Religious leaders and relatives of affected families claim that no justice can be expected within the country for over 150 persons abducted while seeking refuge at the Eastern University after being displaced due to the war and disappeared by Sri Lankan state forces three and a half decades ago.
They demand international intervention to find their loved ones.
“This is the first planned genocide committed by the government of Sri Lanka in the Eastern province. We are on the streets. Lady Justice has no eyes. In the same way, this issue has been shunned. The justice that was not delivered through either a national mechanism or the government of Sri Lanka over the past 35 years is still denied. That is why we are demanding a solution through an international justice mechanism,” said Batticaloa district’s Association of Relatives of the Enforced Disappeared (ARED) Chairperson Amalaraj Amalanayaki.
Amalanayaki made these remarks while taking part in a protest held in front of the Eastern University on 5 September 2025.
The protest demanded justice for those who were forcibly disappeared by state defense forces 35 years ago under the United National Party’s (UNP) rule.
Regional correspondents reported that the relatives of the forcibly disappeared in the Batticaloa district commemorated their loved ones with flowers and lamps, and then staged a protest demanding justice for their loved ones.
Justice and National Integration Minister Harshana Nanayakkara had recently stated that probes into over 10,000 complaints of enforced disappearances reported in the north and south before 2000 will be resumed. He made this statement while speaking at a programme organized by the Office on Missing Persons (OMP) at Temple Trees.
This week, the Cabinet approved a proposal to resolve within two years the backlog of 10,000 cases out of nearly 17,000 disappearance complaints received by the OMP.
“In order to serve justice to aggrieved parties, the Cabinet of Ministers granted approval to a proposal submitted by the Justice and National Integration Minister to implement a special project to complete investigations and the relevant duties by the end of 2027, and to appoint 25 sub-committees comprising 75 qualified persons including retired judges, senior administrative officers and lawyers to perform this task,” the Office of the Cabinet announced.
“The mother who attended last year’s commemoration is unable to attend it this time. She is lying in bed and crying for her son. A mother is unable to demand justice for her son,” Amalanayaki said at the 35 year commemoration.
White flags
On 5 September 1990, a group from the Kommathurai military camp had forcibly taken away a group of war displaced who were sheltering at the Eastern University located in Vantharamoolai, Batticaloa. At the time, the UNP was in power.
The group that had sought refuge at the university consisted of those who had escaped from the villages of Vantharamoolai, Sangankarni and Kauravakkeni, which were stormed by troops from the Valaichchenai military camp during a search-and-destroy mission.
The university teachers who provided security had hoisted white flags in front of the university. According to the testimonies given to a Presidential commission by members of the university administration and the relatives of the disappeared, the army had arrived around 9 a.m. that day, lined up all detainees, and had taken away a group of selected youths in two buses.
On the same day, the army had stormed the villages of Sathurukondan, Panichchaiyadi, Kokkuvil and Pillaiyaradi in Batticaloa and had abducted more villagers. None of them had returned.
Captain Munas and Captain Richard Dias
A group including a military officer known as Captain Munas had arrived to whisk off the detainees.
In 1993, Batticaloa Citizens’ Committee’s Father Harry Miller had told the ‘HIRU’ newspaper that Captain Richard Dias is Captain Munas.
However, the North-East Commission – one of the three ‘commissions of inquiry into abductions and disappearances’ appointed by former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga during her first tenure – has reported on the Vantharumoolai massacre.
The final report of the commission, which was headed by a three-member committee led by Krishnapillai Palakidner, had mentioned the names of those who disappeared in the incident and had listed Captain Munas, Captain Palitha and Captain Gunaratne as the military officers responsible for the crime.
The commission had recorded evidence that two paramilitary leaders, namely Major Majeed and Major Mohan, were also involved in that abduction.
Former Army Commander
According to witnesses’ statements given to the commission, the army commander at the time Jerry de Silva had arrived at the refugee camp on 8 September and had annonced that every person taken away had been proven guilty.
The former Army Commander had not mentioned the action taken against those ‘perpetrators’.
However, M.C.M. Iqbal, who served as a secretary for the relevant commissions, had later said that the highest political authority had ordered that no further investigation be carried out against any military or police personnel identified by the relevant commissions with regard to the abductions and killings.
Leave a comment