Unforgotten: War Crimes in Sri Lanka

Video Courtesy: Right to Life

Sri Lanka Guardian
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How Sri Lankan security forces committed War Crimes against innocent Sinhalese two decades ago.

This happened almost twenty years ago in a majority Sinhala dominated area in Sri Lanka, well before the culture seeped into the Tamil dominated areas. The term ‘War Crimes’ is not a new phenomenon in Sri Lanka which has long history like other countries around the world. The new video provided by a local rights group to the Sri Lanka Guardian shows glaring account of war crimes being committed by the crude, unethical, barbaric security forces in Sri Lanka during the second uprising of the People Liberation Front (JVP) in 1988-89.

The Right to Life- a local non-government organization based in Colombo that works on human rights, has given the new video showing experience of the victims of war crimes committed by the security forces during the said time period.

“They (security forces) took me and my husband to one of their torture centres, where hundreds of others were tortured, killed and burnt,” Mrs. Premasili, a widow has revealed her account carrying with her the late husband’s photograph. “Then they took my husband and hung him by his toes after making him to remove the clothes and then started to torture him naked. They blind folded me and started to torture as well after hanging me like my husband,” she said.

“Lieutenant Colonel Rahula Sirimanna , a commanding officer who tortured, raped several times and ordered the others to rape many women suspected of supporting the JVP,” she said.

“ They finished off my husband after two days of torture, and then took me to Hambantota where number of women were held on suspicion. To my knowledge, most of them were innocent like me. There too they tortured me and urged me to reveal the names of the people who had connections with the JVP, but I did not know anyone who had JVP connections and I didn’t have any link with them either,” Mrs. Premasili says.

Premasili is one of women who was raped several times by several Security men in the torture centres. She was hanged and tortured continuously. Fortunately, she narrowly escaped from death but her husband was killed by the security forces and justice never came forth for her. She is a eyewitness for several killings and tortures by the Sri Lankan army and she is one of the thousands still seeking justice still.

© Sri Lanka Guardian