Eight years of struggle by loved ones of the forcibly disappeared

Several of the participants in the struggle are elderly people afflicted with illnesses. Yet they keep going

The lengthy secessionist war between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan armed forces as well as the brutal suppression of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) uprising have created the “enforced disappearance” phenomenon in Sri Lanka. So much so that at one time Sri Lanka enjoyed the dubious distinction of being second only to Iraq in the case of disappearances.

A victim of an enforced disappearance is distinctly different from a missing person. An enforced disappearance is the State-sanctioned taking of a person followed by a refusal to acknowledge the taking or disclose the fate or location of that disappeared person. This terrible injustice has been ravaging the island of Sri Lanka for many years.

People from different communities in the island have been made to disappear in the past but the bulk of the victim tally have been Tamils of the Northern and Eastern Provinces. It is against this backdrop that family members, relatives and friends of those victimised by the evil known as “enforced disappearances” have been conducting a continuous campaign that has completed eight years and is nearing 3,000 days.

This struggle known as “poaraattam” in Tamil is waged by the kith and kin of persons who have been made to “disappear” over the past years. It is undertaken without break by groups of volunteers on a rotational basis. The participants are mainly women.

This long drawn out poaraattam that commenced on 20 February 2017 marked the completion of eight years on 20 February 2025. The unfinished protest campaign will reach the 3,000 day milepost in May this year. This relentless struggle seeking truth and justice waged by parents, siblings, spouses and offspring for their nearest and dearest who have been forcibly made to disappear is arguably the longest campaign of its kind in Sri Lanka.

20 February 2017

This “poaraattam” commenced first in Kilinochchi on 20 February 2017. It began spontaneously without any pre-planning. A handful of women exasperated by the refusal of “officialdom” to acknowledge, let alone attend to their grievances, simply sat on the roadside and began shouting “Engay engal uravugal?” (where are our relatives). The protest made a huge impact. Several other people whose family members had been made to disappear joined the protest. The protest got streamlined into an organised demonstration.

Four days later the protest campaign expanded to Vavuniya on 24 February 2017. The struggle began in Mullaitheevu on 24 March 2017. The Kilinochchi, Mullaitheevu and Vavuniya districts were the three districts most affected during and immediately after the war ended.

The struggle’s eight-year achievement was observed by a demonstration in Vavuniya and a march in Kilinochchi on 20 February. In Vavuniya protesters lined up along the road with placards chanting slogans. They also held up portraits of their loved ones classified as “disappeared”. Flags of the UN, US and EU were also waved in a desperate attempt to draw international attention to their ongoing search for justice and truth.

In Kilinochchi, hundreds of women comprising mainly mothers along with wives, sisters and daughters of disappeared loved ones launched a protest march. Women clad in black sarees and wearing black headbands went in procession from the Kandaswamy (Lord Muruga) temple premises waving placards and repeating slogans. Many carried “Theechchatties” or claypots with fire on their heads or in their hands. Many members of the public accompanied them in solidarity.

The struggle to get justice for enforced disappearances has been continuing for eight years. It is in a way a forgotten struggle yet the people persist with their protests. There have been inner divisions and difference about the Poaraattam, yet the participants proceed with determination motivated by their love for their loved ones and the thirst for justice. Most of the participants are economically under-privileged yet they remain steadfast to their underlying objective.

Elderly people

Several of the participants in the struggle are elderly people afflicted with illnesses. Yet they keep going. The struggle has taken a heavy toll on some of them. Among those engaged in the struggle, 154 people have died in the past eight years. The 154th death took place a few days ago. 78-year-old Maari Velusamy known as Maariyammaa who had been an active participant in the struggle breathed her last without ever knowing what had happened to her son Sivakumar made to disappear in the final stages of the war.

I want to strike a personal note at this juncture. I have been writing as a journalist on the politics of Sri Lanka for many decades. The island’s politics has for long been overshadowed and even overwhelmed by the three-decade-long armed conflict. War has its own consequences and its distinct fall-out. Very often the original causes of war are forgotten and even replaced by new problems and grievances.

When I was young and read about war in other countries especially the middle-east in newspapers and saw battle scenes of the two world wars on screen, I had a romanticised outlook towards war. I regarded war as a noble adventure and fighting as being heroic.

Horror of war

All such illusions were shattered when the horror of war came to Sri Lanka. War is nothing but nasty, brutal destruction. There is nothing laudable in it except perhaps the individual bravery of those courting death for what they thought was a just cause.

The war in Sri Lanka was a dirty war. It was not fought by soldiers carrying the UN Human Rights Charter in one hand and love in their hearts as former President Mahinda Rajapaksa once stated. The Tigers and other militant fighters were no saints either.

An inevitable consequence of the war in Sri Lanka were the enforced disappearances. A very large number of people in Sri Lanka disappeared or were made to disappear as a result of the conflict regarded at one time as South Asia’s longest war.

“Human Rights Watch”

The well-known human rights organisation, “Human Rights Watch” (HRW) observed thus in a statement made some years ago: “Tens of thousands of people were forcibly disappeared in Sri Lanka since the 1980s, including during the last months of the war between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009…The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances ranks Sri Lanka as the country with the second highest number of disappearances in the history of its tenure.”

“Most of those reported disappeared during the three-decade-long conflict between government forces and the LTTE were ethnic Tamils. A short-lived but violent insurgency with a majority Sinhala militant group in the country’s south in the late 1980s also led to many enforced disappearances and other abuses by both sides. Various Commissions of Inquiry established by successive Sri Lankan Governments in response to pressure from victims’ groups and others have produced reports that have largely remained unpublished and have not resulted in criminal prosecutions of those responsible.”

Disappeared persons

In my professional capacity as a journalist writing on politics and war in Sri Lanka, I had to write about disappeared persons too. Very few Sri Lankan journalists wrote about disappearances and irked the powers that be in those days. I was one of the few exceptions. There were some disappearances like those of Fr. Thiruchelvam Nihal Jim Brown the Allaippiddy Parish Priest and Eastern University Vice-Chancellor Prof. S. Raveendranath about which Iwrote 

extensively.

There were other disappearances about which I could not write in very great detail. Time, media space and scanty information being the reasons. There were many disappearances about which nothing was written. They have all become part of official and unofficial statistics.

Yet every single case of a disappeared person has a heart-rending story behind it. A forcibly disappeared person may be treated by officialdom as a mere statistic but he or she has a family and many loved ones who yearn for some reliable information about what has happened to him or her.

For people whose loved ones pass away tragically in an accident or are killed through violence, the struggle to cope is more painful. The worst, however, is for those whose loved ones are made to disappear or have gone missing involuntarily.

For them, the lack of knowledge and uncertainty is sheer agony. There is no closure after death for them because they are not sure whether their loved ones are among the dead or the living. All that they need or want is some official pronouncement of what had really happened.

Reason tells them that persons gone missing for so long cannot be among the living but their hearts – full of love for the lost loved ones – refuse to accept the loss as permanent. The heart has reasons which reason itself may not understand. Humans are not systems of intellect alone. They are bundles of emotion too. They mourn and they yearn. They grieve and they hope.

Audacity of hope

It is this “audacity of hope” (borrowing the title of Barack Obama’s book) that sustains these loved ones of the disappeared to pursue with their quest of seeking the truth about their loved ones. It is this audacity of hope which compels someone like Sandya Priyangani Eknaligoda to prolong her search for the truth about what really happened to her husband Prageeth, the well-known cartoonist and journalist.

It is this audacious hope, which makes the mothers, spouses, sisters and daughters of the disappeared in the north and east persist with their search for the truth about their loved ones. They demonstrate with placards, go on protest fasts, walk-in processions, sign numerous petitions and above all observe regular religious rites seeking the truth about their loved ones. In the process, they are at times exploited by some vested interests.

Regardless, they go on motivated only by their love and devotion to their loved ones. Alexander Pope wrote “Hope springs eternal in the human breast”. Cicero stated, “Dum Spiri Spero” (While I breathe, I hope).

An old mother

I once asked an old mother why she continued in her quest to find out about her son who had gone missing decades ago. She answered me thus in Tamil, “Moaney (son), nee kaanaamap poanaa, undai ‘Komma’ (Mother) unnai ippadi theda maattavey?” (If you go missing won’t your mother search for you like this?).

She went on to say, “Avanukku enna nadanthathendu theriyealleiye. Unmai theriya vaenum, avan irukkiraanaa? illaiyaa? endu. Illaiyendu thelivaaichchonnal enakku kavalai endaalum nimmathi.” (I don’t know what has happened to him. I must know the truth about him, whether he is alive or dead? If I am told clearly that he is no more then I will be sad but would be at peace).

And then she said wistfully, “Aetho enakkoru nambikkai. Avan engeyo irukkiraan. Avanaik kandupidichidalaam endu.” (Somehow, I have a belief that he is there somewhere. I feel he can be found). This then is the audacity of hope.

Safety mechanism

As a journalist, it has been my duty to interact with a cross-section of people from all walks of life. This has resulted in my keeping in touch with those in power and authority as well as being accessible to the powerless, ordinary people. It goes with the territory. The challenge is to know the “truth” through interacting with the common people and then speak that “truth” to power. There are many, many sad moments for journalists who have feelings and empathy. As a safety mechanism, you construct a cocoon around yourself because if you are what is termed as a “bleeding heart liberal” you may very well bleed to death.

Poignant moments

For me, some of the most poignant moments in my journalistic vocation were when those dear and near to the disappeared persons sought my aid to find out information about their loved ones. They approached me directly or someone approached me on their behalf and wanted my help to find out about their missing loved ones. It was very painful and emotionally debilitating to have replied that I could not help because I was helpless in this. There was no one to ask or seek reliable information from, in this regard. I have tried several times in the past to find out about people taken away without a trace or made to disappear but always came up against a stonewall of silence from those in power.

As journalists we are supposed to seek the truth but what does one do in situations like this? What is the definite reply one can give to these families about their missing loved ones? More importantly what is the response of the State or those in power to these questions?

Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna

As mentioned earlier, the protest by loved ones of the forcibly disappeared persons will complete 3,000 days in May. Currently there is a new dispensation in the seat of power. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) has been a victim of enforced disappearances in the past. Under such circumstances it is but natural for people to expect a different approach from the new President and his Government.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake touched the hearts and minds of a substantial number of Tamil people during his election campaign. He struck a responsive chord, when he told Tamil audiences about the experiences he personally underwent in the past. He told the people about how his cousin brother was made to disappear. AKD said he understood and empathised with the Tamil people about the enforced disappearances.

Quantum of solace

It is to be hoped therefore that President Dissanayake and his JVP-led NPP Government will adopt a healing approach towards the loved ones of the forcibly disappeared and provide a quantum of solace to them as the eight-year-long poaraattam/struggle nears the 3,000-day milepost.

(This is an updated version of 

an earlier article)

(The writer can be reached at 

[email protected].)