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against them, and list the locations where they are being held. Those not charged
should be released.
Human Rights Watch conducted interviews with the family members of 109 people
who said their relative had been abducted or “disappeared” since 2006. These
included cases from Jaffna, Colombo, Vavuniya, Mannar, Trincomalee, and
Batticaloa. The cases can largely be grouped into two basic types: those by the state
in the name of counterinsurgency, and those by allied armed groups or the LTTE to
eliminate rivals, recruit fighters, or extort funds.
In the lawlessness that has grown in the past two years, criminal elements also
appear to have committed some of the abductions. Over the course of late 2006 and
2007 scores of abductions were accompanied by huge ransom demands and the
victims were mostly businessmen from the minority Tamil community. By May-June
2007, members of the Muslim community, particularly in the eastern district of
Ampara, were targeted as well.
Under growing pressure from within Sri Lanka and abroad, the government has taken
some steps to address abductions and enforced disappearances, including some
arrests of alleged perpetrators, but none of these steps has significantly slowed the
abuse. A one-man government commission on “disappearances” established in
September 2006 has issued strong statements about the abuse and the
government’s inability to halt it, but the government has not made public any of the
commission’s interim reports, nor is it obliged to implement any of the
recommendations.
Public statements by the government have rejected the overwhelming evidence of
government involvement as “unfounded” and cast those who accuse government
forces as sympathizers of the LTTE. President Rajapaksa, once an advocate for the
“disappeared,” has dismissed many of the cases as fakes. “Many of those people
who are said to have been abducted are in England, Germany, gone abroad,” he said
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