{"id":57624,"date":"2016-08-15T11:31:10","date_gmt":"2016-08-15T17:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=57624"},"modified":"2016-08-14T14:38:42","modified_gmt":"2016-08-14T21:38:42","slug":"probing-disappearances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/08\/15\/probing-disappearances\/","title":{"rendered":"Probing disappearances"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editorial\u00a0Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

August 14, 2016, 9:24 pm<\/span><\/p>\n

The government claims the Office on Missing Persons Bill (OMPB) has been passed with amendments, though it does not know how many MPs voted for or against it according to Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe. The Joint Opposition (JO) insists that the Bill was not duly passed as many MPs were not in their seats when it was put to the vote; they were protesting in the well of Parliament. What really matters in this regard is the alleged inconsistency of the Bill with the Constitution as we argued in this space on Friday. The government has resorted to obfuscation without making public the amendments to the OMPB so that one will know whether the unconstitutional provisions therein have been removed or not.<\/p>\n

JHU Spokesman Nishantha Sri Warnasighe has called for a probe into the disappearances in the southern parts of the country as well in the event of the implementation of the OMPB. The JHU may not have been amenable to the OMPB, but it had to go along with the government, of which it is constituent. But, the fact remains that it has endorsed the new law. It is apparently resorting to face-saving tactics. Is it of the opinion that if the disappearances besides those in the North and the East are probed the OMP to be set up will be acceptable?<\/p>\n

True, disappearances in all parts of the country have to be investigated. But, the call for probing involuntary disappearances during the southern uprisings should have been made a long time ago. It is surprising why the JVP, which helped legitimise the OMPB by moving an amendment thereto, has not campaigned for a special probe into the killings and\/or disappearances of thousands of its cadres and other suspects in the late 1980s. Its founder leader Rohana Wijeweera was arrested, forced to make a public statement on state-owned television and presumably vapourised by the then Premadasa government, some of whose prominent members are currently in power. A team of politicians and military and police officers at that time including Minister John Amaratunga and Army Commander Hamilton Wanasinghe claimed Wijeweera had led his captors to the JVP\u2019s operational headquarters, where he suddenly pulled out a pistol, prompting the army to shoot him dead. There was no judicial investigation into the alleged killing and the chapter was closed thereon.<\/p>\n

Strangely, the JVP has maintained a deafening silence on the \u2018disappearance\u2019 of its beloved leader. It is now on good terms with the UNP. Why don\u2019t the JVP heavyweights call for a probe into the capture, alleged torture and \u2018disappearance\u2019 of Wijeweera?<\/p>\n

The JHU takes pride in being one of the architects of the much-vaunted Right to Information Act. Will it invoke that law to ascertain information about what really happened to Wijeweera and others?<\/p>\n

If the JHU really thinks its call for probing involuntary disappearances in the southern parts of the country will be heeded by the OMP it is hoping against hope. For, only the western powers behind the Geneva resolution, which necessitated the setting up of the OMP, are capable for pressuring the government to launch such an investigation. But, they will never care to do so because probing or preventing human rights violations is not their goal. They are only using their human rights crusade as an instrument to further their economic and military interests and; they need something internationally marketable like ethnic strifes and war crimes. They will use the Geneva resolution to crank up pressure on the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration until the latter agrees to grant their wishes like having control over strategic locations like the Trincomalee harbour.<\/p>\n

The JHU, instead of trying to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds ought to tell the public whether or not it is for the setting up of an office to probe missing persons at the behest of the UNHRC and the foreign powers which control it. Rhetoric and gobbledygook won\u2019t do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editorial\u00a0Courtesy The Island August 14, 2016, 9:24 pm The government claims the Office on Missing Persons Bill (OMPB) has been passed with amendments, though it does not know how many MPs voted for or against it according to Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe. The Joint Opposition (JO) insists that the Bill was not duly passed as many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}