- Activist Brito Fernando says current Chairperson a pawn
Brito Fernando[/caption]
Has the OMP delivered the truth that the families of the disappeared were seeking?
We got the OMP 30 years after the 1989 violence, as the previous Government agreed to establish the OMP, a reparations commission, and ensure non-recurrence and compensation. Even former President Maithripala Sirisena did not have the political will to do it. He took a year to sign the Office on Missing Persons Act after it was passed in Parliament. We had to march on the streets reminding the President that the key to implement these policies are in his hands.
The commissioners appointed had a will and an interest in the OMP, as some of them had experience in the human rights field and one member was a victim herself. But, they did not put in the effort that we expected. The OMP did not make the necessary intervention to gather the needed information. Though they had the interest, there were no investigations into incidents that led to what we wanted; the “truth” did not come to light.
The mandate of the OMP was not to take any legal action but to investigate, and reveal the truth of what happened to these individuals who went missing. But the OMP said that they could not form a tracing unit to investigate the cases as they did not have the sufficient funds and that personnel with the required skills and knowledge did not opt to join for the salaries that were offered.
Haven’t there been any positive achievements of the OMP?
There were good things. We celebrated the International Day of the Disappeared on 30 August 2018 as an official function under the OMP, a government institution. This event took place in 2019 as well, but in 2020, the commemoration went low profile, as it was only a discussion with about five or six civil society organisations, and did not see the participation of any families of the disappeared.
This was a reversal of the progress that was made. The OMP travelled the country speaking to families of the disappeared and asked them what was needed. A suggestion made by some of us was for a Rs. 6,000 interim monthly allowance be given to these families until a compensation package was given to these families through the Reparations Commission. The OMP did include this in their interim report. Rs. 500 million was allocated from the 2019 April Budget for this monthly allowance.
The OMP intervened in this with great interest. The OMP intervened and requested that those with death certificates also be given this allowance as only those with certificates of absence were eligible for it. In October 2019, the Government decided to give this allowance to families with death certificates with a cause of death that gave out the meaning of the disappearance.
Though this was approved, no one with a certificate of death was paid the allowance. Rs. 11 million was paid to 153 families with certificates of absence. They were not paid on a monthly basis, but were paid the due amount for past months at once. With the change of Government, the paying of these allowances to death certificate holders did not take place.
Are you happy with the way the OMP is functioning under the current Government?
OMP Chairperson Saliya Peiris PC left in order to contest for the presidency of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka. Since his resignation, former Chairperson of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) probing into political victimisations (Retd.) Justice Upali Abeyratne took this place.
Abeyratne does not have a good track record and has been criticised by journalists such as Victor Ivan. He also manipulated the mandate of the PCoI for political victimisation by taking up cases of private entities and politicians when the PCoI was established to look into the political victimisation of government servants. It is clear that Abeyratne is a pawn of the Government who is ready to put the Government’s agenda into action.
When such a person is appointed as the chairperson of the OMP, we have little hope for the OMP anymore. The OMP is the permanent office we got for truth-seeking after 30 years. We will not let it go no matter what the Government does. We could not get any of the families down for protest in the past months because of the pandemic.
The current commissioners will end their time in office this month. The new appointments will be made according to the President’s wishes. Since President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is not interested in the issue of disappearances, we don’t think he will continue the OMP. But we will not let the OMP be shut down.
Do you think the current Government’s approach to the issue of disappearances and missing persons is different to the one prior to 2015?
The current Government’s approach to disappearances has not changed at all from the stance they held when the current regime was in power before 2015; organisation for the parents and the family members of the disappeared. Till 1994, there were campaigns against the disappearances that took place during the 1988 and 1989 insurrection, and were led by current Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, current Cabinet Minister Vasudeva Nanayakkara, and Dr. Wickramabahu Karunaratne of the Nava Sama Samaja Party.
We sent Mahinda Rajapakse and Vasudewa Nanayakkara to Geneva as civil organisation representatives to lobby against disappearances. They requested that this disappearance and murder of youth be stopped even through means of cutting down economic aid given to Sri Lanka at that time. Following the commission appointed by former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge in 1994, the families of the disappeared in the South did not pursue truth-seeking.
As the war went on and allegations were made against the current PM Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was President during the war, for disappearances and atrocities committed in the North, he too dropped the case of the disappeared. In 2020 he made a statement that the OMP is clearly a body set up to punish war heroes.
The UNF-led Government brought in an act declaring disappearances as a crime, which we did not have before. Mahinda Rajapaksa voted against this too as well as against the reparations commission. We are still saying what Mahinda Rajapaksa and Vasudeva Nanayakkara said back then, we ask for truth, justice, compensation, and non-recurrence.
They have dropped it now, because fingers have been pointed at them for the same crimes. The narrative of the Government has always been, and still is, that the issue of the disappeared is one that is brought against the war heroes that saved the country, and that it is a cause in favour of the Tamil Tigers. They no longer talk about the killings and disappearances that took place in the South in ‘89.
A Presidential Commission of Inquiry has been appointed to inquire into the recommendations made by past commissions and they have been tasked to quantify missing persons. Do you think this is useful?
This Presidential Commission of Inquiry does not directly say that they want to shut down the OMP or the Reparations Commission. They simply say that they will go on to implement the recommendations that are suitable for the country. This commission is a delaying strategy to hold off the United Nations by showing them that there is a commitment in the country to implement these recommendations, to say that there is commitment despite the withdrawal of the co-sponsorship. We do not have any faith in this commission.
Do you think that an international mechanism should be implemented with regards to Sri Lanka to address the issue of the disappeared at the UNHRC session?
The attitude of the Government is a lot worse than it was before 2015. The diaspora involvement in this matter has become stronger which has resulted in a strong report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet.
What they say is that local mechanisms have failed. Even Tamil civil society organisations had disagreements with us regarding this matter, because we stood by local mechanisms. We did that for practical reasons since international inquiries involved complicated and long procedures that required wide agreement of the international community and the Veto powers.
We are not against the fight for an international inquiry. We support it. But there is the practical problem of it not getting past the Security Council, and that is why we think it is important to push local mechanisms. We wanted to find solutions by way of strengthening local mechanisms. Though certain steps to this effect were taken in the past five years, it was too slow and did not win the faith of those who sought solutions.
So even if the OMP was disbanded, there won’t be a lot of opposition from the side of the families of missing persons, because the OMP didn’t achieve anything substantial. But we are trying very hard to save the OMP and prevent it from being shut down, because it was a result of a lot of struggle.
What do you expect for the OMP from the UNHRC sessions?
We hope that truth seeking, reparations, compensation and non-recurrence will be ensured. A settlement with the core group is more likely than a strong resolution against the government. But there is no hope for the OMP, as we cannot expect fair commissioners to be appointed to the OMP, as appointments are made by the President and not independent bodies. Because of the UNHRC session, certain District Secretaries have been requested to send statistics of those who haven’t received compensation to the reparations commission.
What we think best is to go for a local mechanism to at least conduct truth seeking. If that happens, certain families might opt to forgive. Some might request for justice. But that is their choice and we cannot ask them not to request for justice and a mechanism should be designed to deliver this justice. If the Government does not agree with the recommendations, the international community will go for sanctions whether we like it or not and that is harmful for the country and the people from the lower strata will suffer.