Our report on #torture & sexual violence by #srilankan police (including TID) & army - some of it in known police stations - in the last 2 years under President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. #lka
@UNHumanRights In this report we draw the linkages to the past, examining how the security forces used similar tactics (& white vans) in 1987-90 against mainly #Sinhalese. Those who survived were called "returned prisoners" Drawing on old .@amnesty reports & the commissions .@iqbals37 sat on.
@UNHumanRights@amnesty@iqbals37@T_E_M_P_L_O The report includes an interesting piece by trauma expert Dr. Korzinski on the corrosive impact of decades of violence in a society - where he argues narrowly focused training & reform programmes will not work.
@UNHumanRights@amnesty@iqbals37@T_E_M_P_L_O Noteworthy is the youth of many of the victims - if u recall the war ended 12 years ago - they were too young to have been combatants.
New .@JDSLanka report with @itjpsl on the command responsibility case against Gotabaya Rajapaksa for 700+ enforced disappearances in Matale from June 1989 - Jan. 1990 when he was the Military Coordinator in charge of the district.
@JDSLanka Worth noting #lka army chief Shavendra Silva, Sumedha Perera & Jagath Dias were among Gotabaya's commany commanders in Matale in 1989 (acc to GR's biographer now made Ambassador in Geneva!) & ex #srilanka IGP Mahinda Balasuriya (deceased) was also there in 89.
@JDSLanka Disappearances in Matale - white part indicates period Gotabaya Rajapaksa was in command there:
& it's not just us - UN bodies reported on STF involvement in #torture as far back as 2002: (P30 of report)
IN 2015 UN investigation cited #stf in connection with disappearance & #torture & mentioned their close links to #tamil paramilitaries in the East of #srilanka
Let’s look first at the UN contemporaneously collected data (Petrie report) - 54,715 casualties (including injured some of whom may not have survived) in just 4 months in a tiny area of land in #SriLanka - 7,737 of the names of dead were corroborated by 3 sources.
The UN contemporaneous data did not include the most devastating final weeks of the 2009 war - rough estimates for which below - but there was nobody able to count by then. #lka