JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka’s largest Tamil political party said Tuesday that the government had failed to take meaningful action on wartime accountability, enforced disappearances, or the return of military-held land, nearly two years after coming to power promising reform.
The Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi, or ITAK, issued the statement as Sri Lanka’s human rights record came under renewed scrutiny at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. The party said it welcomed a written update by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, particularly its concern over the lack of progress on accountability for abuses committed during the country’s civil war.
The statement, signed by ITAK’s general secretary, M.A. Sumanthiran, cited the continued military occupation of civilian land, enforced disappearances, political prisoners and the Chemmani mass grave near Jaffna among issues it said remained unresolved. It also pointed to the long-delayed provincial council elections.
ITAK acknowledged the government’s efforts to combat bribery, corruption and drug-related crime but said there had been no comparable progress on issues affecting Tamils.
“We are deeply disappointed by the lack of any meaningful steps taken by the government on matters affecting the Tamil people, the party said.
ITAK also called on President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s government to fulfil its election promises, particularly its pledge to introduce a new constitution addressing what the party described as the “historic aspirations” of the Tamil people.
Mr. Dissanayake’s National People’s Power made unprecedented electoral gains in the Tamil-majority north after taking power in 2024, winning parliamentary seats in areas long dominated by Tamil nationalist parties. The result gave the new government political ground in a region where successive administrations in Colombo had struggled to build support.
The U.N. assessment, however, presented a more mixed picture than ITAK’s statement.
Covering developments from October 2025 through July 2026, it noted arrests and investigations connected to political killings, enforced disappearances and the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings. It also cited the attorney general’s decision to indict Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, a former Eastern Province chief minister widely known as Pillayan, over the 2006 abduction and killing of a university vice chancellor.
But the U.N. found that prosecutions for crimes committed during the civil war remained stalled. It also raised concerns about the continued use of the Prevention of Terrorism Act and about surveillance and questioning of activists and journalists, including over their contacts with U.N. bodies in Geneva.
Mr. Türk said the government had an opportunity to break with decades of impunity but warned that “more needs to be done to end the long legacy of impunity.”
The renewed scrutiny comes as excavations at Chemmani have again placed questions of accountability and the disappeared at the center of public attention in the north.
Human remains were uncovered there during construction work in February 2025, prompting a court-supervised excavation. Investigators have since recovered 583 sets of human remains during 110 days of excavation across three phases. The remains include those of adults and children, while personal belongings recovered from the site have included items associated with children.
The identities of the dead have yet to be established, and no one has been charged in connection with the burial site.
The question of political devolution also remains unresolved. Sri Lanka’s provincial councils, established under the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in 1987, have been without elected representatives since 2018 as successive governments postponed elections.
Sri Lanka’s civil war ended in May 2009 with the military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. In the 17 years since, successive governments have pledged varying measures of reconciliation, accountability and constitutional reform.
For families searching for relatives who disappeared during the conflict and its aftermath, those promises have yet to produce the answers they have sought.
