Forced disappearance Stuck in the same

paradigm

2015-11-10
A quarter century since it began, the issue of
missing persons is still a problem, that has
left more questions than answers. As the
website of the Presidential Commission to
Investigate into Complaints Regarding
Missing Persons itself states, 23,249
complaints have been made regarding
disappearances as at October 23, 2015;
18,249 by civilians and 5,000 by security forces. Thats a minimum
of 0.11% of the total population of Sri Lanka having disappeared.
Take a minute and think of the fact that a minimum of 23,249
people have disappeared in Sri Lanka; disappeared from their
homes without a trace. The scarier fact is that since June 10, 1990
no solution has been found to the problem.

We are all your children,

we are worshipping at your
feet, please release these
sons so that the sufferings
of their mothers can be
mitigated. Release our
husbandsthat we wives can
live in peace, pleads Mrs.
S. Selvarani from Ampara
directing her requests at
the Government.

What sins have we

committed at this young
age? asked Gaujiyan
whose father is part of
those who have vanished
without a trace.

These sentiments were

expressed at the 25th
Annual Commemoration of
the Disappeared held on
the October 27 at the
BMICH in Colombo.

Several families of the disappeared were in attendance at the function,

which was held to mark the anniversary of the day Ranjith Herath and his
friend M. Lionel were abducted and found dead on October 27, 1989 at the
Raddoluwa Junction, Seeduwa.

I got married with so much of hope

We eat tears not rice and curry, said Mrs. S. Selvarani. She said that she
had been waiting for the last eight years for any news regarding her
husband. We handed them over to the security forces with our own hands
she said in despair. That would be the last that she saw of him, she said.
Her husband had promised to look after her forever and she had kept her
thali intact.

She had got married with immense hopes but now she had lost everything.
She related a story of a mother who was six months into pregnant when her
husband had been taken. The son now asks what his father looks
like.Why do we need the international community if our President is
sincere? she asked. She has nobody else to go to other than the
government and pleaded for the release of her husband so as not to pass
on the sufferings she was enduring to the future generations.

I will accept my son even if he is disabled. I just want him found

Mr. Palaminadhan from Vavuniya placed the duty and ability of ensuring
peace in the country with the Members of Parliament and religious leaders.

They (Members of Parliament) are elected by the people so that they can
fight for us, he said. However, a positive reply hasnt been given yet to
their grievances. He had asked God for help and had paid his respects to
Churches and Temples irrespective of his religion.

He had even appealed to the former President and the Defence Secretary
who had done nothing.

Who else could he complain to? he asked helplessly. Why should we

expose our country negatively due to mistakes of former leaders of the
regime?
Mr. Manoharan from Moneragala explained how Tamil people suffered at the
height of the war with Tamil youth being abducted and shot at.

His own uncle was shot dead in 2009 and requested the current President
and the Prime Minister to tell him what had happened to the disappeared
people.

I could have disappeared

Dr. T. Jayasingham, who was in charge of a refugee
camp in 1990 said that it was not only the families of
the disappeared that were traumatized, but all those
who worked around them as well.
On the 5th of September 1990, 158 people were taken
in my presence.

Living in Batticaloa, he said he got at least five calls from his family,
whenever he made a trip to Colombo and in this light he said that it was
definitely not an easy task, when people were in search of their loved ones
for twenty five years and were not given answers to their questions.

This suffering, therefore, has to come to an end. Answers have to be

provided. The truth has to come out and people have to reconcile. This is
not just for those who have to deal with the trauma of not knowing where a
loved one is but also for the millions of people who dont want their loved
ones to go missing in future, he said.

Mrs. Cruz from Negombo was in the North, when the war broke out. Her
father later took her to Kalpitiya where she got married and raised two
children.

She said that one day a white van with Policemen arrived at her home and
took her husband forcibly. After this incident the neighbours started asking
her whether her husband was in the LTTE.

He was Sinhalese and hasnt even seen an LTTE cadre, she said.

In addition to this, their child of 20 years of age is sick, faints frequently and
needs continuual supervision.

I come here always. Whenever I come here I get scolded from the place I
work at and I lose my allowance. When I come here I cant look after my
children but if I stay with my children I cant look for my husband, she said
breaking into tears.

She asked the current President to either find her husband or, if he was
killed, to say that he has been killed so that she can resolve her mind.

The duty of civil society to force the Government to take action Brito
Fernando
This was just a handful of the stories. As Human Rights
activist Brito Fernando said.
Even though we could easily watch heart wrenching
films for more than three hours at a time it is not that
easy to listen to other peoples sorrows in real life.
These are just five stories out of the 23,249 complaints. And these are just
the stories. People had to live through these events within around 350
kilometres away from us.

A resounding idea that was expressed was the duty of civil society to force
the Government to take action.

In order to do this society needs to understand and empathise with the

sufferings that many have had to endure.

They need to understand and empathise with the feeling of despair when
all efforts of finding answers are met with a dead end. They need to
understand and empathise with a state of affairs where for 25 years ones
loved one is deemed to have disappeared and the highest authority vested
with the power to find them has not yielded any results yet.

Committed crimes under the pretext of war - Dr. Mahesan Ganesan

Dr. Mahesan Ganesan is a practising psychiatrist who
has worked in Batticaloa and has seen the damage done
during the war including the disappearances.
The problem is that we were using the war as an
excuse to get many things done including committing
crimes under the pretext of war, he said.

When losses to life and property happen in a systematic manner then this
becomes a problem. We have failed to see the distinction between harm
that is a consequence of war and harm that is committed for the sake of
causing harm.

The government of that time felt that they had to give space to allow
people to commit crimes in the hope that this would hasten the war. The
effects of this can be seen in society today as the damage is not limited to
just those involved in the war.

This is the path that we need to follow for reconciliation and nation
building. For this, the truth is imperative. Without truth there can be no
justice and without both there can be no healing.

As a mental health specialist I know a large number of people who need

this healing since they are suffering psychologically due to these
disappearances. However, what we can do is very limited, since we are
waiting for truth and justice to happen.

There is no way that we can bypass truth and justice and jump straight to
healing. However, some people in the present government seem to believe
that this is possible.

This is unethical, cruel and wont work. The problem is that the
government is not taking responsibility for this process of truth and justice
and it is only when the government takes responsibility that people feel
that they are part of the country.

The governments have so far failed miserably to demonstrate that it could

do anything about this over the last six years and this is why people want
international intervention. This has also led people to take it upon
themselves to dispense justice and this was seen over the last few months
where people wanted the suspects of certain crimes, to beat them up
themselves. This was because they have lost faith in the justice process.
This is very dangerous. The government is forgetting that and ignoring the
truth and justice is impacting the greater society. Sri Lanka has failed in
bringing about any truth or justice.
Several Commissions were set up but this was due to external pressures
and not because the Government itself wanted justice. As soon as these
Commissions were set up the Commissioners themselves and the public
knew that they were sham Commissions. This defeats the whole process.
There have been hundreds of instances where people have been
threatened by State officials not to appear before these Commissions.
People have been threatened after giving evidence to the commissions.
Therefore families are not in a position to trust the government. When
justice is denied due to ethnicity and gender then the whole of society is
alienated. Let me give you an example of this. My parents support the Sri

Lanka cricket team. So do I. However, when it comes to my sons

generation, his Tamil friends do not support the team. The nation is broken
even to that extent.

The process of truth itself is traumatic; when people come forward to give
evidence and even afterwards. None of the Commissions considered this
aspect. Some inquiries were like interrogations. There was no sensitivity to
the psychological state of the witnesses. There needs to be adequate
psychological support for people coming forward to give evidence.

This should be considered as an important component in the next

Commission. The Health and Social Services Ministries will have to take on
the burden of providing psycho-social support but they dont have the
capacity to do so, there is a lack of human resource in the war affected
districts.

Specific funding has to be set aside to develop capacity and organise

services. What has the Health Sector done in the past six years to help
families and victims of the war? Hardly anything. With regards to
counselling services the Social Services Sector itself admitted in the past
that they were doing this so as to show the UN that they were doing
something. There is a huge need to build the capacity of the psycho-social
sector.

Why is the Government sacrificing the whole country for the sake of
protecting a few criminals in the Army and the Police? This is not only
affecting the families of the disappeared but the whole country itself. There
is a need for a huge investment in human resources. We need civil society

to apply pressure and get the Government to actually face issues without
whitewashing them. With regards to healing, Ministers speak about
forgiveness by religious leaders, even before the Commissions are set-up.
What is the message this sends out to the public? Forgiveness without
Justice. We are therefore still stuck in the same paradigm of protecting
criminals.

What the Commission says...

The primary institution tasked with the duty of investigating into the cases of missing persons
is the Presidential Commission Investigating Cases of Missing Persons (PCICMP). Under this
mandate the Commission had published an interim report titled as the First Mandate which
focuses on these enforced disappearances. The Dailymirror contacted the Commission with
regards to a few questions regarding the process.
What is the status of the report and the process so far?
The report has been given to Parliament, which has debated on it. However, nothing has been
said so far regarding what the debate resulted in. The Commission is planning to travel next
month to Jaffna to continue the inquiries. The deadline for the application regarding missing
persons was the 31st of December 2013 but new applications continue to come and the
Commission accepts.
Other than the report is there any support that the Commission has given to the families?
The mandate of the Commission instructs the Commission to provide assistance to the families
of the disappeared and this has been followed up by the Commission. One example of this is
the issuing of death certificates to families so that they can claim specific rights. Another
example is the releasing of all lands to the people in Jaffna. Further assistance has been given
in terms of those who were unable to claim pensions. A highlight of the Commission in terms
of assistance has been the counselling services it has implemented. Together with the ICRC,
the UN and the Health Ministry a comprehensive programme has been formulated with the
Embassy of Japan agreeing to sponsor it. This has further been recommended in the interim
report.

What is the Commissions response to the issues that have been raised with regard to
effectiveness of the Commission?
There were critics when the report was finalised. However this is a balanced report and even
the people who criticised it are admitting that it is comprehensive now. All the allegations of
the LLRC were looked into but none of these allegations were accepted at face value.

Many people are construing this report in wrong ways without reading the full contents of it.

Posted by Thavam