INDICTMENT AGAINST SRI LANKA

NEW SPATE OF DISAPPEARANCES
AND EXTRA JUDICIAL KILLINGS
IN COLOMBO - October/November 1993

"Human Rights NGOs fear a new spate of disappearances and extra judicial killings after 2,000 Tamils were arrested in Colombo in October... The arrests continue at the rate of 50-100 a day, with between 1,000 and 2,000 held in detention centres across the city... Tamil MPs and human rights NGOs say the five major safeguards agreed in June to protect Tamils are systematically ignored and there are ominous signs that the unofficial death squads that characterised the previous regime are active. A joint statement from 17 Sri Lankan human rights NGOs says unidentified gangs remove suspects blindfolded in the middle of the night without informing relatives who they are or where they are taking those detained...

"A shadowy DMI (Directorate of Military Intelligence) Unit (reporting only to the Army Chief) operating out of Ragama a few miles north of Colombo includes Richard Dias alias Captain Munas implicated in the disappearance of 158 Tamils from a Batticaloa refugee camp in 1990, Mohan a former PLOTE cadre whose army backed death squad terrorised Batticaloa for the last three years and former PLOTE cadre Uma Prakash recruited from exile in Tamil Nadu with 20 of his followers...

"There is an emerging pattern of operations. A Tamil youth abducted from an armour Street lodge was held blindfolded for ten days and interrogated in pure Tamil. He was released near Hultsdorp on 24 October. Others speak of similar disappearances. Ragama seems a focus for such 'reappearances'. Four Tamils were dumped blindfolded in the town and another two in Colombo. Un-uniformed men including Tamils stopped the Vavuniya-Colombo train at Ragama on 31 October arresting 20 Tamil men and 15 women. (Sri Lanka Monitor, October 1993)

"After meeting President Wijetunga, a European Parliament delegation including British Euro MP Anita Pollock told the Colombo press on 6 October that the current situation in Sri Lanka was not conducive for Western governments to return rejected asylum seekers... NGOs reaffirmed their opposition to returning rejected asylum seekers to Sri Lanka at a special UNHCR meeting in Geneva on 29 September and urged the UN Refugee agency to actively monitor those sent back." (Sri Lanka Monitor, October 1993)

"Regular security sweeps of hundreds of run down hotels and cheap lodging houses in Tamil parts of the city continue.. Abductions and disappearances continue.. Haran Kumaravel from Jaffna was abducted on Armour Street 14 November, his dead body found on Ratmalana railway line three weeks later. His killing is said to be the handiwork of former PLOTE cadre Uma Prakash who leads one of the several death squads from the Directorate of Military Intelligence unit in Ragamna...The cycle of rumours and round up seems destined to continue.." (Sri Lanka Monitor, November 1993)