In the backdrop of United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Volker Turk visiting Jaffna, Illankai Tamil Arasu Katchchi (ITAK) leader, C V K Sivagnanam, was hooted and chased away from the Chemmani cemetery site where a vigil is being kept in order to highlight the human rights violations committed in the past.

Sivagnanam who is the current leader of the ITAK was accompanied by another ITAK Parliamentarian, Rasamanikkam Sanakkiyan to the Chemmani cemetery area where a large number of civilians belonging to the families of disappeared persons, political prisoners and those who were believed to have been murdered and buried at the Chemmani cemetery, have been keeping vigil from Monday (23) to highlight the post-war atrocities to the visiting UNHRC Chief.

Turk who arrived in Sri Lanka on June 23, had talks with Government officials on the human rights developments in the country.

Earlier in Parliament, when the UNHRC Chief met the political parties, ITAK Member of Parliament S. Sritharan had handed over a memorandum to UNHRC Chief Turk on the human rights violations committed before and after the war in the North and East.

Volker Turk had gone through the memorandum submitted by the ITAK Parliamentarian and had talks with him over the post war human rights developments, as well as on the issues put forward to him by the ITAK.

Earlier Turk had visited Trincomalee and was welcomed there by the families of disappeared persons with tearful messages. They carried portraits of their loved ones and placards seeking justice for the injustices committed during the post-war period, as well when the North and East civil strife was in progress. Turk listened to them patiently and accepted the memorandums submitted by them seeking justice for their grievances.

Travelling to the North and East Provinces had been the key schedules in Turk’s assignment in Sri Lanka. Expecting his arrival in Jaffna, a vigil had been organised by the families of the war victims and it was when the ITAK President had visited Chemmani that he was chased away by the agitators gathered there.

Sivagnanam was kept away by the demonstrators on account of his recent meeting on behalf of the ITAK with the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) leader and former Fisheries Minister Douglas Devananda, with regard to ITAK and EPDP working in coalition over the unresolved political and humanitarian issues in the North and East.

Douglas Devananda has been identified as a Northern politician who had worked hand in hand with previous regimes in the country and even had a paramilitary outfit, coordinated with the Sri Lankan Armed Forces.

Therefore the angry demonstrators had shouted at the ITAK leader Sivagnanam for attempting to associate with the EPDP leader who was defeated at the Parliamentary election last year.

Previously, Volker Turk’s predecessor, former UNHRC Commissioner Navi Pillai who visited Sri Lanka in 2013, had visited the Northern Province and said her office was disturbed by the continued harassment and intimidation targeting human rights defenders in Sri Lanka.

Navi Pillai stated in 2013, “Almost five years since the end of the conflict, it is important for the Human Rights Council to recall the magnitude and gravity of the violations alleged to have been committed at that time by the Government and the LTTE, which had left thousands of civilians killed, injured or missing.”

She said the failure to address the grief and trauma among victims and survivors undermines confidence in the State and reconciliation. Tamil families complained to her about missing relatives, military land grabs and life without basic facilities.

Ms. Pillai was the most senior UN official to visit the north since Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in 2009.

About 300 people demonstrated in Jaffna to complain that the UN was not doing enough to investigate enforced disappearances and land-grabs.

One of the protesters, Ananthi Sasitharan, is the wife of Velayutham Sasitharan, a top LTTE leader.

Volker Turk’s Lankan visit has raised plenty of expectations with regard to the Chemmani cemetery issue as well as the disappeared persons. The victims of war in the North and East expect that Volker Turk’s visit will pave way for the justice to be meted out to them.