Spectre of disappearance loom large in Jaffna
“My son was a very sick boy when he was young. I used to take him from hospital to hospital for treatment. At the time of his disappearance, he looked like a prince. It would have been much easier to bear if he had died during the period when he was sickly”, mother of a young man disappeared by the Sri Lankan military in Allaipiddy in 1990.
Jaffna is not new to disappearances. Steadily increasing number of disappearances was recorded in Jaffna from the mid 1980’s until 2002. The worst period was from 1995-1998. The total number of disappearances has not been properly surveyed yet. An Amnesty report of 1997 stated that more than 600 people disappeared during the seven month period just prior to that report. Since 2000, a Commission on Disappearances appointed by the government of Sri Lanka issued death certificates to many families that have registered disappearances, without actually giving any explanation for the disappearance. The failure to probe in depth into these disappearances may have been a huge mistake because the history is repeating with vengeance at present in Jaffna. Over the last one month, Jaffna has remained blacked out from the rest of the world. Travel in and out is near impossible. Majority of the land phones as well as all cell phones have been cut. Behind this darkened and silenced Jaffna, disappearances are looming large. Fear is preventing many families from even reporting disappearances. On 11 September eight people were abducted in white-van. Such abductions have been going on since December 2005. No one so abducted have been seen alive since. Most have not been seen at all. Some have surfaced as bodies. Although Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission recently said 50 people were disappeared in the month of August, the actual number is most certainly must higher. Countries that have experienced large scale disappearances during a particular period has investigated it later and exposed the culprits. That exposure and soul searching seems to put some remorse in the system, preventing a repetition. Absence of remorse in Sri Lanka, for past disappearance, is astonishing and frightening at the same time. Has the Sri Lankan government and its armed forces perfected the methods of how to disappear people and keep the spot light away from it. How such a repetition is made possible?
13 September 2006
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Europe which has a total population of 800 million is made up of 45 language based nation states. South Asia which has a total population of one billion, (1000 million) is comprised of four states. Who is preventing and therefore benefiting by limiting new nation-states in South Asia?
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