Sirisena's Commission ‘demonstrates’ deceptive investigations in Ampaa'rai
A Sri Lankan military intelligence officer was present inside the
hearing hall at Kalmunai in the Eastern Province when the SL
Presidential Commission on Missing Persons held its hearings, which were
chaired by Mr Maxwell Parakrama Paranagama, said Selvarajah Kanesh, the
president of the organisation representing the families of the abducted
and missing persons in Ampaa'rai district in an interview to TamilNet
on Tuesday. In the meantime, Village officer (GS) in Aalaiyadi-vempu was
deployed by the SL authorities to instruct the victims to appear in
front of the Commission if they wanted to receive 100,000 SL rupees in
return for accepting death certificates of the persons registered as
missing following their appearance in front of the Commission. A large
number of the victims have boycotted the sittings.
A
protest was staged outside the secretariat of the Kalmunai Divisional
Council (PS) where the hearings were held on Monday and Tuesday. The
protestors demanded credible and independent investigations without the
involvement of the Sri Lankan State.
Sri Lankan military
intelligence operatives were deployed in large number at the protest
site, monitoring the activists and the participants.
Selvarajah Kanesh
“This is the good-governance of the
new regime,” commented Selvarajah Kanesh, who is also a politician
attached to the Ampaa'rai branch of the Tamil National Alliance. He is
the president of the welfare organisation for the families of the
abducted and missing persons in Ampaa'rai district.
“We have just
started working with registering the details. Within one month alone,
we have received 521 complaints in Kalmunai alone. It is believed that
more than 3,000 people have been subjected to forced disappearance in
the entire district of Ampaa'rai,” he said.
“300 people have
been reported missing at the village of Malvaththai alone. There are
only 3,000 residents in that village. This alone tells the extent of the
problem,” Mr Kanesh told TamilNet.
The members of the
commission were ignorant and they were sleeping while the victims were
witnessing in front of them at Kalmunai, he further said. “We didn't
stop anyone who wanted to go and witness, but we requested the people to
also join our protest,” he said.
Religious
representatives and representatives of Families of Abducted and Missing
Persons in Ampaa'rai District at Kalmunai in Ampaa'rai
The commission was supposed to hear
112 witnesses at Kalmunai based on the earlier complaints registered
with the commission. As the protest against domestic investigations
gained momentum, the Commission also allowed those who registered their
complaints on the same day to appear for hearings.
“The
independent international investigations must be taken forward by the UN
and Member States that supported the war efforts of the Sri Lankan
State should not be part of the independent investigations,” Mr Kanesh
said.
The two mainstream parties, the UNP and the SLFP, that
come to power in the South and have done nothing in the 26 years between
1983 the pogroms and the war in 2009. “They never visited us in
Ampaa'rai to listen to our complaints.”
Even now, a section of
the TNA wants to give more time to the regime of Maithiripala Sirisena,
but the Tamil people say that they have been witnessing such regimes for
26 years between the 1983 pogroms against the Tamils till 2009, he
further said.
Religious leaders, Rev Fr A Kamalakumar and
Sivasree K. Yogarajan kurukka'l, S. Premavathy, the president of
Paa'ndiruppu Womens Organisation accompanied Mr Kanesh in handing over
an appeal to Mr Maxwell Parakrama Paranagama, the chairman of the SL
Presidential Commission.
The
delegation representing the victims in Ampaa'rai meets the SL
Presidential Commission on Missing Persons to hand over its appeal
Selvarajah Kanesh hands over an appeal to the SL Presidential Commission on Missing Persons
The appeal censured the Commission
for failing to reveal its findings. The commission was unilaterally
appointed by one side of the conflict and lacks credibility, the appeal
said. It also pointed out the failure of the past commissions appointed
by the successive SL regimes. “Tamils are not prepared to waste many
more years in these futile exercises,” the appeal said.
The
Commission has held its sittings in 6 districts, except Trincomalee and
Batticaloa in the North-East last year. It has received more than 20,000
complaints, including 5,000 complaints of missing Sinhala soldiers,
according to media reports in Colombo.
This year, the new regime
extended the terms of reference, continuing the legacy of the
Commission appointed by the former SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa.
The SL Presidential Commission has only managed to go through around 2,000 cases within the past 18 months of its operation.
“This
Commission would require 13 years to go through all the cases at this
speed, which is totally unacceptable,” Mr Kanesh told TamilNet.
“Many
of the mothers will not live so long till this commission completes its
investigations. Many of the witnesses would be gone by then,” he said.
Last month, when sittings were held in Trincomalee, the Tamil
civil society, grassroots politicians and the victims boycotted the
hearings. However, a section of TNA politicians changed their position,
causing confusion among the Tamils at the instruction of a Colombo-based
nominated parliamentarian.
Chronology:
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