Stop-Torture-Report

esponsible for the commission of these acts as crimes against humanity
through the theory of superior responsibility 84 .
Impunity
Six years after the end of the war, the widespread and systematic nature of
these attacks on Tamils (and a few non-Tamils) suspected of ties to the LTTE
goes well beyond punishment or revenge. These attacks speak of a
government-supported effort to annihilate by any means the LTTE and
subjugate the Tamil population that once supported them.
Abduction, torture and sexual violence, as well as reprisals and persecution, are
all part of the machinery of control, used to dehumanise and humiliate Tamils.
The aim is to spread terror among the population through violence, fear and
humiliation so that its members will never dare raise their heads to demand
their rights for the future or justice for the past. The perpetrators have such a
high degree of impunity that systematic torture, including rape and sexual
violence, has become elevated to an industry and is now part of a state-run
machinery of corruption and extortion that any new government will find hard
to rein in now.
Families are repeatedly violated in several different ways – from being forced to
go into hiding, to multiple members being abducted and raped and parents
becoming impoverished and losing their means of livelihood in order to pay
officials to extract their children from torture cells. The population is powerless
to protest and their representatives often find themselves reduced to acting as
middlemen to organise the ransom to secure a detainee’s release and help
them escape the island. When families ask for information about a person who
has disappeared they risk being abducted themselves or told the person never
existed.
That we can piece together such a compelling body of evidence from outside
the country, identifying multiple torture sites, including secret camps, figures
84
Ibid.
122