The killers’ list

Stories of the Disappeared Told by their Families– Part One

By Moon Jeong-ho and Bruce Van Voorhis
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Editor’s note: We are serializing a series of essays based on the stories told by several Sri Lankan families in the South about the disappearances which took place between 1987 and 1991. They are reproduced from a book published in October 2004 under the title, An Exceptional of the Rule of Law. Many similar incidents would have happened in the North and the East and we encourage the readers to send in their stories known to them. (Contact emails: editor@srilankaguardian.org or feed@srilankaguardian.org)
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The disappearance of S. A. Chaminda Luxman Senanayake

(June 01, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Education was the focus of life in the Senanayake household at Divulapitiya in the 1980s. Francis Senanayake, a school principal, and his wife Piyawathie, an English teacher, emphasized the importance of education, and their four children devoted themselves to their academic studies.

However, due to the widespread violence in Sri Lanka at the time, and especially after rumours of a mass grave in nearby Walpita, where it was said that the burnt bodies of about 30 children had been buried, Francis and Piyawathie sent their 19-year-old son Chaminda to live with Piyawathie’s brother, a policeman. This was to ensure his safety, even though the family was not involved in politics and they had no reason to believe that their son’s life was in danger.

Thus, they were shocked when they received a telephone call from Piyawathie’s brother on 16 December 1989, informing them of Chaminda’s abduction. They immediately contacted their member of parliament, Ariyaratne Jayathileke, and also made a complaint at the local police station, where a police officer scolded them, remarking sarcastically that after sending their son to join the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), they now came to the police looking for him. When they protested that Chaminda was not a JVP member, the police officer showed them a book containing the names of JVP suspects, pointing at the name of Chandana Senanayake. They corrected the policeman, explaining that their son’s name was ‘Chaminda’, not ‘Chandana’. The policeman then apologized and wrote down their complaint. Subsequently, however, this complaint had been lost, as the parents learned several years later, when they requested a copy of the document to obtain their son’s death certificate.

In desperation, Francis and Piyawathie continued their search for Chaminda: they met with Luxman Jayakody, MP, notified the Red Cross, sent a registered letter to the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and wrote to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. They also notified the joint operations command of the army and visited the army camps at Hunumulla, Boossa, Makandura and Henpitawala. But their efforts were in vain—for they did not find Chaminda—and neither did they obtain any tangible evidence of his whereabouts. Two days after Chaminda’s disappearance, his parents also visited the office of the Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) at Negombo. However, the ASP refused to help them and instead rudely queried as to whether they thought ‘the police were God to find lost children’.

Later on, Francis and Piyawathie were introduced to another police officer who was commonly known to be responsible for abducting children in the area. Francis recalls that when they asked him about their son, this officer had looked in his diary and simply said, “It is useless looking for your son.” Nonetheless, his parents persisted with the policeman and began giving the details of Chaminda’s abduction, as they had been told. But when they explained that their son was taken away in a Pajero vehicle, the policeman shook his head and pointed to a nearby van saying, “Chaminda was taken away in that vehicle.” When they asked why their son was abducted the policeman replied, “I have nothing to do with the reason—I was given a list (of people to be abducted) and Chaminda’s name was on the wanted list.” Francis says that it was a common perception in the village at the time that police officers who abducted children were financially rewarded for their actions. “The youth in our country were murdered in a big way during that period,” Piyawathie adds. “This was a common occurrence in every village. The persons who were supposed to maintain the law in the country were publicly involved in violating the law.”

In spite of this news, Francis and Piyawathie did not give up hope. They continued to visit detention centres and police stations where they thought Chaminda might be kept or where someone else believed he might be detained.

“We did all the things possible to inform the law enforcement authorities in our country about the abduction of our son,” says Piyawathie. “We also met various astrologers—whether it be right or wrong, so that we may be able to get some clue about the whereabouts of our son. In this manner, we spent all our money to bring back our lost son. Because of this, the education of our other children as well as our home matters were neglected.”

She adds, “For several years, we received information from different people that our son was still living. And whenever we got such information, we would promptly visit the relevant army camp. Like this, we must have travelled all over the country to almost all the places he could have been held, hoping and praying all the while that we would find our son. But our efforts to secure our son were in vain as there was never any solid evidence that he was detained in a particular place. In fact, from the time he disappeared to date, we have had no information about our son’s whereabouts. Now, after many long years, we have finally resigned ourselves into believing that our son is no longer among the living. So now, we engage in religious services in memory of him.”

So why was Chaminda abducted? Piyawathie says that the news in the village was that a government minister and member of parliament had created a ‘wanted list’ containing the names of 64 children. These children, including Chaminda, had subsequently been abducted.

But why was Chaminda, a model student, added to this list? “Actually, this list was not drafted by the minister,” says Francis. “If a villager needed to take revenge against some person, the situation which existed in the country during this time was extremely conducive for doing so. We feel that some person, or persons, jealous of our family coming up in life in the village may have been responsible, for we are sure that we did not have any personal enemies in the village. Maybe because our children were very clever in their studies, someone jealous of our family got this done to my son.”

Stresses Francis, “We have not done anything wrong to any political party or any government to our knowledge. We have not even been involved in any type of active politics in our country. But UNP (United National Party) leaders in our village may have falsely implicated our son and added his name to the ‘list’. And since the minister concerned was a UNP MP, just to please local party supporters he may have signed a list of names prepared by the UNP village leaders without even reading the list.”

All this violence was so unnecessary, says Francis in anguish. Not only should his son still be alive, but so should thousands of other young Sri Lankans, who were so brutally destroyed. “These actions of the government against the JVP’s illegal activities could have been done in a more democratic manner. Instead of arresting and indiscriminately killing young people who were branded as political opponents, the suspected JVP youth could have been detained in jail and rehabilitated. If this was done, about 60,000 young lives of our country could have been saved.”

However, he says that according to his knowledge, most of the youth killed in his village were not JVP activists. Instead, they were quite unconnected to the JVP. Thus, while innocents were killed, they still could not find the hardcore JVP members living freely in the village.

From information gathered, Francis is of the opinion that the reign of terror unleashed across the country at the time was instigated by the government itself. He says that if there were high-ranking Army or police officers in the area with their families living far away, some person was usually contracted to murder the members of the families of these officers. Then a note or poster was put beside the dead bodies to show it was the work of the JVP. In this way, the army or police officers concerned were provoked into abducting and killing so-called JVP activists of the village.

Moreover, explains Francis, “During that period (in the late 1980s), laws in the country were not executed in a just and fair manner, with even the lawyers who appeared in cases being murdered. Today it is not as bad as it was then. However, even now, a similar trend continues. For example, we read in the newspapers how certain government ministers take the law into their own hands whenever they feel like it.

Therefore, the people living in our village have lost confidence in the law of the country. We also have serious doubts about obtaining justice and fair play from our judicial system.”

Describing the chilling atmosphere in Sri Lanka in the late 1980s, Francis recalls that when people heard about bodies burning at various places, they considered it ‘just another day’s event’. He says that the community got accustomed to these occurrences. Consequently, when passers-by saw a body burning on the road, they merely looked at it and walked away because of the bad smell.

“My school was also situated close to a place where they were burning bodies,” he says, “So I was compelled to close the school because of the bad smell, which was spreading in the area. Whenever a dead body was brought and set on fire, the fumes came right into our school, and because the teachers were telling us that it was unhygienic to conduct school with these fumes coming in, I closed the school.

“These occurrences,” he concludes, “were not strange to the people. It was common for bodies to be found floating in the sea or in the rivers. The community was afraid to rise up against these acts, as people
were fearful the same fate would befall them.”

“My only wish,” says Piyawathie, “is that never again should our country be governed by a cruel government like the one that killed our children. In the future, the innocent youth of our country must be protected from being meaninglessly murdered. And finally, as Buddhists, I wish to pray that our child, who is now no longer living in this world, obtains the peace of Nirvana, and let him not face a similar tragedy in the next birth if he is reborn into this world again.”

To be continued…