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Continuing Crimes – Matale To Mullivaikkal President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his Army Commander, Lt. Gen. Shavendra Silva, should explain in court why newly released government lists show hundreds of Sinhalese and Tamils went ‘missing’ in Matale in 1989 and Mullivaikal in 2009. Both men remain criminally liable under international and domestic law for enforced disappearances that occurred under their command and control. Gotabaya Rajapaksa was secretary of defence in 2009; Shavendra was a key divisional commander, who is now designated by the US government for credible allegations of gross violations of human rights.
Recently released data from Sri Lanka’s Office of Missing Persons (OMP) shows that more than 330 Tamils are classified as having gone ‘missing’ from the final days of the war when the country was fully under the government’s control. The data also shows 154 Sinhalese from Matale Distict are regarded as having gone ‘missing’ in the last half of 1989 when Gotabaya was the District Military Coordinator there, and Shavendra his junior officer. The ITJP believes that the OMP’s numbers while extremely large are nevertheless grossly underestimated.