Despite Sri Lanka's Office of Mission Persons (OMP) failure to trace a single disappeared person, the office has launched an advert calling for a suitable individual to assist fact-finding missions.
According to the vacancy notice, persons with suitable experience in fact-finding or investigation, human rights law, international humanitarian law, humanitarian response or other relevant qualifications to carry out the functions of the OMP have been requested to forward their applications on or before 27th May 2024.
Earlier this year, Sri Lanka reiterated its rejection of UN resolutions on accountability for mass atrocities but admitted that thousands of forcibly disappeared remain unaccounted for despite years of failed domestic mechanisms. Speaking before the 55th session of the UN Human Rights Council, Sri Lanka's representative claimed that the country was continuing to make progress through the Office on Missing Persons (OMP).
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".
Despite the continued protests of the families of the disappeared and calls for an international investigation into the fate of the disappeared, Sri Lanka's ambassador claims there is "significant public trust". Despite functioning for over 6 years, however, the ambassador admits that only 3 people had been confirmed as “deceased". A further 16 had been reportedly found to have been alive, but with no further details if they were being held in Sri Lankan custody or not. Several thousand of the complaints that had been submitted to the OMP remain unaccounted for.
Eelam Tamils in the homeland and the diaspora have rejected the OMP citing that it has failed to find their loved ones calling the institution merely an eyewash. The Tamil Families of the Enforcibly Disappeared have told Tamil Guardian they do not trust the OMP since it failed to fulfil its mandate.
Leeladevi Anandanadarajah, the secretary of the association told the Tamil Guardian that in 2019, the families of the disappeared gave evidence and information relating to five enforced disappearance cases to the OMP. The families told them that if the OMP can investigate and solve one of these case within three months, then they would trust the OMP but the OMP has failed to do so.
Several years on and the families have only received an acknowledgment to the evidence they submitted. “There is no further example needed to prove that the OMP is an inactive mechanism,” Leeladevi added.
Earlier this year, Tamil families of the disappeared in Vavuniya marked over 2,500 days of protest and called on the government to provide an account for their disappeared loved ones, many of whom were last seen in police custody. During the course of these protests an estimated 180 members of the protest have died without knowing the fate of their loved ones.
