousand disappearances related to the 1989 Sinhala youth uprising in the South alone while the number reported to the commission appointed by former President Chandrika Kumaratunga in 1996 is close to 26000.
In addition, Britto Fernando reminded the chairman of the OMP in his letter regarding another letter written by the late Mannar Bishop Rayappu Joseph to the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC). The letter stated that the difference between the number of people who entered the demilitarized zone in the north and those who left after the war is close to 147,600.
As announced by the government in March this year, the number of complaints received regarding disappearances at OMP regional offices established in Matara, Mannar, Jaffna, Batticaloa and Kilinochchi is 14988.
A protest movement was launched in Vavuniya, Kilinochchi, Jaffna, Mullaitivu, Trincomalee and Ampara districts in February and March 2017, demanding the government to reveal the fate of their loved ones who went missing in the last days of the war after being taken over by government security forces as well as after surrendering themselves in the final stages of War.
Although the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) was established on February 28, 2018 by the Maithri-Ranil government to help find out the fate of the forcefully disappeared persons, the office was not able to find a single detail about them.
Sri Lanka government security forces stand accused for mos of the enforced disappearances in this country.
Following the silent protest, the annual remembrance of the disappeared in Sri Lanka was held for the 32nd time in front of the monument installed in Raddoluwa, Seeduwa.
