Govt. to issue certificates for the missing

The government intends issuing certificates to the families of missing persons by the end of the year, paving the way for post Geneva accountability action.

Among the key commitments made by Colombo during the recently concluded 30th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), where a resolution was adopted on Sri Lanka promoting accountability and justice, are the setting up of a Commission for Truth, Justice, Reconciliation, and Non Recurrence, in addition to an Office of Missing Persons and an Office for Reparations.

This will also be the first time that the government will be issuing ‘certificates of missing to persons’ to families of those who disappeared during the near three decades of violent conflict.

Presetting the report on Sri Lanka before the UNHRC, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, urged investigations be carried out with regard to secret places of detention and to set up a credible and independent body to ascertain the fate of missing. The Maxwell Paranagama-headed Missing Persons Commission has received over 20,000 complaints, both from the North and the South of the island.Sri Lanka, it is learnt, does not have actual estimates of the missing owing to the war, with different agencies likely to offer estimates that differ.

Among the immediate benefits of issuing the certificates would be the families qualifying for compensation and other support.