Missing

FOLLOWING a visit to Jaffna, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extra-judicial Executions, Bacre Waly Ndiaye declared in late August that the gap between those disappeared in Jaffna and those whose whereabouts are established is too huge. Sri Lankan officers told an Amnesty International delegation in August that they have traced 52 people on the London-based human rights agency’s Jaffna disappearance list of 640. People have little confidence in the committee headed by Defence Advisor Bandula Kulatunge to investigate disappearances in Jaffna. Only 39 of the 60 people summoned to give evidence were present at the Palaly military base on 13 August.

In early September the government announced that it will make public reports of the three commissions which inquired into disappearances from January 1988. Despite Justice minister GL Peiris’ pledge for new laws to punish those responsible for the 16,742 disappearances recorded by the commissions, observers are doubtful that military officers will be brought to book while war continues.

The Jaffna NGO consortium has stressed that the new Human Rights Commission must establish an office in Jaffna to prevent further violations such as arbitrary arrests and rape. Reports say student Vilasini, 17, of Arali and teacher Chandrakala, 22, of Valvettithurai were raped by security forces in July.

Sri Lankan ambassador AB Goonetilleke told the UN Sub Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities in early August that the government continued its policy of cooperation with human rights agencies, particularly those of the UN. Human rights observers say that the government has not complied with the UN request for an interim report on the children of the north-east. The interim report was requested after Sri Lanka’s five-year report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child failed to include the situation of children in the north-east.

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