HRCSL flags persistent rights concerns in North, East

The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) has highlighted continuing human rights and socioeconomic concerns in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, saying addressing historical injustices, ensuring accountability and strengthening community participation are essential for reconciliation and sustainable peace.

The findings are contained in a study undertaken by the HRCSL to identify longstanding structural challenges affecting communities in the war-affected regions.

The study examines a range of concerns, including enforced disappearances, mass graves, memorialisation, militarisation, surveillance and intimidation, land and resettlement, religious freedom, development projects and threats to livelihoods.

The Commission said its findings were based on field visits and consultations with government officials, civil society organisations, human rights defenders and affected communities, as well as a review of relevant reports and research.

The study identifies continuing barriers to equality, access to justice, secure livelihoods, land, housing and public services.

The HRCSL also raised concerns over the experiences of families of the disappeared in their dealings with the Office on Missing Persons (OMP).

Victims who appeared before the Commission reportedly complained that OMP officials repeatedly asked them to resubmit files that had been misplaced, summoned them to provide information they had already submitted and focused on compensation or the issuance of death certificates rather than establishing the truth about what happened to their loved ones.

For families of those who disappeared, particularly those who surrendered loved ones, including children, to the military at the end of the war in 2009, the suggestion that they should be presumed dead without evidence remains unacceptable, the study said.

Certificates of Absence and financial compensation were viewed by the families as interim measures rather than substitutes for their right to know the fate of their missing relatives.

The Commission said the burden of seeking justice continued to fall largely on women-led and economically disadvantaged families.

These families have maintained detailed records and attended meetings over the years, often at considerable personal and financial cost, while successive governments had made limited efforts to establish the fate of the missing, according to the study.

The HRCSL also documented instances in which victims seeking to raise their concerns directly with the State had staged peaceful protests during visits by political leaders to the North and East.

Such protests had, in some cases, been met with police and military interference, intimidation and excessive force, the Commission said.

The HRCSL stressed that confronting historical injustices and persistent inequalities, ensuring accountability and enabling affected communities to participate meaningfully in decisions affecting them were crucial to achieving reconciliation and lasting peace.

The Commission has made a series of recommendations to the Government and relevant authorities to address the concerns identified in the study and strengthen the protection and promotion of human rights in the Northern and Eastern Provinces.