Address the ghosts of the ‘Bheeshanaya’

The Government’s own commissions of inquiry looking into the 1987-89 period recorded over 46,000 disappearances while the total number of persons killed in the second JVP insurgency between 1987-89 is estimated between 60,000 to 100,000. Now that the wheels of international justice have started to turn on perpetrators of gross human rights violations committed in Sri Lanka, it is imperative to look into accountability for the crimes committed during the 1980s, better known in the vernacular of the South as the Bheeshanaya or “terror.”

Sri Lanka signed on to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance in 2016 and ratified the same through an Act of Parliament in 2018. According to international law the crime of enforced disappearance is an autonomous, continuous crime as long as the persons who were subjected to enforced disappearance remains missing or even if their remains are found, the circumstances of their disappearance remains unknown. In other words, there are no statutes of limitations on the crime of enforced disappearance. Despite the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance Act No. 5 of 2018 becoming law in Sri Lanka it has never been used in a prosecution by the Attorney General nor has the Office on Missing Persons established in 2016 resolved a single outstanding case from the 1987-89 period.

Recently the Canadian government slapped sanctions on several individuals including former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Further the UN Human Rights Council has established a Sri Lanka accountability mechanism within the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to “collect, consolidate, analyse and preserve information” on gross violations. While most of the attention had been focused on crimes committed in the context of the ethnic conflict, predominantly in the North and East of the country, it is imperative to use the opportunity to demand justice for crimes committed in the South during the Bheeshanaya. 

It is important to note that other than the Suriyakanda mass murder case where the victims were targeted for a personal grudge, the Sri Lankan judiciary has failed to bring anyone to justice for crimes committed by the State. Successive Sri Lankan governments and its judiciary have proven time and time again that it is both unable and unwilling to administer justice for the victims of the Bheeshanaya period.

Recently several UN experts highlighted the role of then Lieutenant Colonel Gotabaya Rajapaksa in the mass atrocities committed in Matale during the Bheeshanaya. Rajapaksa who is accused of a multitude of crimes during his tenure as Defence Secretary in 2005-2015 in a previous avatar was the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, Gajaba Regiment and military coordinating officer of the Matale district from May 1989 to January 1990. There were numerous allegations of enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, torture, and extra-judicial killings being committed by Government security forces during this period in the Matale District where over 700 Sinhalese youth were subjected to enforced disappearance. Despite a mass grave being discovered in the region, the investigation into the discovery was stalled and in characteristic form neither the Police, the Attorney General’s Department nor the judiciary have been able to proceed with any tangible process for accountability.

The Matale mass grave and the alleged atrocities committed in the region remains an emblematic reminder of the impunity enjoyed by those responsible for some of the crimes committed during 1987-89. As international efforts to hold those responsible for heinous crimes committed in Sri Lanka gather momentum there should be a concerted effort to end the culture of impunity that has prevailed for decades in this country for crimes committed by the State against its own people.