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:
@JDSLanka Look at the sites in the town where detention occurred - Gotabaya was based at the Kachccheri building within walking distance of the Vijaya College army camp where disappearances occurred & where he was seen.
Just some of the many detention sites in the district then.
@JDSLanka "In at least one case, Mahinda Rajapaksa wrote in late 1989 to his brother, Gotabaya, to ask about the whereabouts of a supporter of his political party, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), who had been detained, but whose location had not been confirmed."
@JDSLanka Mrs Kamalawathi holding pictures of her 17 year
old son Rohana Nishantha & 18
year old Susantha Janaka both of whom disappeared - "Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa admitted my sons were in their custody &said that they will be released in 3-4 days. But they did not come back."
@JDSLanka A former detainee, held
at the Vijaya College army camp for eight days, also confirmed in a letter that Kamalawathi’s two sons were detained there.
@JDSLanka Gotabaya Rajapaksa was named by a later presidential commission of inquiry as an alleged suspect in a disappearance case (number 16 of 24 in Matale) & yet no action was taken.
@JDSLanka The legal section of the report argues the 2nd JVP Uprising was an Internal Armed Conflict - ie IHL applies, which means a universal jurisdiction case could be filed against Gotabaya abroad for his command responsibility role in 1989 disappearances in Matale.
".. consider the gravity of the atrocities committed under his command within 8 months ..&the fact he was 30 years later elected to lead the entire country, this indicates a serious lack of historical literacy among the Sinhala masses.” says .@JDSLanka
& 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
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.
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