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Unaccounted and unacknowledged

01 Sep 2019

By Sarah Hannan International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances is annually marked on 30 August. In Sri Lanka, a protest was staged at the tent set up by the families of the disappeared in the North. On Friday, they were joined by the key family members of the disappeared from the South, and the families collectively staged the protest demanding the Government of Sri Lanka to reveal the fate of their missing family members. While thousands still remain missing following the insurgencies, civil war, and incidents of flexing political power against opposition party supporters, Sri Lanka, since the late 70s up to now, has not been able to provide an explanation to the family members of the missing persons about their whereabouts. Even after the civil war ended, there have been reports of persons abducted in several areas, some turning up brutally assaulted and killed in the process, and some others having vanished without a trace. The search for these individuals has been thwarted by inefficiency in recordkeeping, police inaction due to political influences, and the lack of interest of the governing party to provide sufficient information to the commissions to carry out their investigations on these cases. In March 1999, a study conducted by the UN reported that Sri Lanka had the second highest number of disappeared people in the world. While the count had been estimated to be 12,000 in 1980 during the insurgency where persons had gone missing after being detained by the security forces, the Government of Sri Lanka had later corrected the count to 17,000, after former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, with a commitment to correct the human rights abuses of the previous decade, appointed three Commissions of Inquiry into the Involuntary Removal or Disappearance of Persons during 1994-1997. In the final report of the Commission of Inquiry into Involuntary Removal or Disappearance of Persons in the Western, Southern, and Sabaragamuwa Provinces, the Commission had acknowledged the existence of mass graves in the Colombo, Gampaha, Galle, Matara, Matale, and Moneragala Districts. The Commission further stated that the phenomenon of a mass grave is a macabre pointer to the clandestine nature of the counter-insurgency operations carried out between the late 70s to the late 80s prior to the civil war. Mass graves were located in Hokandara, Essella School, Wavulkelle, Walpita Government Farm, Ambagahahenkanda, Bemmulle, Kottawakelle Forest in Yakkalamulla, Heendeniya in Dickwella, Diyadawakelle in Deniyaya, Wilpita in Akuressa, Angkumbura in Matale, and Suriyakanda in Moneragala. Yet, due to the lack of forensic experts and tracing mechanisms, the Government was not in a position to provide proof of death to some families and they still await their family members’ return. On 15 August 2013, President Mahinda Rajapaksa appointed the Presidential Commission to Investigate into Complaints regarding Missing Persons, chaired by Maxwell Paranagama, to investigate complaints regarding missing persons from 10 June 1990 to 19 May 2009, following the LLRC recommendations. However, the Paranagama Commission was mired in allegations of witness intimidation, evidence tampering, outrageous mistranslations of testimony, and procedural partiality. This led to a breakdown of trust and therefore a boycott of sittings by victims. Understanding the ineffective mechanisms of investigations and turning the focus to deal with the issue in a meaningful and efficient manner, the Government imposed a bill to establish the Office on Missing Persons (OMP) on 22 May 2016 as a means to address the problem via an independent and sustainable entity. OMP Chairman Saliya Pieris PC, commenting on the incidents that transpired, stated: “Many families are looking for closure with regard to their loved ones who have been missing for over three decades. Some mothers have been waiting for their sons to return and the longing to see their sons have pushed them to grieve at every protest they take part in. Some parents have passed away not knowing the fate of their missing children.” Pieris also informed that the country lacks forensic experts to carry out investigations in tracing the missing against the mass graves discovered in different instances. “In reality, we have been struggling to recruit qualified persons for our team as forensic investigators and tracers. Although this might not be a matter of importance for some who have not experienced disappearances in their own homes, the State has to acknowledge that there are people responsible for these disappearances and these persons should stand trial and be answerable to the families of the missing.” In OMP’s interim report published in August 2018, they noted with deep concern the multiple forms of harassment experienced by families of the missing and disappeared. Past commissions of inquiry as well as the Consultation Task Force reported the incidence of sexual harassment and bribery, where female relatives were asked for sexual favours in exchange for information about their missing relative and the provision of basic administrative services. The OMP noted with grave concern the attacks by unidentified persons on female relatives. Such acts of intimidation or reprisal aimed at complainants, witnesses, relatives of the disappeared person, or their defence counsel or persons conducting investigations are a serious threat to justice and undermine public confidence in the State. Six years and counting As OMP rightfully reported in their document, a wife of a missing person narrated her story to The Sunday Morning about the events that unfolded following her husband’s disappearance in 2013. Mauri Inoka Jayasinghe, a mother of twins, was sent from pillar to post to find out what happened to her husband Madushka de Silva who went missing on 2 September 2013. De Silva, along with two other men, was abducted in Anuradhapura that day. While the other two men had been released the next day, there was no sign of de Silva. At the time, de Silva’s wife Jayasinghe was seven months into her pregnancy and was shocked to hear that her husband had been abducted by a group that had arrived in a white van. “My husband was a fruit vendor in Anuradhapura. On the day he was abducted, his brother and uncle went to the police station to inquire the whereabouts of my husband. They went to the police station in hopes of seeing my husband as there were witnesses who had seen the Police placing him in handcuffs and taking him in a white van with the other two men.” The Police had told them that they would get some news by evening that day, and Jayasinghe informed that the Police had not recorded an entry to state that de Silva was abducted. On that day, de Silva’s brother and uncle had gone to the Police Station twice again in the evening to see whether they would get a positive response. “Even in these two instances, the Police was not keen on recording our complaint and when we went to the Police on 3 September 2013, the Police did not allow me to lodge a complaint that my husband was missing.” According to Jayasinghe, the abductors had in fact toppled de Silva’s three-wheeler before taking them away. Since the three-wheeler belonged to the brother, the Police had agreed to record a complaint against the missing three-wheeler, but refused to state that de Silva was missing. It was only after a week on 10 September 2013 that the Anuradhapura DIG at the time had taken down Jayasinghe’s complaint under CIB (1)367/33 and given some hope that the Police would look into de Silva’s disappearance. On that day, a team from the Crimes Branch of the Anuradhapura Police had arrived at de Silva’s house to collect evidence. Following that, Jayasinghe had gone to the Anuradhapura office of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka and then to the head office in Colombo to file a petition under HRC/3926/13. Jayasinghe is of the belief that her husband was abducted due to political revenge since his family was closely associated with a few of the area’s politicians and de Silva was a very sociable person. “Since then, I have been continuously going to the Police and the courts and taking part in protests to find out what happened to him. His case has been shuttled from Anuradhapura to Colombo and again back to Anuradhapura and is now heard at the Anuradhapura Magistrate Court under the case number B 2894/2013.” Just a year into the abduction of her husband, Jayasinghe was also abducted on 1 November 2014 by two people in a three-wheeler. She was blindfolded and after a short drive had been transferred to a van, where they had threatened her by holding a pistol to her back and told she was being too vocal about her husband’s disappearance, and she had to stop the search for her husband if she wanted to live. Day of the Disappeared On Friday (30), marking the occasion of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances Chair-Rapporteur Bernard Duhaime said: “We reiterate our call to all States to expeditiously become parties to the Convention for the Protection of All Persons against Enforced Disappearances and to accept the competence of the Committee on Enforced Disappearances to receive and examine individual complaints.” The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance reiterated that the states party to this Convention should be aware of the extreme seriousness of enforced disappearance, which constitutes a crime and, in certain circumstances defined in international law, a crime against humanity; that they should be determined to prevent enforced disappearances and combat impunity for the crime of enforced disappearance; should consider the right of any person not to be subjected to enforced disappearance, the right of victims to justice and to reparation; and affirm the right of any victim to know the truth about the circumstances of an enforced disappearance and the fate of the disappeared person, and the right to freedom to seek, receive, and impart information to this end. Tamil mothers of the disappeared In February, following the 40th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC), the Tamil mothers of the disappeared staged a protest in Killinochchi, demanding justice for war-time human rights abuses across the country. In a letter addressed to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Tamil mothers of the disappeared had revealed that at the end of the civil war, they had personally and voluntarily handed over many of their family members, including children, to the Sri Lankan security forces at the end of May 2009, relying on the assurances that they would be safe. Even after 10 years, the Government has failed to acknowledge and admit that the surrendered remain disappeared. The letter further stated that Tamils were still waiting for justice for the mass atrocities committed by the Sri Lankan Government over the killings of tens of thousands of Tamils and the sexual assaults and rapes committed by the Sri Lankan security forces against Tamil women and girls in the last stages of the war.

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