TORTURE: ASIAN AND GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES | FEB-APR 2013
Archaeology at the University of Kelaniya, have established that (a) the mass grave dates back to the government’s counter insurgency campaign against the southern insurgency in 1989-90 and (b) that the victims had been subjected to extensive torture, before they were killed and buried. Meanwhile, some survivors have come forward to allege that the Army, in 1989, operated a torture chamber in a school, Vijaya Vidyalaya, located near the site of the current mass grave. However, the government’s hasty announcement of the proposed presidential commission was made incidentally on the very day the Ceylon Today newspaper in Colombo reported a narrative by K.G. Kamalawathi, whose teenage sons had been abducted by the Army on 13 December 1989. The hasty presidential announcement was apparently made in order to pre-empt a potential fallout from the media disclosure relating to powerful Defence Secretary’s complicity in the ruthless counter-insurgency campaign in 1988-89.1 However, the credentials of the commission as a genuine effort to seek the truth buried in the sand of Matale is open to question. The President’s Spokesman Mohan Samaranayake told the media, when he announced the presidential decision to appoint a commission, that the mandate of 1 See the related story in which Mrs. Kamalawathi recalls how she was turned back at the gate of the Army Camp, when she went to meet the then Military Coordinating Officer (MCO) of Matale, Lt. Col. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, to seek the release of her detained sons.
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the proposed commission was to be finalized in two days. Mr. Samaranayake was, in fact, candid enough to confide that he knew precious little about the commission and that he was also awaiting further instruction on the latest presidential decision. However, a week has passed since the initial presidential announcement was made and the president is conspicuously silent over the appointment of the presidential commission. The procrastination has only been eroding the public confidence on the so called presidential commissions. The deeprouted structural problems related to the governance, law enforcement, and criminal justice systems in the country, and weak institutions, raise serious concerns about the country’s competence to conduct an independent domestic investigation into the Matale mass grave. The prevailing culture of impunity in Sri Lanka has seen that not a single conviction has resulted in a series of high-profile human rights violations. As far as the mass grave in Matale is concerned, the situation is further complicated by the fact that some of those who held command responsibilities in 198990, are now holding positions of influence, including the current Secretary of Defence, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. Since the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), which is conducting a separate investigation into the mass grave, comes under the direct control of the Ministry of Defence headed by younger brother Rajapaksa, there is an obvious conflict of interest. Equally troubling is that Sri Lanka does not have a witness protection scheme, which would have guaranteed the security of the family members who would come forward to give evidence before the proposed