Marking 2,200 days of protest the Association for the relatives of the enforced disappearances, representing 8 districts across the North East, called on UN member states to recognise the Tamil genocide and bring Sri Lanka before the International Criminal Court.
In a written statement the association detailed the lack of faith Tamils on the island have with domestic mechanisms such as the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) which they see as but another means of evasion. In 2022, the UN High Commissioner highlighted that the OMP "has not been able to trace a single disappeared person or clarify the fate of the disappeared in meaningful ways".
Members of the Sri Lankan government have repeatedly denied the issue of those enforcibly disappeared; despite Sri Lanka holding the world's second-highest number of cases registede with the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. In August 2021, Sri Lankan Minister, Dinesh Gunawardena, claimed without evidence that victims of enforced disappearance are secretly living abroad.
Commenting on the matter, the association for the relatives of the enforcibly disappeared stated:
“Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the former government denied the very concept of the missing. They refused to accept the possibility that the Sri Lankan genocidal military, which they called some “war heroes”, may in fact have flouted the rules of war. This is despite many eyewitness accounts of enforced disappearances over the decades especially during the end of the war. Enforced disappearances are continuing to this day; just recently groups of young men have been arrested under the PTA and their families are unable to gain access to them.”
The statement also details the continued persecution and intimiation Tamil relatives of the disappeared face.
“For some mothers is a stark choice – do I keep looking for my missing child and put my remaining children in danger or should I just give up?” the statement reads.
As a consequence of their continued protest, demonstrators face greater discrimination from Sri Lankan authorities and face difficulties in applying for bank loans. They are further subject to vists from Sri Lankan military and police officers.
“We continue our search for our husband, our sons, our daughters, we believe they are alive. We will keep looking until we know what happened to them. If they are dead, how did they die? We are not afraid of the army. We want to know what happened" the statement from Selvarani Thambirasa, the President of the Amparai District Missing Persons' Association, noted.
Thambirasa further noted that around 180 relatives of the disappeared have died without knowing the fate of their loved ones.
The relatives of the disappeared have also called for the international community to:
- Put pressure on Sri Lanka to adopt the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the Optional Protocal to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the Protocols additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949.
- To appoint a special Rapporteur to monitor and investigate ongoing human rights violations and repression against the Tamils.
- To ensure that all political detainees to be released or brought to justice without any further delay.
- Stressed the need to explictly state in resolutions and UN reports that the crimes of the Sri Lankan state, including genocide, were committed against Tamils.
The statement also called on the UN Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, Mme Wairimu Nderitu, to provide them an opportunity to be briefed on their work and consider writing a report on the Tamil genocide and he need for repatriation.
Read the full statement here.
