Sri Lanka has experienced two civil wars within the past three decades. The two decade old socio-ethnic armed conflict between the Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Second socio-economic insurrection of the National Liberation Front (JVP) in the south in 1987 against the government has resulted in grave violations of human rights including mass extra-judicial executions, reprisal killings, torture, involuntary disappearances and incommunicado detentions.
The Three Presidential Commissions of Inquiry appointed in 1995 to probe involuntary removal or disappearance of persons that occurred between January 1998 till the end of 1995 investigated a total of 27,526 complaints and found evidence of disappearance in 16,742 cases. An All Island Commission that was appointed to inquire into 10,136 more complaints confirmed the disappearance of 4, 473 persons. But the latter Commission could not inquire into 16,305 new cases of disappearances since it had no mandate to do so. These cases have thus far, not been investigated by any commission or other tribunal.
The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (UNWGEID), which visited Sri Lanka three times, has documented that since 1980, 12,258 cases of “disappearances” in Sri Lanka have been reported . The Working Group stated that the disappearances were the highest number of recorded involuntary disappearances in the world. These cases are reported to have occurred between 1987 and 1990. The Working Group recorded in particular 145 cases in 1987, 187 cases in 1988, 5, 027 cases in 1989 and 4, 777 in 1990. These disappearances occurred mostly in the Southern and Central Provinces of the island during a period in which both security forces, vigilante groups working with them and the JVP resorted to the use of extreme violence. No records of disappearances during this period in the north and east of the country are available as those regions were under the control of the LTTE.
The Association of Families of Servicemen Missing in Action ( AFSMA) has confirmed that approximately 439 service personnel including police officers and 2, 914 men were missing up to the year 2, 000. It has been confirmed by a Board of Investigation appointed to probe those killings that 765 persons disappeared in 1996 after the assassination of the Jaffna military commander Major General Hapangama on 4th July 1996.
There have been no investigations into several mass graves discovered by the Presidential Commissions on Disappearances and revealed by individuals both in the north and the south. During the regime of the present President who appointed the Commissions on Disappearances, twenty Tamil persons were found floating in a lake near Colombo allegedly having been extra-judicially killed by police officers in October 1995. In another case, 21 Sinhalese soldiers were indicted for killing 25 Tamils extra-judicially. They were subsequently acquitted at the trial by a Sinhala language speaking Jury.
The only case in which accused State officers were convicted was the Embilipitiya Disappearance case in which 24 school children were abducted and killed between August 1989 and January 1990. Their bodies were never found but the accused were convicted of charges ranging from kidnapping for murder, wrongful arrest, etc. and were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment to be served concurrently for 10 years which is highly inadequate considering the crimes committed by the accused.
Crimes committed during the period under discussion amount to a systematic and widespread acts of murder, torture, enforced disappearances, extermination, arbitrary imprisonment or severe deprivation of physical freedom and persecution on political grounds. Any of these crimes individually can constitute crimes against humanity. The occurrence of several of these crimes compounds the urgency with which the situation in Sri Lanka must be addressed. There is no guarantee that these horrendous events will not recur in the future taking into consideration the fragile and volatile socio-economic and socio-ethnic situation in the country.
Impunity remains a principal problem and a contributory factor to the continuation of gross human rights violations. The brutal massacre of 28 inmates detained at Bindunuweva Rehabilitation Center in October 2000 was a tragic reminder of the similar massacre of 52 Tamil prisoners in the Government Prison in Colombo in July 1983 with the connivance and collusion of the state officers. Nobody was ever prosecuted for those killings, which conveys the clear impression that the state not only fails to protect its Tamil detainees, but it also condones such killings.
All these crimes are committed using special laws made in the name of national security, the provisions of which are in violation of the international human rights standards despite the fact that Sri Lanka has ratified the ICCPR and the Optional Protocol I.
Profile of the Perpetrators
According to the findings of the Commissions on Disappearances, the disappearances and extra-judicial killings and other forms of political terror were perpetrated by state officials, police officers, other security officers, vigilante groups employed by politicians and by the JVP and the LTTE themselves. There was a systematic use of unaccountable, arbitrary, cruel and deadly power, both by the state and non-state forces including involvement at a very high level of the members of the ruling United National Party.
The political system that existed during periods in which disappearances were widespread and systematic in Sri Lanka justifies them and all other human rights violations on the grounds of necessity. The state, using the rhetoric of national security, proclaims that it is in maintaining the integrity and preventing separation of the country. The insistence on cumbersome procedures recognized and enshrined within the criminal justice system was considered ridiculous especially faced with terrorism. Some non-state groups also justified their actions stating that they were acting in private defense and adopting the doctrine of necessity.
The Special Rapporteur on Extra-judicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions has been receiving reports alleging indiscriminate killings of innocent civilians and non-combatants by both the government and opposition groups. Army personnel and other members of the military forces are constantly being blamed for the massacre of hundreds of Tamil civilians. These reported deaths are said to result from government air strikes on civilian targets as well as deliberate killing by military and police personnel. It was asserted that police and army personnel have killed a large number of innocent civilians in retaliation for acts committed by isolated armed groups. Since the ceasefire agreement between the government and the LTTE, there have not been any killings by either party during the past two years.
Since the July 1987 Indo-Lanka Peace accord, armed Sinhalese groups in the south opposing the accord, notably the DJV and the JVP have apparently been responsible for the killing of government officials, ruling party and opposition members as well as suspected informers.
Immunity has been bestowed upon the perpetrators by not implementing the recommendations of the Commissions on Disappearances and the UNWGEID. Other manifestations include the enacting of Immunity laws, permitting the accused persons to continue in service and work in areas where the violations occurred and the witnesses live pending trial, and not granting necessary powers to the National Human Rights Commission to deal with violations and violators of human rights.
Many requests made to the authorities to implement the recommendations of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (UNWGEID) and the Presidential Commissions on Disappearances have been observed only marginally.
Access to Justice Available to Victims of Violations.
