Tamil protestors took to the streets of Jaffna today to demand the Sri Lankan government deliver accountability for their disappeared relatives, as well as release land that continues to be occupied by the military.

"With the Sri Lankan government winding back commitments to reconciliation and justice measures, it’s up to the international community to hold them to account," writes Tamil activist Nirmanusan Balasundaram in the Guardian.

"For Tamil war victims and survivors, the statements by the Sri Lankan president and prime minister are indeed disheartening. Apart from a few symbolic returns of occupied Tamil lands and the release of some political prisoners, unsurprisingly, there have been no constructive actions to address wartime accountability or end the culture of impunity."

The Sri Lankan government cannot continue to blame members of the former regime for the lack of progress in furthering accountability said the Global Tamil Forum’s spokesperson Suren Surendiran, in a piece published in Colombo Telegraph on Saturday.

“Barely four months since [the] Government of Sri Lanka internationally committing by co-sponsoring Resolution A/HRC/30/L.29 in Geneva, the U-turn came in spectacular fashion from the highest authority in the country, the President himself,” said Mr Surendiran.

“As if there wasn’t enough trust deficit between communities in Sri Lanka, this major let down, haemorrhaged the trust of Tamils in the new President and in his new coalition government.”

Photographs: Tamil Guardian

Families of the disappeared gathered to protest over the lack of consultation with the victim community in producing the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) bill that gained the confidence of the victims.

In a protest organised by the Forum for Searching Handed, Kidnapped and Forcibly Disappeared Relatives and the Vavuniya District Citizens Team, protesters gathered in front of the town centre accusing Sri Lanka’s President of continuing to protect people responsible for abduction.

The Sri Lankan Army should leave the preschools it runs across Vanni and Kilinochchi, the Northern Provincial Council decided in a vote this week.

In a resolution passed at the NPC's 55th session, members called for army personnel to withdraw from preschools currently being run by the C.S.T army wing.

Over 18,000 children are reported to be studying in these army-run schools.

Sri Lankan Foreign Minsiter Mangala Samaraweera pledged that his government “will and must have the approval” of victims who suffered during the armed conflict when deciding the degree of international participation in courts that will prosecute perpetrators of human rights abuses.

Addressing the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs in Oslo on Tuesday, Mr Samaraweera said “there’s a certain degree of controversy” when it came to the issue of international involvement in the setting up of a court to try perpetrators accused of committing violations of international humanitarian law.

However, he went on to add,

“That too will be decided after the consultations are over but all I can say now is whatever we decide upon, will and must have the approval, not only ourselves but of the victims those who suffered. This is not an exercise to please ourselves. So the final contours of the architecture of the courts we are hoping to set up will be in discussion. Especially with parties like the TNA and other groups which represent the victims.”

In his wide ranging speech, the minister went on to state that his government had “the intention of de militarizing the North and the East immediately after coming into power”.

“We are now in the process of even giving back the land which has been taken over for military purposes over the years,” he said.

He continued to say,

“In fact I know that during the course of this week another 700 acres will also be released. So far nearly 4000 acres but perhaps an equal amount of land remains to be released and that too we have told the military, that all must be released in a timeline going up to the end of 2018.”