The government has expedited investigations into missing persons and is rebuilding the institutions that handle them, Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath told Parliament on Thursday, the Daily Mirror reported.
He was answering a question from MP Shanakiyan Rasamanickam.
Three bodies, newly resourced
The Minister said additional financial and human resources had been given to three institutions:
- the Office on Missing Persons (OMP)
- the Office for Reparations (OR)
- the Office for National Unity and Reconciliation (ONUR)
Between them these bodies handle cases of people who went missing or disappeared in connection with the armed conflict, political unrest, civil disturbances, or alleged enforced disappearances.
Herath’s characterisation of the recent past was blunt: the institutions “had been rendered largely inactive”. He said steps were taken after the change of government to restore their operations by allocating the money and staff they needed.
He added that the provincial offices of the three bodies had been expanded, to extend their reach and make investigations possible across the country rather than from Colombo alone.
Why the answer matters
The OMP was created by statute in 2016 with powers to trace the missing and to refer evidence to prosecutors. Successive governments have been criticised — domestically and at the UN Human Rights Council — for leaving it underfunded and without momentum. A minister conceding in Parliament that the bodies were inactive is itself a departure from the usual official line, and it sets a benchmark against which the current effort can be measured.
Not reported: the filing gives no figures. It does not say how much money was allocated, how many staff were added, how many cases the OMP currently holds, how many have been closed or referred for prosecution, or what “expedited” means in caseload terms. It does not say which provincial offices were opened or when, give any timeline, or indicate whether any prosecution has followed. It carries no response from Rasamanickam or from families’ organisations to the Minister’s answer, and does not say why the Foreign Minister rather than the Minister of Justice answered the question.
