Vasu blames US for passage of OMPB
Monday, August 15, 2016
The US influence over Sri Lankan parliament had made the government rush through the House the Office of the Missing Persons Bill (OMPB) on Friday, despite the widespread criticism it had faced, Leader of Democratic Left Front (DLF) MP Vasudeva Nanayakkara said yesterday.
He told the media at the N.M. Perera Centre in Borella that the US Embassy in Colombo had influenced the Speaker of the Sri Lanka Parliament to pass the OMPB on Friday itself and it was one of the main reasons for the protest by the Joint Opposition (JO) against the Bill, he said.
The veteran left-wing politician alleged that celebrations had been taken place at the US Embassy in Colombo with the participation of several NGOs on Friday night to celebrate the passage of the OMPB.
The London-based Tamil Diaspora organization, the Global Tamil Forum (GTF) had also welcomed the passing of the OMPB in Sri Lanka Parliament on August 11 and also commended the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government for taking this initiative, Nanayakkara said.
Those things had clearly proved who was behind the passage of OMPB, the DLF leader said.
Responding to President Maithripala Sirisena’s statement at a recent media interview that the Office of the Missing Persons had not been granted the police powers as the JO was alleging, MP Nanayakkara noted that either the President had been misled by someone in the government or he was trying to mislead the country.
Referring to the OMPB, he said the bill had been designed to grant police powers to the officials of the Office of the Missing Persons. They could enter any place and question people without a warrant which usually the Police could do, Nanayakkara stressed.
It was the normal routine that the leaders of each political party in Parliament agreed on the business of the day and on last Friday it was the VAT bill which was scheduled to be taken but due to several issues it was informed that it was OMPB which was scheduled. However, the JO did not oppose the debating of the OMPB, but was of the view that they should start debating the Bill but a special day should be allocated to debate it in detail before it was passed. But, the government had not been agreeable to the proposal. The JVP was initially agreed with the JO, but later it changed its position and sided with the government most probably due to the government influence, according to Nanayakkara.
Reiterating that the OMPB was against the Constitution of the country, the former cabinet Minister Nanayakkara said it would have to take a writ of prohibition against the Office of Missing Persons in the future and it would definitely have to review the constitutionality of OMPB at the Supreme Court.
The JO would submit a detailed report regarding the incident to Parliament and the process of the passage of OMPB to the speaker at the next parliament sitting, Nanayakkara added.
The Island