A decade of agony for families of the Disappeared

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 March 1998, 23:59 GMT]
On May 17, 1990, Special Task Force personnel from the Periyaneelavenai camp in the Batticaloa District, went from house to house in the villages of Periyakallar and Thuraineelavanai, rounding up youngsters. The villages are in the Batticaloa District. At Periyakallar the STF posed off as members of the LTTE.

One hundred and one persons were arrested that night. Little more than a month later, on June 30, the Sri Lanka Army operating from the Periyaneelavenai STF Camp, cordoned off and searched Thuraineelavanai once again. This time 20 were taken away.

The villagers Thuraineelavenai terrified again when 15 persons were taken away by the STF on December 12, Next year, when the village of Paandirippu, which is adjacent to Kalmunai was celebrating Tamil New Year, the STF from the Periyakallar and Karaitheevu camps, rounded up the area and took away 45 persons.

None of these persons were ever seen again by the villagers.

"On May 17 around ten o'clock in the night, a group of armed men came to my house and said they were taking my son for questioning - he is missing since," said S. Kanagasabai of Thuraineelavanai.

Seven years later, on September 18, 1997, after complaining to the Human Rights Commission, Kanagasabai was asked to report to the Colombo High Court. His statement was recorded. These were compared with the official documents Kangasabai had sent earlier. He was assured that a reply would come in due course.

But no reply came.

While the trauma of coming to terms with the disappearance of someone near and dear is devastating enough, additional problems confront the widows and parents of the missing persons.

Compensation from the Sri Lankan Government is awarded to the next of kin of persons who have died in the violence only if a death certificate issued by the Judicial Medical Officer (JMO) certifying the death.

Most parents, children and spouses of the disappeared in Batticaloa find it difficult to claim compensation because the authorities are not issuing death certificates to the disappeared.

"Armed and uniformed persons took my father away around 8:30 p.m. saying he was wanted for an inquiry at Kokkaddichcholai," said Krishnalatha from Periyakallar speaking about the events of 1990.

Kokkaddichcholai was under the Liberation Tigers Tamil Eeelam (LTTE).

The abductors' reference to this village, created an impression in the minds of the villagers that the persons who had called late that night were members of the LTTE.

"When we said we would come to Kokkaddichcholai in the morning, they forcibly took my father away. Until next morning we were not sure who had taken him," said Krishnalatha.

Next day, Krishnalatha's family realised that many others from Periyakallar had also been abducted. But the relatives of the victims were not prepared to lose heart. They went to the Periyaneelavanai STF camp which is about three kilometers south on the main road to Kalmunai.

There was pandemonium by the camp. Women were wailing and begging the officials to have at least a glimpse of their sons, husbands and brothers. Krishnalatha asked the officer-in-charge of the Camp whether he had arrested her father. He denied it.

"What we heard from the people living near the camp terrified us. They said that on the previous evening, a large number of old tyres were brought to the camp from Kalmunai. Around midnight gunfire was heard, followed by screams. Later the neighbours said they saw coils of smoke rising from the camp," said Krishnalatha.

Krishnalatha later gave evidence about her father's abduction before the Presidential Commission on Disappearances in the Northeast.

But nothing has been heard of her father fate, nor was compensation paid by the State.

When the Peoples' Alliance (PA) was campaigning for the general election in 1994, it promised to bring to light human rights atrocities committed by the security forces both in the war against Tamil militancy in the north-east, as well as in the attempt to subdue the southern insurgency of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).

The Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, then on the campaign trail, is on record saying that she could feel the agony and suffering of widows and children because both her father and husband were victims of political violence.

Once elected to power, President Chandrika Kumaratunga appointed the Presidential Commission on Disappearances to probe the disappearances which took place from 1980 - 1994.

But as time went on it became obvious that, while the Government was not doing anything to disrupt the functioning of the Commission, the legal and moral backing the parents and spouses of the disappeared persons had expected from it that was not forthcoming.

The perpetrators were not brought to book in a systematic way, nor was compensation paid to the victims.

This was because the PA's prime motive during the 1994 elections was to fling mud on the United National Party (UNP) during whose incumbency these human rights violations had occurred and not for the welfare of the grieving families of the disappeared say critics who accuse the Sri Lankan Government of dragging its feet subtly.

Under these circumstances, the families of the disappeared living in areas outside the north-east and fighting for compensation have made some progress in organising themselves into action groups.

The Organisation of Parents and Families of the Disappeared (OPFMD) came into being in the southern parts of the island thus. Individual lawyers and human rights activists also helped in this endeavour.

But the number of persons who disappeared in the East - the Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Amparai Districts - in the hands of the security forces since 1983 is quite significant when one compares it to the disappearances and killings of non-combatants in the other parts of Sri Lanka.

What is unfortunate, according to a human rights activist in Batticaloa, is that while organisations like OPFMD in southern Sri Lanka and the Missing Persons Guardian Association (MPGA) in Jaffna have helped people to fight the cause of the disappeared, there is no systematic institutional representation of the interests of the missing people of the East.

Unless the parents, relatives and those concerned about the disappearances in the east band themselves together and act as pressure group, only lamentation and bitterness will be the lot of individuals like Kangasabai and Krishnalatha.