ICMP holds discussions on war missing

Wednesday, 16 March 2016 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) and the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation (Fundación de Antropología Forense de Guatemala: FAFG) held a roundtable in Trincomalee, Sri Lanka, on Monday to analyse requirements for a systematic and effective process to account for those who are missing as a result of more than 25 years of conflict.

Monday’s event will be followed by a roundtable in Colombo on Thursday. This is part of an initiative organised by a consortium of agencies operating as part of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience (ICSC). The Roundtables are co-hosted by the Centre for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (CPPHR) in Trincomalee and the Centre for Human Rights Development (CHRD) in Colombo.

In November, ICMP and FAFG conducted a series of consultations in Sri Lanka with families of victims, victims’ and survivors’ associations, religious leaders, civil society organisations, Government representatives, human rights advocates, lawyers, and forensic experts.

The roundtables being held this week are designed to prioritise and explore in more detail issues that were raised in November.

These include an examination of:

The overall objectives of the missing persons process in Sri Lanka, including the need to establish a clear and accurate estimate of the total number of missing;

The obligations and responsibilities of the state, reflected in the proposal for an Office on Missing Persons;

The role of other State agencies, including the judiciary;

Policy and legal requirements in respect of victims’ and survivors’ ability to access their rights, including access to financial support, participation in missing persons processes and protections that are available, including privacy and data protection;

Technical capacity requirements, including access to official and other records, and data processing requirements, as well as processes for the location and identification of remains; and

Capacity building for civil society, including effective advocacy and monitoring capacities, as well as inter-communal confidence building and mutual support, such as steps to prevent intimidation of victims, or address perceptions of intimidation.

ICMP is an international organisation whose mandate is to secure the cooperation of governments and others in locating and identifying missing persons from conflict, migration, human rights abuses, disasters, crime and other causes.

ICMP is participating in a consortium of organisations called the Global Initiative for Justice, Truth and Reconciliation (GITJR) led by the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience (ICSC) and supported by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy Human Right and Labour (DRL). The consortium aims to address new challenges in countries in conflict or transition struggling with legacies of or ongoing gross human rights abuses.

In Sri Lanka, consortium members ICSC, ICMP and FAFG are working together to address reconciliation and accountability needs, especially related to missing persons, through local and high-level consultations, participatory needs assessments and a technical fund to provide targeted transitional justice technical assistance to the Government of Sri Lanka.