Return to War - Human Rights Watch

months of 2007. 84 A government commission established in September 2006 to
investigate “disappearances” said in June 2007 that 2,020 people were abducted or
disappeared between September 14, 2006, and February 25, 2007 (see also
below). 85
The Civil Monitoring Commission, founded in November 2006 by four opposition
members of parliament, has recorded details of 130 cases, 47 of them in the capital,
as of April 11, 2007. 86 The organization says this number reflects a small portion of
the total. 87
During research in February and June 2007, Human Rights Watch documented the
cases of 109 people who had been disappeared or were abducted in 2006 or 2007.
These included cases from Colombo, Jaffna, Vavuniya, Mannar, Trincomalee, and
Batticaloa.
The majority of “disappearances” appear to be perpetrated by the Sri Lanka security
forces. In these cases the military, alone or in cooperation with paramilitary groups
such as the Tamil political party Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) or the
Karuna group, target young Tamils suspected of directly or indirectly supporting the
LTTE. The clearest examples come from Jaffna, where abductions take place in areas
of strict military control, sometimes at night, when a curfew is in effect (see below).
The fate of many individuals taken by the security forces and paramilitary groups
remains unknown. Some of them are likely to be kept in unacknowledged detention
under the Emergency Regulations reimposed in 2006, which allow the authorities to
hold detainees for up to 12 months without charge (see Chapter VII, “Emergency
Regulations”). Many of these individuals, however, are feared dead, especially in
Jaffna, where the military has a powerful presence and LTTE activity is high. Local
human rights groups believe that the security forces “disappear” and then
84 Gardner, “Abductions, Disappearances Haunt Sri Lanka’s Civil War,” and “Sri Lanka Police, Soldiers Arrested over
Abductions,” Reuters.
85 “US Concerned about Disappeared,” BBC Sinhala.com.
86 List of the Civil Monitoring Committee, April 11, 2007, on file with Human Rights Watch.
87 Human Rights Watch interview with Mano Ganesan, member of the Civil Monitoring Commission, Colombo, March 6, 2007.
Return to War 48