COLOMBO, SRI LANKA: Sri Lankans thought the fearful nights of the death squads ended long-ago. Then, three months ago, mutilated bodies began to surface again.

Last week, Police Chief Wickremasing he Rajaguru announced that 28 people, mostly elite police commandos and army soldiers, are under investigation in the torture and strangling of 21 Tamil civilians.

Many questions remain to be answered about who was behind the deaths, But the slayings were reminiscent of the country’s worst human rights nightmare.

At the height of the army’s drive to crush a two year insurrection by Sinhalese radicals, government sponsored death squads abducted and tortured suspects and left their bodies burning in the streets, by the time it ‘was over in 1990, up to 30,000 people had “disappeared,” according to Amnesty International.

The death squads began operating during the rule of former President Ranasinghe Premadasa, in response to revolt by Sinhalese radicals who vowed to overthrow the elected government. Under international pressure, Premadasa appointed a committee in 1991 that found enough evidence to bring charges in connection with the death squads. But no one was ever prosecuted. Premadasa was assassinated in 1993 by a Tamil suicide bomber. When President Chandrika Kumaratunga took office last August, she pledged to end what she called “an era of terror by the state,” ‘Three commissions were appointed to probe disappearances.

Now, Kumaratunga is drawing praise for investigating the murder of the Tamils. All were men ages 30 to 40, whose corpses were fished from lakes and canals in Colombo and the nearby tourist resort of Bolgoda Lake.

“The way the government has investigated the present case indicates it is serious about punishing the perpetrators,” said Charles Abeyasekera, an activist for Inform, a group that documents human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.

The killings occurred during the resurgence of the 12yearold war against Tamil separatists fighting for independence from the Sinhalese dominated government. The first bodies began to appear after the rebels pulled out of peace talks on April 19. 

Article extracted from this publication >>September 8, 1995