ITAK urges President not to appoint members from security backgrounds to Office of Repatriation

Saturday, 8 November 2025 01:12 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK) has urged President Anura Kumara Dissanayake not to appoint members with security backgrounds to the Office of Reparations (OoR), which has four vacancies.

In a letter to the President on 6 November, the ITKA has stated that it reliably understands that four names have been recommended for the four vacant positions in the OoR and that two of those names – Wasantha Perera and Joseph Terence Gnananandan Sundaram – have security sector backgrounds.

It stated that the OoR was generally promoted as a mechanism for advancing reconciliation in Sri Lanka following the Civil War in the North and East.

“Reparations are said to be made to make amends for the violations by mostly the security forces of the country. The Tamil People have rejected any internal mechanism for accountability or reconciliation as they do not have any confidence in the impartiality of these institutions,” it stated.

In the letter, the ITAK stressed that if Wasantha Perera and Sundaram were appointed, three out of the five members of the Office of Reparations would come from the security sector.

“Perera previously held the position of Additional Secretary, Ministry of Defence, while Sundaram is an Ex-Navy Officer. This composition would be in addition to the fact that the fifth member is already a Major General,” the ITAK said asserting that not even one person from the security sector should be appointed to an office such as this.

The letter, which was signed by ITAK President C.V.K. Sivagnanam and General Secretary M.A. Sumanthiran, has pointed out that any person with the security sector background appointed to this position would only go to confirm what Tamil people had been saying all these days and the callousness of the Government.

According to the ITAK, it had decided to write to the President following its Central Working Committee held in Vavuniya on 5 November, where the members unanimously resolved to urge the President against those appointments.