Sri Lanka Ends Search For Missing in Action

The president described the missing as those taken by Tamil insurgents, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), but some families of the missing accuse the government of taking away anyone suspected of being linked to the insurgents. (Wikimedia Commons)

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has declared the 24,000 people still missing from the nation’s 26-year civil war formally dead. According to the AP, the government will begin handing out death certificates to the families of the missing.

Rajapaksa summarized the contested move by saying, “I can’t bring back the dead.” In a statement during a meeting with the UN resident coordinator of Sri Lanka, the president described the missing as those forcefully taken by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and conscripted into their insurgent army, shedding light on the persistent racial tension between the Tamils and the Sinhalese majority.

The Sinhalese and Tamil minority are the two main ethnic groups that participated in the grueling, bloody civil war, according to BBC. The war began in 1983 when the Tamil formed the LTTE to combat Sinhalese nationalism and the long history of disenfranchisement that the minority group faced during the mid-20th century. 

The armed insurgent group used deadly tactics from the start, including suicide bombing, prompting violent retaliation from the government. The defeat of the last remaining Tamil insurgents and their leader ended the war in 2009, leaving almost 70,000 dead.

Rajapaksa acted as head defense secretary during the last few years of the civil war, serving from 2009 until 2015 under his brother’s presidency. During his appointment, thousands of soldiers, aid workers, journalists, Tamil citizens, and political opponents of the Rajapska family either underwent torture or went missing, according to the New York Times.

Relatives of the missing individuals express skepticism and grief over the president’s declaration. They claim that the government forced them to hand over hundreds of family members suspected of even the remotest link to the insurgents, shipping them off in buses, never to return. 

Visakha Dharmadasa, who has searched for her missing son for 21 years, says she is “still waiting for him” and will keep her son’s certificate of absence even after his government-mandated “death.”

According to the Daily News, a Sri Lankan government-sponsored news agency, however, a spokesperson claimed that Rajapaksa was able to direct the nation toward prosperity after only 72 days in office, citing a special development program the president enacted to alleviate poverty. Rajapaksa loyalists seized control of the Daily News in 2018 and ousted journalists with opposing views of the regime.

From the president’s perspective, ending investigations for the missing constituted an attempt to finally bring closure to the civil war.

Outside political commentators criticize Rajapaksa’s effort to end investigations, as well as the lack of independent, effective investigation, even calling the move illegal. Others argue that human rights violations during the Rajapska family’s regime were simply symptoms of the violence that ignited the start of the war.