A special task force led by the Sri Lankan President’s Secretary has been formed to accelerate the operations of the Office of Missing Persons (OMP), according to a report in Virakesari, despite the failure of the office to have any tangible process on the issue and years of Tamil protests against it.
Tamils in Mannar protest outside the OMP office in 2022.
A special task force led by the Sri Lankan President’s Secretary has been formed to accelerate the operations of the Office of Missing Persons (OMP), according to a report in Virakesari, despite the failure of the office to have any tangible process on the issue and years of Tamil protests against it.
Senior attorney for the OMP Jaganathan Thatparan, outlining the objectives of this initiative said that they aim to ‘simplify the OMP’s mandate, streamline its operations, and foster collaboration to take effective actions,’ according to the report. As part of this effort, the tenure of Mahesh Katulanda, the outgoing Director of the OMP, was set to conclude but Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe appointed Katulanda to continue as the Director for the next three years through the Constitutional Council.
Additionally, forensic expert Ajith Thennakon has joined the seven-member Board of Directors of the OMP.
Thatparan claimed that it was under the OMP that additional funds were made available for a ten-day excavation of the Kokkuthudovai mass grave, where dozens of bodies have been discovered. The Sri Lankan government initially refused to find further excavation of the site after bodies were first being unearted.
He said officials from the OMP would directly engage with families of the disappeared to explore potential connections between the human remains discovered in the pit and the unresolved cases of disappearances and abductions.
The latest announcement comes after years of delays by the OMP to take any proactive measures. It is unclear how much more a special task force would contribute to providing justice to the families of the disappeared. The government under Ranil Wickremesinghe has in the past has appointed several committees and task forces. Yet 15 years since the armed conflict families still languish for answers to what happened to their loved ones.
The OMP has been routinely criticised by international human rights experts and Tamil family members of the disappeared. 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".
Eelam Tamils in the North-East and the diaspora have rejected the OMP citing that it has failed to find their loved ones, with many labelling the institution a whitewash.
