MPGA warns of hunger strike

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 October 1999, 09:11 GMT]
The Missing Persons Guardian Association (MPGA) in Jaffna has warned that it will launch a hunger strike if Government authorities do not reveal, before the 30 October, the details of those who have been arrested by the security forces in the northern peninsula and reported missing.

According to the organisation over 600 Tamils have been reported missing and the authorities have so far revealed the details of only 15 of them.

So far the government has failed to give details of the missing persons, despite various protests launched by the MPGA, sources said.

The decision to launch a hunger strike was taken at a meeting held in Nallur yesterday, the sources said.

Amnesty International said last November that most of Jaffna's disappeared are feared to have been tortured and/or killed in the custody of government forces.

A former Sri Lanka Army corporal who was convicted in rape and murder of a schoolgirl told in the courts that hundreds of Tamils arrested in Jaffna were killed and buried at Chemmani.

Exhumation of the alleged mass graves, identified by the SLA corporal and other witnesses in the Chemmani case, has yielded 15 bodies.