Cases of 547 persons killed and 396 persons disappeared during the period from January to June, 2007 according to a report published by three well-known civil society groups, the Civil Monitoring Mission, law Society and Trust and the Free Media Movement. The report was issued on 23rd August 2007 and states that it is not intended to be an exhaustive list.
A newspaper article on the report may be seen at the internet at: http://www.freemediasrilanka.org/index.php?action=con_news_full&id=698§ion=news
The report states:
Killings
The largest proportion of people killed in the first six months of 2007 were Tamil 70.7% across the island, as compared with 9.1% Sinhalese and 5.9% Muslims. The gravity of this situation becomes even more pronounced when considered against the fact that the Tamil people make up only 16% of the total population. Men were killed in much larger numbers than women 89.9% vs. 9.7%.
By district, Jaffna was worst affected by killings (23.2%), followed by Batticaloa and Vavuniya (21.5% and 21.3 respectively).
The data on humanitarian workers and religious leaders killed reflects the overall trends in killings, with Tamils disproportionately affected as compared with Muslim and Sinhalese. Killings of this category of persons were highest in Trincomalee, during the period 1 January 2006 to 21 August 2007. However, it is notable that religious leaders of three of the four main faiths of the island have been killed since last year Father Jim Brown (August 2006), Selliah Parameshwaran Kurukkal (February 2007) and Ven Handungamuwe Nandarathna Thero (March 2007).
Disappearances
As with killings, Tamils suffered disproportionately from abductions 64.6%, compared with 3% Sinhalese and 3% Muslims. Men represented nearly 98% of all missing persons. By district, Jaffna was again worst affected by disappearances (49.5%). However Colombo was next worst affected, at 17.7%, underlining the concern expressed by many local NGOs at the situation with respect to this particular violation.
Nearly 19% of persons abducted were taken from their homes. The vast majority of these were in Jaffna, however there were a few abductions from home in other parts of the country. Where times were specified, these were for persons who disappeared in Jaffna, which has been under curfew since before January 2007. Roughly 5% of all persons abducted were persons abducted from home during curfew in Jaffna in an area allegedly under government control, this points to the possibility of government inability or unwillingness to keep all its citizens safe.
This report raises serious concerns about the Sri Lankan governments ability and willingness to investigate killings and forced disappearances, the capacity of the Sri Lankan policing system to investigate such gross abuses of human rights, the responsibilities of the prosecuting branch of the state, which is organised under the Attorney General’s Department in Sri Lanka and the judicial role in dealing with such serious crimes and abuses of rights.
The report is addressed to the Presidential Commission of Inquiry which is assisted by the IIGEP; it report raises very serious questions about the functioning of the entire criminal justice system in Sri Lanka.
The Asian Human Rights Commission has constantly pointed out that if the state has the willingness to investigate all killings and forced disappearances the system does have the capacity to do so. However, the capacity of the investigation mechanism into all crimes including forced disappearances has been paralysed due to deliberate political interference into the whole system. The incapacity that the Sri Lankan state faces to promptly and competently to investigate and prosecute all these cases has been created deliberately. There exists the situation of inaction against gross abuses of human rights which is deliberately designed. Therefore on the basis of this deliberate inaction the state is complicit in ensuring impunity which in turn is an encouragement to the perpetration of these gross abuses.
The Presidential Commission of Inquiry does have the mandate to obtain information, investigate and inquiry into alleged serious human rights violations arising since 1st August 2005. However, this commissions work depends on the actual will and capacity of the investigation mechanism within Sri Lanka. That also raises the issue of how far this commission itself is willing and able to carry out the mandate it has received.
The report also raises questions as to the extent to which the local civil society and the international community is willing and able to intervene in order to break the deadlock created by a dysfunctional criminal justice system aided by the political complicity of a state that does not exercise its duty to act in the face of gross abuses of human rights. The presence of the IIGEP for several months now in Sri Lanka has only been used by the state to give the appearance that it is in fact doing something to correct itself while in fact; no such corrective process is taking place. The local civil society and the international community action needs to be developed to be proportionate to evoke a response that is capable of breaking the designed inaction on the part of the state to stop such gross abuses of rights and to ensure justice to all who have become victims of such killings and forced disappearances.
Please also see the AHRC statement for the International Day of the Disappeared: WORLD: Statement of a group of human rights activists and the AHRC on the International Day of the Disappeared – the need for urgent and serious action to prevent forced disappearances, at: http://www.ahrchk.net/statements/mainfile.php/2007statements/1169/
