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Govt. fast tracks OMP operation before UNHRC sessions
View(s):Ahead of United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) sessions scheduled to begin next week, the Government has decided to fast track some of the key commitments it made to the international community. These include bringing into full operation the work of the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) and introducing legislation to make enforced disappearances a criminal offence.
Speaker Karu Jayasuriya told the Sunday Times yesterday that the Constitutional Council (CC) had recommended the names of OMP commissioners and these were approved by the President Friday, but the names had not been announced yet.The law to set up the OMP was passed by Parliament more than one year ago, but its operations were delayed due to disagreements over the appointment of commissioners to the office.
After applications were called by the CC, it recommended at least eight persons for the President’s approval. Mano Tittawella, Director General of the Secretariat for Coordinating Reconciliation Mechanisms (SCRM), told the Sunday Times that much delayed OMP would come into operation, once the President approved the names of the commissioners.
Mr Tittawella, whose office is tasked with the implementation of various transitional justice mechanisms, said that consultations were also underway with various stakeholders for the setting up of an Office of Reparations. A two-day international conference organised by the SCRM, International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN Migration Agency on reparations was held this week in Colombo.
With ground work now ready for the setting up of the OMP, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) also has come forward to provide expert and technical advice to support the implementation process. This would be on the basis that the best interest of the families and the humanitarian mandate were safeguarded by the OMP, an ICRC spokesman said.
“The ICRC is, however, not in a position to confirm at this stage on the exact nature and level of support it will extend to the Office, since the OMP Commissioners who are meant to run the office have not been nominated yet,” the spokesman said. While underlining the need to operationalise the OMP as soon as possible, the ICRC said all transitional justice mechanisms should be made known to the families at every stage of the process.The information should include what the OMP was going to do, the time frame, and how it intended to use and follow-up on the information collected and the results of the investigations.
According to official data, more than 20,000 people have reported to have gone missing during the ethnic conflict which came to an end in 2009 and during the youth insurrections in the 1970s to 1980s. The OMP is mandated to find the whereabouts of these people.In the North, the missing persons’ relatives have been protesting for more than one year in Kilinochchi alleging that the government has failed to take tangible steps to find the whereabouts of their kith and kin. Many of them complained that they had handed over their children to the military during the war period but their fate was still unknown.
As part of the initial phase of cooperation between the OMP and the ICRC, the international organistation would re-contact missing persons’s families, informing them of the possibility of sharing their basic information with the OMP. “In this regard, families are given the option to accept or object to the potential sharing of information and are given our contact details if they change their minds. Nonetheless, strict conditions need to be met for the ICRC to consider a possible sharing of basic information of families who have given their informed consent: the OMP should be operational, carrying out its functions and powers according to its humanitarian mandate; confidentiality of information should be ensured and respected and proper regulations on the protection of personal data should be enforced,” the ICRC spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has issued a report titled “Promoting reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka”. The report to be tabled during the HRC sessions nex month notes that the fulfilment of the transitional justice commitments made under Human Rights Council resolution 30/1 has been virtually stalled for more than a year.
“Progress with some confidence-building measures has often been insufficient and inconclusive, and the structures set up to coordinate implementation have not been consolidated enough or did not receive sufficient political support to move things forward,” the report said.
In his recommendations, the High Commissioner also urged the Human Rights Council to continue to play a critical role in encouraging progress in accountability and reconciliation in Sri Lanka while calling on “member States to explore other avenues, including the application of universal jurisdiction, that could foster accountability.”