Report: Former Sri Lanka President Stalled Police Probe Into Mass Graves

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Facts

  • On Thursday, activist groups, including the International Truth and Justice Project, published a report accusing former Sri Lankan Pres. Gotabaya Rajapaksa of ordering the destruction of police records to obstruct investigations into mass graves discovered in the central Matale district in 2013, when he was a powerful defense official.1
  • Hundreds of remains were unearthed in a score of mass graves — reportedly from the time of a deadly Marxist insurrection — but thousands of bodies could still be buried in undiscovered mass graves, according to the report.2
  • Hundreds disappeared in Matale in 1989 when Rajapaksa was the district military coordinator of the area. He was later named as an alleged suspect by a Presidential Commission of Inquiry.3
  • The report further stated that earlier this year, four UN special procedures bodies wrote to Colombo with regard to its alleged failure to hold authorities in charge of the district in the late 1980s responsible.4
  • Gotabaya and his older brother, former Pres. and PM Mahinda Rajapaksa, as well as two senior military officers were sanctioned by Canada in January on allegations of human rights violations during the 26-year civil war.5
  • Previously a dual US-Sri Lanka national who gave up his American citizenship in 2019 to run for the presidency, Rajapaksa was ousted from power last year as his country entered into its worst economic and humanitarian crisis since its independence in 1948.6

Sources: 1Al Jazeera, 2Washington Post, 3EconomyNext, 4ITJP, 5The Star, and 6The Economic Times.

Narratives

  • Narrative A, as provided by Colombo Telegraph. Political interference to protect military and political masters has long been the norm in Sri Lanka, a country that is ranked second in the world for unsolved enforced disappearance cases. Though UN experts have asked the government about the status of investigations into Rajapaksa and other suspects, no reply has been given so far. The lack of accountability must stop to build a future for Sri Lankans.
  • Narrative B, as provided by The Sunday Times. Hopefully, Gotabaya will eventually survive these disgusting character assassination attempts that his enemies have been plotting since before his ouster. While the former president is a military man known for being a harsh taskmaster, he is definitely neither autocratic nor a war criminal as shown by his calm, low-profile reaction to vandals attacking his official residence.