Thirty-four years ago on Oct. 27, 1989 burnt bodies of Sri Lankan trade unionist H.M. Ranjith and M. Lionel of the Legal Aid Centre, were discovered and made to disappear. Ranjith had earned the ire of his employers for his activism focusing on workplace accidents while the latter represented him.
Two years later, on that same day, 16 people, including a Catholic priest and a Bhuddist monk,
came together to remember them. This practice has since turned into an annual commemorative event – dubbed Day of Commemoration of Disappearances in Sri Lanka
– in honor not only of Ranjith and Lionel but also of all other victims of enforced disappearances in the island country, such as of those who took part in youth uprisings in the south and in the civil war in the north.
“The Sri Lanka authorities have a long history of using enforced disappearances as a tool to silence dissent and suppress resistance,” says
Amnesty International. “It is a deeply repressive practice that has frequently taken place, regardless of the regime in power.”
According to human rights group
People for Equality and Relief in Lanka (PEARL), the island nation has the second highest number of enforced disappearances in the world, estimated at
60,000 to 100,000.
Like all other relatives of the disappeared in Sri Lanka who are still seeking justice for their loved ones, thousands of families are still struggling to find the whereabouts of their relatives who were forcibly disappeared during the brutal 26-year civil war between the government and ethnic Tamil fighters, otherwise known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Amid challenges, these families continue to
demand accountability from the government and an end to increasing threats and harassment.
“We have turned down the government
compensation of SLR 200,000 (US$552) offered to affected families. Families are not seeking blood money, they need answers from the OMP (
Office of Missing Persons),” one
protester told People’s Dispatch at a rally held in the northern town of Kilinochchi last February to demand justice for enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka.
In 2013, the government established a
Presidential Commission of Inquiry to look into enforced disappearances from the final years of the conflict in Sri Lanka, and the OMP three years later.
Yet the OMP has yet to “
trace a single disappeared person or clarify the fate of the disappeared in meaningful ways, and its current purpose is to expedite the closure of files,” the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a 2022 report.
“It’s a struggle for families of the disappeared to keep pushing for accountability in Sri Lanka given what they see as official indifference or outright obstruction,” says the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice.
Since 1990 several Commissions of Inquiry into Disappearances have been appointed by successive governments, but “the Sri Lankan authorities have failed to stop acts of enforced disappearance, failed to undertake criminal investigations into complaints, and failed to prosecute those responsible,” adds the international human rights group.