Enforced disappearances, Sri Lanka’s weapon of war
Colombo (AsiaNews) - In the last 40 years, the
governments of Sri Lanka
have used forced disappearances as a tool to suppress dissent and combat the
internal armed conflict. This
is the charge that the Network for Rights (NFR), a network of human rights
activists and journalists launch today on the second International Day for the
victims of enforced disappearances. From
the riots of young Marxists in the early 70s to 30 years of civil war, hundreds
of families (Tamil and Sinhalese) have lost all trace of their loved ones, nor
has it ever been possible to ascertain the exact number of missing persons. The
International Day for the victims of enforced disappearances was created by the
United Nations 30 August 2010.
The
NFR recalls the revolt of the young Marxists (1971) and the subsequent uprising
(1987-1989) as the first few episodes in which the government in Sri Lanka
started using forced disappearances as a real weapon. "In
1971 - said the NFR - an unknown number of young Sinhalese were arrested and
killed. Hundreds were burned, and their bodies disposed of without following
any procedure. Between 1988 and 1989, again thousands of young Sinhalese were kidnapped and killed in
summary executions. "
Then
came the civil war between the armed forces and the Tamil Tigers, which for
almost 30 years bloodied the north and east of the island. "Up
to now, the country has witnessed the indiscriminate disappearance of Tamil
youths, accused of belonging to rebel groups. During the last months of the war
[in May 2009], the army took into custody hundreds, if not thousands of
people who then disappeared: militants and civilians, prisoners and people who
had surrendered by their own will, who disappeared into thin air. "
Between
1994 and 1998, the authorities have created four different commissions of
inquiry to investigate these disappearances; identify potential perpetrators;
take the necessary measures. Each
of them has published a report, but none were ever followed by any government action.
"The
work done recently - adds the NFR - by the Lessons
Learnt and Reconciliation Commission [LLRC, a commission set up by
President Rajapaksa to investigate the final stages of the ethnic conflict, ed]
has also picked up on this issue. Yet, the executive does not and
has not done anything about it, and the perpetrators have never been
prosecuted. " This
attitude, together with the reluctance to ratify the UN Convention on missing
persons, for the NFR, "shows that enforced disappearance is a deeply rooted
crime, to which the State does not want to give up."
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24/01/2007
