@M.C.M. Iqbal – Almost every commission appointed by the state failed. Tamils have no confidence in any of the local commissions appointed by the state. UNHRC Commissioner lashed out highly politicized Sri Lankan mechanism including Judiciary that will never deliver anything meaningful and lacks international standards. Only an international independent investigation will bring Justice to victims.

This is a sweeping statement he has made in this article against such commissions includes the several commissions set up after President Chandrika Bandaranaike assumed office in 1994 to deal with complaints of disappearances of persons. Set out below are some of the matters that many do not know with regard to the provisions in their mandates and their recommendations. These relate to the disappearances that occurred between 1988 and 1997.

They were mandated to find out if there is any ‘credible material indicative of the person or persons responsible’ for the disappearances complained of. So the recordings of the evidence of the complainants and their witnesses were limited up to the point where such credible evidence came to light. Questioning beyond that point was irrelevant to the Commissions as they were not courts of law to look for evidence beyond reasonable doubt. When such cases went before the courts of law where the complainants were questioned in detail, the defence took up the position that the witnesses were coming up with stories which were not stated before the Commissions, ignoring the fact that they were not questioned beyond the point of their evidence indicative of the person responsible. This was one of the reasons why almost all the cases filed on the basis of the Reports of the Commissions mentioned, resulted in the acquittal of the accused concerned.

It was on the basis of the recommendations of these Commissions that a Missing Persons Unit (MPU) was established in the Attorney-General’s Department. It was for this Unit to pick out the cases where the Commissions found evidence indicative of the person responsible to get the rest of the evidence recorded by the Police to tie up the loose ends needed to indict the perpetrator.

A Disappearances Investigation Unit (DIU) was set up in the CID of the Police Department, following the recommendations of the Commissions, to help the MPU with the relevant evidence needed to enable an indictments to be framed.

The DIU consisted of Police Officers whose brotherly feelings towards their colleagues in service prevented them from doing the job diligently. When pressure was exerted for action, the files relating to some junior police officers and minor military personnel were attended to, resulting in a few cases being filed. The cases against the top rungs in the respective services remained pending.

With the changing scenario in the security situation in the country beginning from 2000 onwards led to the implementation of these and other recommendations receiving lesser and lesser attention while impunity became almost a culture. Most of the other recommendations made by these Commissions too were not acted upon.

These are amongst some of the reasons why the first set of Commissions appointed to look into disappearances of persons failed. What was lacking then, as it happened even later too, is a determined effort of the State to deal with the perpetrators. In other words, it is the lack of political will and not the inadequacy of the recommendations of some of these Commissions that led to all such Commissions being branded as being unsuccessful in adequately addressing issues of impunity, justice or truth-seeking.