Rights groups accuse ex-Sri Lankan president of stymieing efforts to probe discovery of 20 mass graves

By Anadolu staff

ANKARA (AA) – Rights groups have accused former Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa of tampering with police records in order to obstruct an investigation into mass graves discovered in an area where he was a senior army officer in 1989, during the height of the bloody Marxist rebellion.

​​​​​​​The government should take action against Rajapaksa and related police officials for failing to take practical action following the discovery of 20 mass graves over the past three decades, several human rights groups, including International Project for Truth and Justice and Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, said in their joint report released on Thursday.

"The Sri Lankan state should take action against Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the senior police officers allegedly involved for their role in hindering the process of investigations," the 76-page report stated.

According to the report, the former president also ordered the destruction of police records older than five years after mass graves were discovered in the Matale district of Central Province in 2013.

“This joint report examines Sri Lanka’s record of dealing with mass graves from multiple periods of conflict. All over the island, tens of thousands of bodies lie undiscovered in mass graves. Over the last three decades, around 20 mass graves have been partially exhumed; to date, hardly any family has had the remains of their loved ones returned,” it said.

Rajapaksa served as a powerful military officer before being elected president in 2019. However, he fled the country last year after an angry protest against their government over the country's economic crisis.

"None of Sri Lanka’s numerous Commissions of Inquiry were mandated to look into mass graves. Instead, efforts to uncover the truth have been stymied.

“Magistrates and forensic experts have been transferred abruptly, police have delayed carrying out judicial orders, families’ lawyers have been denied access to sites, no effort has been made to find living witnesses, no antemortem data was collected and, in the very rare cases where someone was convicted, they were then pardoned,” the rights groups claimed in the report.

It is a story of a lack of political will – an inadequate legal framework, a lack of a coherent policy, and insufficient resources, according to the report, adding that for the families of the disappeared, it is a story of unresolved tragedy; the bereaved are forced to live – and die – without ever finding their loved ones.

Since its independence from British colonial rule in 1948, Sri Lanka has faced three major armed conflicts, including a 25-year separatist civil war.

At least 26,000 Sri Lankan army soldiers also lost their lives, and another 37,000 were wounded during the civil war that erupted in 1983. The war ended in 2009, with an estimated loss of more than 100,000 lives.

Since 2012, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has repeatedly demanded that Sri Lankan authorities account for widespread allegations of human rights violations. In 2014, the UNHRC resolution demanded an international investigation into the alleged war crimes committed by both sides.

*Writing by Islamuddin Sajid