Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 1995 - Sri Lanka, 1 January 1995, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a9fc68.html [accessed 17 September 2023]
Disclaimer
This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.
Hundreds of Tamil people, including prisoners of conscience, were detained, particularly in the early part of the year. Torture and ill-treatment of detainees in police and military custody were widespread; at least one person died allegedly as a result of torture. Legal safeguards for detainees were flouted. At least 10 people were reported to have "disappeared". Several people may have been extrajudicially executed. Further evidence came to light of gross human rights violations in the south between 1987 and 1990, but impunity for those responsible remained a serious concern. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were responsible for numerous human rights abuses, including "executions" of prisoners. In August the People's Alliance (PA), a coalition of parties headed by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, won parliamentary elections and formed a government together with the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress party, bringing an end to 17 years of government by the United National Party (UNP). The leader of the PA, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, was sworn in as President after winning presidential elections in November. The UNP presidential candidate, Gamini Dissanayake, was among more than 50 people killed at an election rally on 24 October by a suicide bomber suspected of belonging to the LTTE. The new government established three commissions to investigate "disappearances" and extrajudicial executions that had occurred since 1 January 1988. However, the commissions were not mandated to investigate the approximately 700 unresolved "disappearances" which took place between 1984 and 1987. The new government introduced legislation to give effect to the UN Convention against Torture and Other, Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, to which the former government had acceded in January. The cases of all prisoners held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the Emergency Regulations were reviewed. The new government also announced a review of Sri Lanka's status under international human rights instruments and said it would bring to justice the perpetrators of human rights violations, grant compensation to the victims, strengthen the constitutional protection of human rights and establish a national human rights commission. However, by the end of the year most of these measures had not been implemented. Armed conflict between the security forces and the LTTE continued in the northeast. A number of goodwill measures were taken, including the release of prisoners by both sides. The government partially lifted the embargo imposed in June 1990 on the LTTE-controlled areas in the north of the country. Representatives of the new government and the LTTE met in mid-October. However, further meetings were suspended following the killing of Gamini Dissanayake and more than 50 others in October. The state of emergency lapsed in July after the dissolution of parliament. It was briefly reimposed throughout the country after the parliamentary elections in August and following the killing of the UNP presidential candidate in October. At the end of the year, it remained in force in the northeast of the country, parts of Puttalam, Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa Districts, and in the capital, Colombo, and surrounding areas. Under the ERs in force at the end of the year the security forces were no longer required to report arrests to the Human Rights Task Force (HRTF), a body set up by the government in 1991 to establish and maintain a central register of detainees and to monitor their welfare (see Amnesty International Report 1994). Hundreds of Tamil people, including dozens of prisoners of conscience held solely on account of their ethnic origin, were detained in the northeast and in Colombo, particularly in the early part of the year. Most were released within a week. Some of those arrested were held in unacknowledged detention for several days. In February Sivasekaram Panchalingam was abducted in Colombo on his way to work by a group of armed men in plain clothes. He was reportedly kept blindfold and beaten daily for 16 days at an unofficial place of detention used by officers of the Special Task Force (STF). Throughout this period relatives were not given any information about his whereabouts. He was later handed over to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and was still held without charge or trial at the end of the year. According to figures published by the hrtf in August, 3,850 people were held under the Emergency Regulations or the Prevention of Terrorism Act: 646 in detention camps, 204 in rehabilitation camps, about 2,000 in police stations and about 1,000 in army camps. At the end of the year an estimated 700 detainees remained held. There were persistent reports of torture and ill-treatment from all parts of the country. In April a young farmer collecting his identity card from an STF camp in Batticaloa District was taken into custody on suspicion of supporting the LTTE. He was beaten and lost consciousness when stf officers attempted to strangle him with a nylon rope. In May police at Gokarella, Kurunegala District, arrested W.A. Ranjan Weerasuriya in connection with a robbery. He alleged that he was hung upside-down and beaten on the chest and shoulders for about two hours; that he was made to inhale burning charcoal and chilli powder; that a piece of wood was inserted into his anal passage and that his testicles were hit with a club. In the south, an army deserter who had been arrested died at Panagoda army camp in early April, allegedly as a result of torture. A post-mortem revealed multiple injuries to his body, limbs and head, all caused by blunt instruments. At least 10 "disappearances" were reported from the east. On 13 January, Pannichan Kumarakulasingham and his brother-in-law, Krishnapillai Thanabalasingham, were taken from their homes at Thalankuda, Batticaloa District, in the middle of the night by STF personnel. Despite eye-witness accounts of the arrest, STF officials at various camps in the area denied that the two men were in their custody. Their fate and whereabouts remained unknown at the end of the year. A lawyer, several opposition politicians and journalists involved in the ex-cavation of mass graves at Suriyakande in January received death threats. Several possible extrajudicial executions were reported from the northeast. In the Jaffna peninsula, at least 10 civilians were reportedly killed during shelling and bombing carried out by the security forces in apparent retaliation for attacks by LTTE cadres on military targets. At Valaichenai, Batticaloa District, a 13-year-old boy was killed and three other people were injured when police fired indiscriminately inside a mosque. Seven police officers were arrested in connection with this killing; others were transferred out of the area. Further evidence came to light of gross human rights violations perpetrated in southern Sri Lanka between 1987 and 1990, but impunity for those responsible remained a serious concern. No action was known to have been taken on the findings of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Involuntary Removal of Persons (PCIIRP) established in January 1991 to investigate "disappearances" and none of the PCIIRP's reports on the 130 or so cases it had examined since its establishment was made public. Following the change of government in August, exhumations took place of about a dozen clandestine graves. They were thought to contain the remains of people abducted by the security forces who subsequently "disappeared" between 1988 and 1990. Eight army personnel and a school principal were committed to stand trial in September 1995. All were charged with abduction with intent to murder and wrongful confinement of a group of young people at Embilipitiya between late 1989 and early 1990. Five prison officers were charged in connection with the killing of five remand prisoners at Mahara prison in 1993 (see Amnesty International Report 1994). The LTTE "executed" several people, including a suspected robber at Navakuddy in August, and an LTTE member suspected of embezzlement at Sittankerni in September. LTTE cadres abducted and killed several Sinhala and Muslim fishermen, particularly in the Kalpitiya area, Puttalam District, north of Colombo. In early January, K. Jeevaratnam, the UNP candidate in the local elections in Kaluwankerny, Batticaloa, was killed. A note was reportedly left by his body stating that all who tried to contest the elections would suffer the same fate. The exact number of political opponents held in unacknowledged detention and people held for ransom by the LTTE was unknown. Relatives were denied access to detainees held by the LTTE. An Amnesty International delegate visited Colombo in January to investigate reports of the widespread arbitrary arrest and detention of Tamil people in the city. The organization published a report, Sri Lanka: Balancing human rights and security; abuse of arrest and detention powers in Colombo, containing 14 recommendations for the prevention of human rights violations during security operations in Colombo. The government did not respond to the substance of the report. In July Amnesty International sent an open letter to all political parties participating in the parliamentary elections calling on them to make a public commitment to human rights protection. No responses were received. The organization called upon successive governments, first in January and later in September, to ensure that exhumations at mass graves thought to contain the bodies of victims of human rights violations were carried out under the supervision of a multi-disciplinary team of forensic experts so that evidence about the identity of the bodies and about the cause and time of death would not be lost. In September Amnesty International welcomed the news that independent commissions to investigate past "disappearances" and extrajudicial executions would be established but expressed concern that the new commissions would not investigate the hundreds of cases that took place before 1 January 1988. Amnesty International appealed to the LTTE to respect human rights and humanitarian standards and to halt deliberate killings of non-combatant civilians. It also called for the release of people held hostage and urged that the whereabouts of those detained by LTTE forces be made known.
