Lankan panel recommends no promotion, transfer of state officials accused in war-era disappearances

Sri Lankan officials accused in abductions and enforced disappearances during the country's brutal civil war against the LTTE should not be promoted or transferred till the final determination of such cases, a special panel has recommended.

The Office of Missing Persons (OMP), which is tasked with determining the status of all persons who went "missing" during the war-era, also recommended interim measures to provide relief and reparation to the families affected by the disappearances of their loved ones.

"In particular, ensure that suspected officials are not transferred, promoted or offered any other office in the armed forces, police or the public service while cases against them are pending," the OMP recommended in an interim report published Wednesday.

The OMP came into force in February as the first steps toward reconciling the island nation's war-era past tracing about 20,000 people who went missing during 37 years of fighting for a separate Tamil state.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had run a military campaign for a separate Tamil homeland in the northern and eastern provinces of the island nation before its collapse in 2009 after the Sri Lankan Army killed its supreme leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.

The committee is compiling a centralised list of the missing and their current status.

The UN Human Rights Council had also recommended the formation of the committee to compel Sri Lanka to be accountable for the alleged human rights abuses.

The report said the current socio-economic situation of many families of the missing or disappeared is dire and they cannot wait until a final reparations scheme is devised. Therefore, a key set of measures is required in the interim to provide urgent and immediate relief to the families.

The OMP also recommended separate programmes for such families on debt relief, housing development, educational support, and vocational training and livelihood development.

It also recommended introduction of an employment quota of one per cent within the state sector to facilitate family members of the missing and disappeared who have requisite skills.