TNA MP Thavarasa Kalaiarasan slammed the Sri Lankan government’s plans to issue death certificates and compensation to families of the disappeared, echoing the campaigning families themselves who have stated that the plans are a cynical attempt to break up their protests.
Speaking in Parliament during the fourth day of debate on the second reading of the budget on Wednesday, Kalaiarasan also questioned whether the government’s death certificate policy indicated an admission that the 146,700 unaccounted for after May 2009 were all dead.
The families of the disappeared have been fighting for over 12 years for their missing relatives but are still no closer to justice, he said.
Speaking of the various compensation amounts the government has proposed for the families, Kalaiarasan said, “the families of the disappeared are not fighting for this fund. They are fighting for a just solution for their lost families so that their loss will not be passed on to the next generation.”
The MP highlighted that the Sri Lankan government had rejected various UN resolutions to investigate disappearances and had said that internal mechanisms were the solution. “What good has come of internal mechanisms in the last 12 years?” Kalaiarasan asked. “Has anything good happened to the families of the disappeared? Nothing has happened.”