Protests in Front of the UN Office in Sri Lanka Rejecting Reparations, Demanding ICC Justice for Disappearances

Tamil families of people who have been disappeared took an important step forward in the struggle for justice for their disappeared loved when they staged protests in front of the United Nations office in Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, on Monday, October 17.

Up to now, most of the demonstrations in Sri Lanka, have been in cities and towns in the country’s northern and eastern provinces where most of the disappearances during the civil war took place, but which are generally denied the media spotlight which Colombo enjoys.

The protest, organized by the Association of the Relatives of the Disappeared (ARED), castigated the Sri Lanka government which recently proposed increasing reparations for the disappeared from Rs. 100,000 to Rs.200,000 (US$570). Rejecting this offer as deceit, protestors instead demanded genocidaires who had perpetrated atrocity crimes be produced before the international criminal court (ICC).

Speaking at event, Rev Marimuttu Sakthivel said the families of the disappeared were protesting before the UN office because the international community, international organizations, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and the UN system had been deceiving the Tamils despite Tamils placing the fate of their loved ones before the UNHRC from its 36th sessions. “But even in the ongoing 51st session, we have not got justice, nor answers,” he said.

“If the UNHRC does not offer an acceptable solution at least next year, we will decide what the solution would be,” he said.

On October 15, a government mobile secretariat arrived in Batticaloa, a city in Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province that witnessed waves of disappearances and other atrocity crimes, offering the Rs,200,000 reparations to survivors. An enraged group of mostly women, hurled volleys of insults at the officials, forcing them to take cover. An opposition Tamil parliamentarian, who was also allegedly involved in the incident, is now subject of an inquiry for threatening government officers.

Speaking at the protest in front of the UN office in Colombo, S. Jenita, ARED’s Vavuniya branch coordinator said that Tamil politicians only spoke about disappearances in parliament. This was the reason survivors who were affected by violence directly had taken on the struggle for justice against the government, she said.  

Video Link: https://www.facebook.com/BBCnewsTamil/videos/599602851904236/?extid=WA-UNK-UNK-UNK-AN_GK0T-GK1C&ref=sharing

(Link credit: BBC Tamil)