1 April 2008
Sri Lankan rights group finds state security forces
responsible for murder of 17 aid workers
A 29-page report released today by the
University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) names state security personnel responsible
for the summary executions of 17 Action
Contre la Faim (ACF) aid workers in Mutur, Sri Lanka on 4 August 2006. The report details the grisly killings, the
role of senior police officials in the murders, and the failure of the
government to properly investigate the crime.
Eyewitness testimony and other
information uncovered by UTHR(J) reveals that the Sri Lankan aid workers were
killed by a member of the Muslim Home Guards, and two police constables in the
presence of the Sri Lankan Naval Special Forces around 4.30 pm on Friday, 4
August 2006. Evidence suggests that the
killers were given the green light to murder the aid workers by police
officials in Mutur, who may have gotten the go-ahead from senior police
officials in the district capital, Trincomalee. UTHR(J) presents evidence that indicates at least one aid worker
was killed by a member of the Naval Special Forces, who were present and did
nothing to stop the killings. The
report implicates several senior police officers, including Rohan Abeywardene,
Deputy Inspector General, and Kapila Jayasekere, Senior Superintendent of
Police in Trincomalee, as being complicit in the crime and names Jehangir, a
member of the Muslim Home Guards, and two police constables, Susantha and
Nilantha, as those who pulled the triggers.
“The evidence shows that state security
forces, including police, killed the 17 aid workers and that senior police
officials covered it up,” said Dr. Rajan Hoole of UTHR(J). “The killing of civilians during times of
conflict is a war crime. The perpetrators and their superiors should be brought
to justice for this grievous crime.”
The
UTHR(J) report points to the strong link between the killing of the 17 aid
workers and the earlier killing of five Tamil students on the beachfront in
Trincomalee on 2 January 2006. One of
the 17, Kodeeswaran, was the brother of one of the five murdered students. The report gives incidents suggestive of an
ominous interest taken in Kodeeswaran by SSP Jayasekere, who was implicated in
the planning and cover-up of the murder of the five students. SSP Jayasekere was never prosecuted for the
deaths of the five students, despite evidence pointing to his involvement in
the murders, but was instead promoted shortly before the killings of the aid
workers.
The
murder of the 17 ACF workers occurred in the context of an attack on Mutur by
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The government has repeatedly blamed the LTTE for the killings, but
UTHR(J)’s extensive research shows that they occurred after the LTTE had
retreated from Mutur town. At the time
of the killings, most of the town’s residents had fled for safety, fearing
further fighting. Action Contre la Faim had communicated to the authorities that the
aid workers remained in their compound, so there should have been no confusion
as to whether they were civilians or fighters.
Rather
than seeking the truth and tackling impunity, the Sri Lankan authorities, their
experts, the Attorney General and diplomats overseas have covered up the facts
of the 2006 killings, along with any potential association between the ACF
massacre and the killing of five students in Trincomalee.
“Had
disciplinary action been instituted against SP Jayasekere over the killing of
the five students instead of promoting him to SSP, the 17 aid workers would
probably be alive today,” said Dr. Rajan Hoole. “The Sri Lankan government needs to end impunity to deter more
abuses by the state security forces, the LTTE and other armed actors in Sri
Lanka’s quarter-century of conflict.”
UTHR(J)
said that it hoped the report released today would open a window to lighten the
abyss created by high-level cover-ups and official acquiescence in murder. These cases of the 17 ACF aid workers and
the 5 students from Trincomalee, given the international concern, remain the
most promising means of making cracks in the prison of impunity that grips the
nation.
About
the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna)
UTHR(J) have been documenting and
publicizing human rights abuses in Sri Lanka since the late 1980s and were one
of the pioneers internationally, in highlighting the abuses of non-state
actors, particularly abuses by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. In 2007 UTHR(J) were awarded the prestigious
Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. UTHR(J) has written extensively on the killings of the aid
workers and the five students and this is the first report to shed light on the
perpetrators of the killings and also the extensive high level cover-up of the
truth.
These, and other, reports can be found
at: www.uthr.org
For interview requests only please
contact: uthrj89@gmail.com