MPGA wants missing children, rejects compensation

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 December 2002, 16:16 GMT]
Rejecting offers of financial compensation from the government for their children missing since their arrest by the State armed forces in 1996 and 1997, the Missing Persons Guardians Association (MPGA) Monday demanded that the Jaffna Government Agent (GA) make arrangements for them to meet the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister to discuss the issue.

A delegation of the MPGA met the GA, Mr.S.Pathmanathan, Monday afternoon at the district secretariat and reiterated that its members wanted the government to produce their missing children. They demanded that the government should probe into the forced disappearance of more than six hundred youths after their arrest by security forces.

When the GA suggested that he would take steps to provide compensation, members of the delegation responded in unison, "We want our missing children and not money."

The GA agreed to the delegation‚s request to make arrangements for the members of MPGA to meet the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister.

The MPGA has told the GA that its members would continue their sit-in-protest near the Jaffna district secretariat without preventing employees from going to work, starting December 12 until their demands are met.

Also on Monday, the MPGA announced that they would hold a sit in protest in front of the Jaffna office of the Human Rights Commission in Sri Lanka coinciding with the International Human Rights Day, which falls on Tuesday (December 10).