Sri Lanka: "Disappearance"

PUBLIC AI Index: ASA 37/015/2006

09 June 2006

UA 164/06 "Disappearance"

SRI LANKA Rasanyagampillai Sivananthamoorthy (m), aged 35

Markandu Pushpakanthan (m), aged 26

Kandasamy Parimelalakan (m), aged 29

Vaikundavasan Vikunthakumar (m), aged 22

Ratnam Thayaruban (m), aged 19

Ponnambalam Partheepan (m), aged 22

Selvaratnam Sivanantham (m), aged 22

Ramachandran Rasakumar (m), aged 22

The eight Tamil men named above went to a Hindu temple in the north of the

country on the evening of 6 May, to decorate it for a religious festival. The

following morning they were reported missing and their whereabouts remain

unknown. There are grave concerns for their safety.

Due to a curfew imposed at the time, it was not until 9 May that, following

complaints by relatives, members of the Jaffna branch of the Sri Lankan Human

Rights Commission (HRC), (a statutory body conducting independent investigation

of reports of human rights violations), were able to visit the temple, called

Seerani Kelakkai, in Manthuvil East, 7km northeast of Chavakachcheri town in

Jaffna District. There they interviewed more than 50 people living nearby who

said that on 6 May more than 25 army personnel had come to the temple for no

apparent reason and then left. At the time there were many other people at the

temple getting ready for the festival. Later that night, at around 1am, the

residents reported that a vehicle came to the temple and they heard gunshots.

Soon afterwards they reportedly saw two army vehicles leaving the temple. At

about 4.30am, two more vehicles arrived.

Local people were afraid, and waited until daylight before they went to the

temple to see what had happened. When they arrived at the temple at 6am, they

found some army personnel there, who when they saw the villagers left

immediately in an army truck and an armoured vehicle. They drove in the

direction of Varany army camp, the headquarters of 52 Brigade, which is 3km

from the Seerani Kelakkai temple.

The HRC team inspected the site and found bloodstains, several spent

cartridges, some identity cards and discarded clothes lying on the ground at

the temple. The local residents allege that the eight young men were taken away

by the army. One of the men, Rasanyagampillai Sivananthamoorthy, is the general

secretary of the Temple Trustee Management Board, while Markandu Pushpakanthan

is a member of the Board. After their relatives complained, the local

magistrate reportedly told the police at Kodikamam, a town near Chavakachcheri,

to conduct investigations into the "disappearance" of the eight men.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Sri Lanka has a population of 19.5 million of whom the majority are Sinhalese

(74%), who are mainly Buddhist. The next largest groups are Tamils (18%), who

are mainly Hindu, and Muslims (7%). Tamil demands for regional autonomy in the

island surfaced during the 1970s and precipitated the start of a conflict

running for over two decades, when the armed opposition group Liberation Tigers

of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) began fighting for an independent homeland in the north

and east of the island.

The government and the LTTE entered into a ceasefire agreement, known as the

CFA, in February 2002. Human rights abuses have been reported regularly since

the CFA was signed, but they escalated dramatically following a split in the

LTTE in March 2004, with politically motivated killings, torture and the

recruitment of children as combatants being reported from the east. Since

December 2005 violence has spread from the east to include the north, with

numerous armed clashes, killings and "disappearances" reported. Over 600

people, including civilians, have been killed in the north and the east during

the past six months. In response to the killing of army personnel in landmine

and other attacks, attributed to the LTTE, the security forces have conducted

house-to-house searches and other operations in Jaffna town and other locations

in areas where Tamil people are living. According to the HRC, over 150 people

have been arrested and then "disappeared" during the past six months in

northern Sri Lanka, although the actual total may be much higher. There are

fears that a pattern of "disappearances" is re-emerging, in a similar way to

the period in Jaffna in 1995 and 1996, when hundreds of Tamils "disappeared"

during army operations in the area.

AI Index: ASA 37/015/2006 9 June 2006

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAS...open&of=ENG-LKA