The Sri Lankan government announced the creation of an ‘Office for Missing Persons’ (OMP), in a yet another pledge to tackle the decades long issue of disappearances, on Wednesday.

Announcing the OMP, Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera stated that “Sri Lanka has one of the largest caseloads of missing persons in the entire world”. No time scale has been announced for the OMP’s mandate or the scope of its work. The government is also yet to reveal the composition of the office.

Days before the announcement was made, Tamil organisations from across the North-East submitted a letter to the Sri Lankan government, stating that the authorities had not shown any “genuine willingness to consult the victims” in order to set up a justice mechanism for prosecute for enforced disappearances.

The 12 organisations and 26 individuals criticised the government’s lack of engagement with victims in setting up the OMP. Stating that the “process to date has been handicapped by inadequate resources and has made very little progress,” the organisations said, “We categorically state that an OMP that is designed without proper consultation with the victims and their communities would be unacceptable”.

Over the years several government mechanisms have been announced, including the currently ongoing presidential commission on missing persons, which recently requested an extension of its mandate. Reports of the commission encouraging relatives to accept their loved ones have died have been ongoing, with evidence that officials offered chickens in exchange for accepting a death certificates. The commission has also been criticised by both the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances, who have called for its abolition.

Mr Samaraweera himself admitted that government appointed commissions have been in existence for over 20 years, acknowledging “that the vast majority of cases still remain unresolved”. Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe though told an audience of Tamils in Jaffna earlier this year that the tens of thousands of missing were probably dead, a claim that he repeated some weeks later.

Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court dismissed a petition filed by a Colombo-based NGO against the appointment of Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka as a government minister, reports Colombo Gazette.

The petition, was filed by the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), challenged the appointment of the former army commander stating that it violates Sri Lanka’s constitution.

CPA stated that under Article 99A of the Sri Lankan constitution, Mr Fonseka should not be appointed as a minister as district nomination papers or national lists submitted by political parties did not include his name.

The appointment sparked criticism from human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch who said it sends “worrying signals on accountability” from both the Sri Lankan president and prime minister.

The UK government recognises that much remains to be done in Sri Lanka and said it will continue to supporting and encouraging Sri Lanka to deliver "fully their commitments", according to FCO secretary Hugo Swire.

The secretary was responding to a question by the chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils (APPG-T), James Berry, who is the MP for Kingston and Surbiton, who said that progress to date "has been slow to non-existent".

Putting forward its proposals for a political solution to the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka and constitutional reform, the Northern Provincial Council urged a federal state structure of two broad linguistic states, including the Sinhala speaking states of 7 provinces and a Tamil speaking North-Eastern state parliament with full land and police powers.

Stressing the importance of ensuring equality within the devolved areas, the NPC called for a Muslim autonomous Regional Council within the North-East state.

The NPC also stated the military should be removed as an occupying force from the North-East, and the Prevention of Terrorism Act should be repealed.

The document was formally handed over the leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) R Sampanthan.

Find full document here in English and Tamil.

Extracts of key proposals reproduced below:

"Sri Lanka must basically and fundamentally be declared to contain two broad linguistic States, the Northern and Eastern Province consisting of Majority Tamil speaking State and the other seven Provinces consisting of Majority Sinhala speaking State.

It is essential that a federal system of Government is adopted in preference to a unitary system of Government.