RIGHTS-SRI LANKA: Justice Not Done in ‘Disappeared’ Cases, Says UN

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Oct 30 1999 (IPS) - A UN rights team says it is disappointed by the failure of the Sri Lankan government to punish members of the armed forces and the police blamed for killings of civilians and other human rights violations, 10 years ago.

“Reports by special presidential commissions, probing disappearances, clearly gave a list of people responsible but apart from a few cases, none of these perpetrators has been convicted or taken to court,” said Manfred Nowak of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID).

Nowak, while acknowledging that the government has done a lot, particularly in investigations and payment of compensation, told reporters here on Thursday that the process of seeking criminal justice for families of the disappeared was too slow.

“Many people in the country feel justice has not been done, despite government efforts to provide relief to the families of victims,” said Nowak.

Nowak and WGEID secretary Miguel de la Lama have been in Sri Lanka for a week to follow up on recommendations made by the WGEID during previous visits in 1991 and 1992, to probe a violent youth revolt that was crushed by the government in 1990.

The visit ending Oct. 29 is coordinated by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) office in Colombo, which organised several sessions with affected individuals and groups representing those who disappeared between 1988 and 1990.

“It is a valuable visit for us,” acknowledged Shantha Pathiran, secretary of the Organisation of Parents and Family Members of the Disappeared (OPFMD), one of the main groups campaigning for justice.

Estimates of missing persons have ranged from 10,000 to 60,000 over the three-year period of the uprising against the government by the People’s Liberation Front (JVP), whose members are from the country’s majority Sinhalese community.

WGEID, in a report presented after its 1991 and 1992 visits, recommended that the government establish a mechanism to clarify the fate of missing persons and that it should vigorously prosecute those responsible for these acts and punish them.

Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga who came to power in 1995 promising to punish the perpetrators of the terror campaign unleashed with the then government’s knowledge, appointed three presidential commissions of investigation.

Inquiries into 16,000 of the 27,000 cases of missing persons were conducted, some 12,000 people compensated, and some 3,000 persons identified from the police, armed forces and the public as responsible for these crimes.

But Novak echoeing the complaints made by rights groups, said the level of compensation was “low and inequitable”, and would feature in the group’s next set of recommendations to the government.

The families of public servants, presumed dead, were entitled to 150,000 rupees (roughly 2,100 dollars) as compensation while other missing civilians got one third of the amount.

“I can’t understand why these figures should be different, when the loss felt by families is the same — be it a public servant or an ordinary civilian,” he said.

Sri Lankan groups want the UN working group to consider new evidence of disappearances. Pathiran says they have proof of 31,000 cases, which was presented to the visiting team.

Nowak said Sri Lanka, Yugoslavia and Iraq have the highest number of disappearances. Iraq has 16,000 to 17,000 cases while Yugoslavia has reported 20,000 missing mostly from Bosnia and these figures could rise in view of the Kosovo crisis.

Referring to 600 to 700 cases of missing people from the north of Sri Lanka, where Tamil separatist rebels are battling government troops, Nowak said President Kumaratunga has not appointed, as promised, an independent commission of inquiry.

“Instead, we were told that a board of inquiry under the Defence Ministry was set up. It found that 185 of the victims were found in detention centres while in 25 to 30 cases the perpetrators were identified,” he said.

The Defence Ministry has not shared its findings with Sri Lankan groups, and no one knows the contents of the report.

Nowak said they were told by government authorities that 480 cases had been registered against security forces personnel and the police named by the three presidential commissions, but they were not identified.

The UN group said it has urged a presidential commission probing the remaining 11,000 disappearances, to seek a fresh mandate from the president to investigate some 14,000 new complaints of disappeared people that it has received.

Explained a government official: “This commission, due to end sittings later this month, received about 14,000 new complaints but it has no mandate to inquire into these. It can only complete inquiries in the old cases,” said a government official.

The official acknowledged that the visit of the UN working group will certainly put pressure on the Kumaratunga government to take action.

Nowak said his team would be recommending also the creation of a permanent independent commission to probe disappearances in “order to provide justice in a fair and equitable manner and also quicken the process of criminal justice”.

Sri Lankan groups say the UN report is bound to take time. “We need to put pressure to get things moving,” said Pathiran. “The visit is at least a moral victory for the victims.”