Disappearances in Sri Lanka have been endemic and are a part of war strategies against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The murder of suspects or civilians has been an acceptable means of combating the violence of the LTTE.

The report on the extent of disappearances by the Sri Lankan government in its fourth periodic report should be appreciated. Yet, there is little information on accountability for these disappearances. The Sri Lankan government established a series of Commissions — Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Involuntary Removal of Persons of 1991, Regional Commission of Inquiry in 1995, A Board of Investigation of the Ministry of Defence of 1996, All Islands Commission in Inquiry in 2000 — to inquire into the disappearance of thousands of people.

The Sri Lankan government in the fourth periodic report states that PCIIHP (13.11.94 to 03.10.97) had concluded that a total of approximately 16,800 persons had disappeared during the period. The All Island Commissions of Inquiry “reported that further 10,400 persons had disappeared during the relevant period”. The Sri Lankan government states, “With this new addition the total number of persons who had disappeared during the period 1998-90 currently remains approximately at 27,200”.

The typical response of the Sri Lankan government has been to cooperate to the extent of getting off the hook from international scrutiny but never fully cooperate to establish accountability for such gross human rights violations. During the Krishanthi Kumarasamy murder trials, in which six Sri Lankan security officers were convicted of rape and murder, one of the convicts, Somaratna Rajapaksa, a former corporal in the Sri Lankan Army, disclosed the existence and location of mass graves in Chemmani, where hundreds of bodies have been exhumed. The government response to this allegation can be best described as damage control. When pressured by the international community to investigate the validity of this testimony, the government allowed access to the sites to the International Committee of the Red Cross. While the ICRC was able to conclude the validity of the graves, the defence ministry made significant efforts to curb the investigation, often denying access to key sites.

The Sri Lankan government has so far failed to conduct international independent inquiry or create a conducive atmosphere to enable the relatives of the victims to lodge complaints.

The United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (Working Group) has raised 12,297 cases of “disappearance” with the Sri Lankan government. The Sri Lanka government has provided information on 11,673 outstanding cases, but very few are clarified and the majority are still under consideration by the Working Group.

The ICRC has reportedly received 20,000 complaints of disappearances during the course of Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict. Of those, 9,000 cases have been resolved — many of the missing people being traced to prisons and detention centres. But 11,000 cases remain on their books and investigators have been working their way through these, checking for fresh information now that there is no fighting and it is easier to move about. So far, the ICRC has confirmed that more than 2,000 people remain unaccounted for, but by the time they finish this operation, the figure is likely to be far higher.