The families of the disappeared hold small demonstrations by the road or search the marked villages of devastated northern Sri Lanka, embracing photos of tens of thousands of people who disappeared during the country’s brutal civil war. At each location, parents and grandparents ask the authorities a simple question: Where are our children?
The protests continued virtually uninterrupted for more than four years, allowed by a government open to account for the human tribute of the war. Now, the already desperate protests seem hopeless. Sri Lanka has a new government that has even turned remembrance into an act of resistance.
Since Gotabaya Rajapaksa assumed the presidency in late 2019, authorities have invaded the media, harassed and investigated journalists and activists, dragged human rights lawyers and writers into prison and kept them for months without charge, vigilant about rights like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watching say.
Investigators investigating abuses during the war were arrested, forced to flee the country or banned from traveling, in a clear message that the government sees accountability for past crimes as an affront.
This is no coincidence. Sri Lanka’s new government is led by the same people who brought the three-decade war to a brutal end in 2009, and then suppressed discussions for half a decade later. During the final and brutal phase of the civil war, Mr. Rajapaksa, a former army officer, served as defense minister.
“We have no more hope,” said Leeladevi Anandanadaraja, secretary of the Association of Relatives of Forced Disappeared, whose own 34-year-old son disappeared after his arrest by the military in 2009. “That is why we think we need international interference on this issue. “
The deteriorating human rights situation in Sri Lanka will be at the top of the agenda when the United Nations Human Rights Council meets on Wednesday.
Government critics want Sri Lanka to return to its recently abandoned commitment to cooperate in investigating war crimes committed by all parties during the war. They also hope to contain the heavy hand of a government dominated by the ethnic Sri Lankan Buddhist majority.
Human rights groups have accused the Rajapaksa government of alienating and discriminating against ethnic and religious minorities, including predominantly Hindu Tamils in the north. These policies evoke some of the same tensions that fueled the civil war in the first place, when Tamil rebels responded to oppression by trying to establish a separatist state.
The UN council will consider the findings of Michelle Bachelet, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, who in a February 9 assessment expressed deep concern about the direction of the country and even considered the possibility of the case being referred to the Criminal Court. International.
“Events in the past year have fundamentally changed the environment for the advancement of reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka, eroded democratic checks and balances and civic space, and allowed the resurgence of a dangerous exclusive and majority discourse,” wrote Bachelet . On the report.
In the opening speech to the Human Rights Council on Tuesday, Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena called the hard-hitting UN work report “elements working against Sri Lanka” and denounced it as a violation of sovereignty of the country.
Mr. Gunawardena asked member states not to adopt a resolution against Sri Lanka based on the report, as this would result in a “loss of morale among countries engaged in the fight against terrorism”.
“The council must keep the balance balanced,” he said.
For a brief period, Sri Lanka, along with Myanmar, was seen as a success story as it emerged from the shadows of conflict as a flourishing democracy.
In 2015, an unlikely political coalition defeated Mahinda Rajapaksa, the incumbent president whose government crushed the Tamil insurgency in 2009, and the current president’s older brother.
The new government committed itself to accountability for wartime abuses, began to deal with wartime complaints and opened up space for the emergence of civil society, putting the country on the path to healing some of the wounds of the devastating war. The families of those who disappeared during the war began to cry out for an account of what had happened.
“Surveillance has not exactly stopped completely. They have not demilitarized themselves, ”Ambika Satkunanathan, a former member of the Sri Lanka human rights commission, said of security structures during that period. “But because there was space, civil society was encouraged to challenge it.”
But the next four years were marked by confusing internal struggles within the coalition, which paralyzed the government. This discord contributed to a security lapse that allowed for a major terrorist attack on Easter Sunday in 2019, when coordinated bombings killed more than 250 people.
In that moment of fear, Gotabaya Rajapaksa projected himself as the strong man that the country needed. He won the elections later that year, despite criticism of his defense ministry’s leadership during the war. Her brother, Mahinda, the former president, became prime minister.
The civilian space that has emerged has “ended now,” Satkunanathan said, adding that Myanmar’s recent return to full military dictatorship was a warning.
“The lesson is that sometimes being satisfied with leftovers and not calling on a government when it does not comply with the agreements – it does not work,” she said.
Reports of human rights watchdogs say that Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who piled his government with former military officers, obstructed investigations of previous crimes and called these efforts “political victimization” of security officials. They also accused him of adopting policies that favor Sri Lankans in the country, but are offensive to minority communities.
One policy that has drawn strong criticism is the forced cremation of people who died from Covid-19, because of protests by Muslims who say it disrespects their faith and their insistence on burial. The government continues the practice, saying that burial poses a health risk, despite assurances from medical specialists and the World Health Organization that it does not.
MSM Fahim, whose 20-day-old son died of Covid-19 in a hospital, said the government continued cremation, even when he objected.
“I waited six years to have a child,” said Fahim. “When he died, I was very sad, and when he was cremated, things got worse for me. I wasn’t even able to say goodbye to my son properly. “
Much of the fear for the country’s leadership comes from growing intolerance of freedom of expression and memories of past atrocities. Gotabaya Rajapaksa describes the ongoing protests for the missing and calls for justice as disrespect to the military who defeated an insurgency that resorted to brutal acts of terror.
Activists say harassment by security officials has reduced the number of protesters, although many persist in their campaign to get answers about the fate of their loved ones.
Sandya Ekneligoda, who has campaigned for justice for her missing husband, political cartoonist and columnist Prageeth Ekneligoda, said those who provided her with a support network for years now fear joining her.
To complete 11 years since Prageeth’s disappearance, Ms. Ekneligoda – who is raising two teenage children on her own – is sharing an archive of her work, including her unfinished cartoons. At last month’s launch, she exposed her brushes and other drawing tools.
“I don’t feel alone because I keep myself busy with the campaign and gardening – everything is expensive now, so I plant vegetables in the garden to survive,” said Ekneligoda. “I still share everything with Prageeth. I talk to him mentally when I’m alone. It helps.”
“I never wondered if Prageeth is alive or not,” she added. “In reality, he could be dead, but for me he is very much alive.”