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July 1998 |
The Disappeared in Sri Lanka
"Where are they?" is the cry of thousands of families, spoken in dozens of languages, in many areas of the world. Perhaps the cry is nowhere louder than in Sri Lanka, where the forced disappearance of persons is still used systematically by government authorities mostly against members of the Tamil minority. More than 100 people "disappeared" in 1997; these are added to the more than 20,000 people who have "disappeared" since January 1, 1988.
For the past 14 years, the Sri Lankan government has been fighting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist armed group who seeks to establish a separate state for the country's Tamil minority. This prolonged fight has lead to thousands of deaths, including many from extra-judicial executions, as well as the displacement of tens of thousands of people. The hostilities have been mostly concentrated in the north and north-east of the country, where the Tamil minority is concentrated. Between 1987 and 1990, the government also confronted the armed People's Liberation Front. Both sides resorted to extreme violence, and many people were forcibly disappeared by the government during this period.
Since 1990, disappearances have been most common in the regions of Jaffna (recovered by government forces from LTTE control in 1996), Batticaloa, Mannar and Killinochchi. Victims include young Tamil men, many of them poor farm laborers, fishermen or students who were detained accused or suspected of belonging, collaborating with, or sympathizing with the LTTE. Women and girls suspected of such sympathies have also been systematically disappeared. Many of the disappeared are also people who have been displaced, and have sought shelter in churches or schools.
Disappearances usually occur after detention by police or military forces. A typical method of detentions consists of "cordon and search" operations, in which the army in conjunction with the police or the paramilitary Special Task Forces, goes into a village or rural area and detains dozens of people. Though many are released within a few days, some remain in custody for questioning. These, as well as other detainees, are usually taken to army or police bases, or to undisclosed "secret" locations, where they are tortured and then murdered. The military or police authorities often refuse to give information about their whereabouts to their relatives, thus their status as "disappeared." It's alleged that the bodies of those murdered are sometimes discarded into disused wells and lavatories in or near army camps.
Security forces often engage on disappearances as a reprisal for attacks on their members by the LTTE.. While there is no evidence that the disappearances are sanctioned by the Colombo government, the government has not taken the necessary step to prevent them. In 1994, three regional commissions of inquiry were set up to investigate the fate of the disappeared, and they presented their report, documenting16,742 "disappearances," to the President last year. While the report is to be made public, and the president has promised prosecutions of those responsible for the disappearances, little has been done so far. A Board of Investigation established by the Ministry of Defense to investigate disappearances in the northern and eastern section of Sri Lanka in 1996 led to the location of 182 people, but again the fate of the rest remains unknown and those responsible for these disappearances remain unpunished.
According to the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, those responsible reportedly included all branches of the security forces, Muslim and Sinhalese home guards and armed Tamil groups opposed to the LTTE. There might be an end in sight to impunity of human rights violations, however. On July 3, 1998, five members of the security forces were found guilty of rape, "disappearance" and murder of Krishanthy Kumarasamy, a high school student, and members of her family and were sentenced to death. According to Amnesty International, the government's swift reaction on the Kumarasamy case may have helped curtail the systematic disappearance of people in the Jaffna region.
Disappearances are not limited to state security forces. The LTTE is responsible for the disappearance of an undetermined number of civilians. It also engages in the practice of taking civilian hostages, and trying to exchange them for imprisoned LTTE members. Most of the hundreds of police and security forces personnel captured by the LTTE in battle are believed to be dead. The LTTE controls large sections of the north and the east of the country, where it has established an authoritarian government and commonly violates the fundamental rights of the people under its control.
