Tamil orgs reject Sri Lanka's Commission on Missing Persons, call for international mechanism

The Tamil Civil Society Forum (TCSF) and Welfare Organisation for the Forcibly Disappeared Persons, announced that they would be boycotting Sri Lanka’s presidential Commission on Missing Persons, stating that a “credible inquiry”  can “only be achieved through international means.”
Questioning the credibility of previous sittings at the Presidential Commission, the statement, released on Thursday, said,

“no results whatsoever have been forthcoming from such inquiries. Recent reports suggest that one of the international experts so appointed was also hired by the then Sri Lankan Government to advise them on how to handle international community pressure on human rights issues, clearly pointing to a conflict of interest in his appointment as an expert.” 

Highlighting that the new government had not addressed concerns about the commission that were raised to the previous regime, the statement added,

“Your commission continues to function under the new government without rectifying any of the concerns realised by civil society activists and those affected.”

“We cannot afford to continue to appear before this commission giving ti a stamp of legitimacy. We seek a credibly inquiry and we are convinced that this can only be made possible through international means,” the statement concluded.