"During 1990
thousands were extra judicially executed" - Amnesty
Report
''(During 1990)Thousands of people disappeared or
were extra judicially executed in the north-east; many
were tortured and then killed in custody. An unknown
number of others were detained in the area...
Government forces in the northeast were reported to
have extra judicially executed thousands of defenceless
civilians in areas they had regained... Victims were
reportedly shot, bayoneted, stabbed or hacked to death;
some were said by witnesses to have been burned
alive.
In eastern areas, besides helping the army round up
suspects, Muslim Home Guards also reportedly committed
extra judicial executions. Victims bodies were
regularly left in the open. The identities of many
remained unknown; others, presumably killed in custody,
were identified as people who had been detained by
security forces days earlier. Some had been burned
beyond recognition or mutilated.
In Amparai, where the Special Task Force, a
police commando unit, was especially active, bodies -
some without heads - began to be washed up on the
beaches from September. In Amparai District alone
at least 3,000 Tamil people were reportedly killed or
disappeared between June and October.
In Batticaloa and Vavuniya Districts, as well as in
other areas, widespread extra judicial executions were
also reported after government troops moved in. Both
the security forces and the government refused to
acknowledge that many defenceless people had been
deliberately killed
... Victims included babies and their mothers,
children and elderly men and women. In Batticaloa town
alone over 1,200 reportedly disappeared between June
and October 1990.
Any person suspected of even minimal contact with
the LTTE was at risk of detention, disappearance or
extra judicial execution. Members of Tamil and Muslim
armed groups which opposed the LTTE helped the security
forces to identify LTTE suspects, and in some areas
armed cadres of certain Tamil groups were deployed
alongside government security forces' -
Amnesty International Annual Report, 1991 for the
period January to December 1990
Over 6000
Tamil civilians killed by Sri Lanka in the
North-East
''In March 1987, the (UN) Commission (on Human
Rights) called upon all parties and groups to the
conflict (in Sri Lanka) to respect fully the
universally accepted rules of humanitarian law and it
appealed to the Government of Sri Lanka to intensify
its cooperation with the International Committee of
the Red Cross in the fields of dissemination and
promotion of international humanitarian law. But,
four years later,.. the Sri Lanka authorities
continue to act in breach of international
humanitarian law.
It is reported that, since the renewal of the
armed conflict on the 11th of June 1990, over 6000
Tamil civilians have been killed by Sri Lanka in the
North-East. Over 4000 have been killed in the East
alone - around half this number by Government
sponsored Muslim Home Guards. Hundreds of persons
'arrested' by the Sri Lankan authorities have
'disappeared'. Some have been later found dead. Even
refugee camps have become targets for army
operations. As a result of continued aerial
bombardment of civilian population centres and the
arbitrary extra judicial killings of Tamil civilians,
around one million Tamils have fled their homes and
have become displaced persons in their own home
lands. Around 200,000 Tamil civilians have fled to
South India as refugees.
A de facto blockade, has hampered the
international media from reaching the affected areas
in the North-East. However the investigation team
from the European Parliament which visited the South
of Sri Lanka, have estimated that 60,000 Sinhalese
were killed by the Sri Lankan authorities during the
past 18 months. This provides a chilling indication
of the degree of institutionalised violence in the
Sri Lankan state and also of the probable scale of
its activities in those areas controlled by the
government in the North-East. -
Statement of the Non Governmental Organisation,
Liberation, at 47th Session of the United Nations
Commission on Human Rights at Geneva, 28 January
1991
