Untitled - International Commission of Jurists

and reconciliation among all communities and to make such recommendations
with reference to any of the matters that have been inquired into under the
terms of this Warrant.
The Report of this Commission reveals witness testimony and other evidence in
regard to the burning of the Jaffna Public Library in 1981, the District Development
Council elections (1981), the July riots (1983) and the killing of prisoners at the
Welikada Prison (1983).
Though a useful historical record for the events of that time, the Commission report is
a weakly structured document and the exercise was not, in any sense, comparable to
the truth commissions of other countries, most notably South Africa. In the words of
one witness who appeared before the Commission:
Where the Welikade massacres were concerned for instance it did hardly any –
if any – investigation of its own. It relied on me (CRM) for practically
everything (for instance, even the inquest proceedings were supplied to it by
us) and seemed more than happy with just our material. What it should have
done is taken our material as a starting point and then followed up from there,
with all its powers of investigation and summoning witnesses, which we didn't
have. For instance it could and should have tried to obtain the statements
recorded by the police after the first massacre. The instructing attorneys in the
35 civil cases filed by dependents of victims (assisted by CRM; it was in
pursuance of these that we tracked down and interviewed survivors) called for
these time and again in preparation for the trials, but were met with evasion
after evasion by the Police. The cases never came to trial because they were
eventually settled, state paying some compensation but without admitting
liability… ….By the time of the ‘Truth’ Commission, I guess I was exhausted
with putting the facts before them and it was probably partly my fault I did not
press sufficiently for follow-up, or possibly I thought it would be no use.
Welikade was only a small part of the Commission's whole remit. In its report,
the Commission did pay CRM and me a handsome tribute, which was
certainly gratifying, but we had really hoped that it would investigate further
and uncover information which we had not already found out for ourselves. 348
Despite the many pronouncements of this Commission as to the taking of measures
that were deemed necessary for national healing, there was no implementation of any
of these recommendations except for the payment of certain amounts of
compensation. 349 The Commission report had, in fact, minimal positive impact on
public opinion and did not serve as a mechanism for accountability or redress.
348 Assessment of veteran civil rights lawyer and Secretary, Civil Rights Movement (CRM) Suriya
Wickremasinghe in reference to the testimony that she gave on the Welikada prison massacres before
the Commission, quoted by the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), ‘Scripting the
Welikade Massacre Inquest and the Fate of Two Dissidents,’ ‘From Welikade to Mutur and Pottuvil: A
Generation of Moral Denudation and the Rise of Heroes with Feet of Clay,’ Supplement to Special
Report No. 25, 31.05.2007.
349 See later analysis for the lack of the Commission’s findings leading to prosecutions.
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