(To mark the 35th Annual Commemoration of the Disappeared)
By Philip Dissanayake, Executive Director, Right to Life Human Rights Centre
Sri Lanka has a long history of enforced disappearances. The period from the 1970s until the end of the civil war in 2009 is cited as a time when disappearances were severely reported in the country. While official statistics on the exact numbers are unavailable, it represents a significant percentage of the population.
Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, while an opposition Member of Parliament, once declared at a Geneva summit that the number of disappeared persons in the South during the 1988/89 period alone exceeded sixty thousand. Subsequently, over 28,000 complaints regarding disappearances were reported to a Presidential Commission of Inquiry appointed by the government to investigate the issue. However, some parents informed the writer that they did not submit their complaints to these commissions due to fear, suspicion, and mistrust. A considerable number of such parents were encountered later.
Highest Numbers of Disappearances in the World
Following those turbulent times, a large number of disappearances were again reported from Sri Lanka during the civil war. Consequently, the year 2009 saw Sri Lanka being cited as the country with the highest number of disappearances reported in the world. At that time, we were surpassed only by countries that suffered serious individual disappearances, such as East Timor, Bolivia, and Myanmar.
Accordingly, in addition to corruption and fraud, enforced disappearances and abductions, extrajudicial killings, and torture are key features in Sri Lanka’s recent history. It should not be forgotten that this remains an unresolved serious social problem within the Sri Lankan state.
Demanding justice for the disappeared and remedies to prevent such situations from recurring, parents in the South first organized demonstrations. Massive protests like the Colombo-Kataragama foot march (Pāda Yāthra) and public outcry (Jana Ghosha) can be cited as outcomes of this movement. This pressure even enabled these forces to change the governments in power at the time. It also led to the identification of mass graves at sites like Suriyakanda and helped popularize a strong anti-disappearance opinion in the Southern society.
The Northern War and the Decline of Southern Protest
However, as the civil war in the North gradually intensified, the protest movement in the South slowly declined. Furthermore, advocating against disappearances became defined as supporting terrorism. This was caused by the fact that many family members of the disappeared in the South joined the security forces and a pro-war environment was created in the South.
The ultimate result was that a number of disappearances several times greater than those in the South occurred, positioning Sri Lanka in the second place globally for the highest number of unsolved disappearances, behind only Iraq. Moreover, in addition to the mass graves found in the South at places like Suriyakanda, Wilpita, Bolgoda, and Hokandara, a number of other mass graves were created in the North and East. Including the recent mass grave found in the Colombo Port premises, the number of mass graves discovered in Sri Lanka is now over twenty.
A political party, a considerable portion of whose members were victims of this problem and suffered severely from it at one time, is now in governing power. This has brought relief to those hoping for a just solution to the issue. Consequently, a hope has been created that the current government will provide a fair solution to this disaster.
The South Korean Experience
South Koreans had a slightly different experience in the 90s. This was the election to power of a political group that led the Gwangju Uprising in South Korea. The newly elected government took legal action to secure justice for the victims in a very short period and expedited the completion of the relevant court trials. Furthermore, necessary legal measures and a significant program for reparations were implemented in the country to prevent such a situation from recurring. A special feature was the establishment of large monuments across Gwangju city to commemorate the disappeared, the transformation of former torture chambers into memorial spaces, and the holding of large annual commemorations with state sponsorship. Due to these measures, South Korea has moved past that historical stigma and transformed into a state that is rapidly progressing in the world today. Since the 1980 Gwangju Incident, no such incident has been reported from South Korea.
Although not like in South Korea, the Sri Lankan government has also taken various steps to solve this problem over the decades. It appears that all these steps were taken to evade various pressures. They can be called reforms done merely to save face, especially in the face of pressure from the international community. Even if one government took a minor step regarding this matter, the next government made it its policy to bypass it.
Measures Taken to Prevent the Recurrence of Disappearances
The most important reform was Sri Lanka signing the UN International Convention on enforced disappearances, which it had been avoiding for a long time. The Yahapalana government signed it in December 2015, ratified it in 2016, and with the passing of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance Act, No. 05 of 2018 in Parliament in 2018, enforced disappearance became a criminal offense in Sri Lanka. This can be considered the closing of a major loophole that existed in our legal system.
In addition, the Office on Missing Persons (OMP) and the Office for Reparations, established to provide reparations to the affected families, are considered important factors. While some cooperation was obtained from the relatives of the disappeared in the South for the establishment of these offices, no government has yet been able to secure significant support from the relatives in the North and East. They stated that providing compensation is an act of covering up the crimes. Their demand is for justice, not compensation.
Two Perspectives in the North and South
Some support from the parents in the South was obtained because they were promised some compensation or a monthly allowance for their disappeared relatives. The Yahapalana government announced that it would provide a monthly allowance of Rs. 6,000 to those families. These elderly relatives, exhausted and helpless after decades of pursuing various political parties and individuals for justice for their disappeared kin, had placed hope in this compensation.
While the parents in the South hoped for economic relief, the mothers in the North and the Tamil society continue to seek justice for the disappearance issue and a long-term political solution. Towards that goal, various measures continue to be implemented both nationally and internationally. One such action is the continuous Satyagraha (peaceful protest) launched by the parents in the Kilinochchi area, which has now exceeded 3,000 days, and may even be the longest Satyagraha in the world.
Additionally, memorials have been constructed and commemorations are held in the North to remember the disappeared. Some previous governments demolished some of these memorials and disrupted the commemorative events held by the grieving relatives. However, the new government granting permission for these events should be appreciated.
United Nations Resolution
The issue in Sri Lanka was once again brought under serious attention at the recent United Nations Human Rights Council Session. The government was commended for conducting investigations into the mass graves recently discovered, but it was pointed out that these must be conducted according to international standards. The UN also expressed concern over the non-repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and the continued use of other repressive laws that restrict fundamental freedoms.
Finally, the UN 60th Human Rights Council recently unanimously adopted a resolution against Sri Lanka regarding the promotion of reconciliation, accountability, and human rights (A/HRC/60/L.1/Rev.1). However, the Sri Lankan government rejected it.
With the aim of drawing public attention to Sri Lanka’s disappearance issue, which has a history of over seven decades, two monuments were erected in the South in the late 1990s to commemorate the disappeared. The first was constructed with state patronage, and the second was erected under the patronage of civil society.
The state-sponsored monument, named Ahisankayinge Ārāmaya (Monastery of the Innocents), was initiated on December 10, 1999, near the Parliament roundabout to commemorate the Embilipitiya student killings. The Mahinda Rajapaksa government, which had earlier led foot marches and protests demanding justice for the disappeared in the South and presented facts at Geneva regarding the issue, later razed the very monument to the ground.
The second monument was erected by the Organization of Parents and Family Members of the Disappeared at the Raddoluwa junction at Seeduwa, to commemorate all the disappeared in Sri Lanka, including Ranjith and Lionel, who disappeared on October 27, 1989 while working in the Katunayake Free Trade Zone. This monument, a creation of the veteran painter and sculptor Professor Chandraguptha Thenuwara, was opened on February 4, 2000. An annual ceremony commemorating the disappeared has been held continuously at that location since October 27, 1991, even before the monument was built, and the commemoration to be held on October 27, 2025, is its 35th annual observance.