Sooka raises concerns about the former IGP's appointment to the OMP.

Yasmin Sooka, a former member of a UN expert group on Sri Lanka, has raised concerns about Jayantha Wickremaratne's appointment to the Office on Missing Persons (OMP).

The nomination of the former wartime police chief to the Office on Missing Persons in Sri Lanka, according to Sooka, completes the militarization of the previous government's transitional justice process.

“It's hard to believe — the man in charge of three police units implicated in mass enforced disappearances at the conclusion of the war is now investigating the disappearances himself,” Sooka, who is now the Executive Director of the International Truth and Justice Project, stated.

The Office on Missing Persons is in charge of researching the fate of tens of thousands of missing and enforced disappeared people in a country with the world's second-highest case count.

“We will be writing to the UN Peacebuilding Fund and international donors requesting them not to fund such a body that has become so compromised, as well as providing a confidential dossier on the questionable nominations to appropriate United Nations agencies and member states,” Sooka added.

She also urged victim groups both inside and outside of Sri Lanka to write to the UN and other donors, urging them not to use their tax dollars to fund what she claims has turned into a vehicle for impunity, meant to cover up the Sri Lankan government's past atrocities. (RUTNAM EASWARAN)