Key HRCSL report documented 327 enforced disappearances in Jaffna during 1996-97

 

Front page of the HRCSL report on enforced disappeared persons during 1996-97 that was handed over to government authorities in 2003.

Amidst the ongoing exhumation of the Chemmani mass grave site, a critical report on enforced disappearances resurfaced this week. The report, compiled by Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka documented some 327 complaints in 1996-97 from Jaffna during the hearings it conducted decades ago. 

The final report was released on October 28, 2003, after investigations by a four-member committee led by Dr. Devanesan Nesiah. 

The other members of the committee are K.H. Camillus Fernando, Jezima Ismail, and M.C.M. Iqbal. “Irrespective of the ethnic or political affiliation of the victims and the perpetrators of the crimes, each incident of political violence diminishes us collectively,” the committee wrote in the report, stressing that “our record of politically motivated assassinations and disappearances covers even more than two decades of ‘horror and dishonour of Sri Lankan society.”

“We need to erase this terrible blot on the history of what has been known as Dharma Dweepa and as the Island of Serendipity. But such blots do not fade away. To remove them and to pre-vent re-eruption, we need to collectively diagnose their causes and work out effective remedial and preventive measures,” the report added. 

The full report can be accessed here.