New Delhi: Crews of construction workers in Sri Lanka’s Jaffna were breaking ground on an electric crematorium in February this year when they first stumbled upon what they believed were skeletal remains. What followed was a prompt recovery of objects that established beyond a doubt that the ground earmarked for the electric crematorium in Chemmani was, in fact, a mass grave. Items recovered included a baby bottle, a squeaky toy and a schoolbag believed to belong to a girl aged between four and six.
Excavators also recovered toddler clothing, tiny socks and shoes, a baby powder tray, and delicate bangles—all remnants of lives extinguished, likely during the civil war that ravaged the country for nearly three decades.
Subsequent excavations in the area have led to the discovery of 141 skeletal remains, reported the Associated Press, adding that many of them appear to be of children of different ages. Of the 19 skeletal remains recovered by June, at least three have been confirmed as that of babies. Around 135 of the bodies had no clothing, with only one set of adult clothing identified. A lawyer monitoring the process is quoted in the report published on 21 August as saying that excavations will continue for eight more weeks.
While the identities of the dead remain unclear, the theory is that they could be remains of civilians who disappeared during Sri Lanka’s civil war, between state forces and armed Tamil groups, which broke out in 1983 and ended in 2009.
The civil war in Sri Lanka broke out when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) ambushed an army patrol in Jaffna, killing 13 soldiers. The attack served as a pretext for the “Black July pogrom” against the Tamil community in Colombo, resulting in thousands of angered Tamil youths joining militant groups.
The brutal conflict concluded after 26 years with the Tigers’ defeat in 2009, when the Sri Lankan armed forces killed their commander Velupillai Prabhakaran.
The village of Chemmani, in the outskirts of Jaffna, has served as a reminder of the bloody conflict since the trial of a Sri Lankan army soldier and subsequent discovery of a mass grave in 1999.
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Krishanthi Kumaraswami case and the first mass grave
In 1998, Sri Lankan soldier Somaratne Rajapakse was on trial for the gang-rape and murder of Krishanthi Kumaraswamy, an 18-year-old Tamil schoolgirl.
The aftermath of the trial revealed more than just the details of one unsettling crime, as the convicted soldier claimed under oath that hundreds who had disappeared from northern Sri Lanka during the civil war were killed and buried in mass graves in Chemmani.
Rajapakse claimed he knew the locations where 300-400 such civilians were buried. This allegation catapulted the village to international headlines.
Excavations followed in 1999 under the observation of human rights groups and other international organisations, leading to the discovery of 15 bodies. At least two were identified as those of men who had disappeared in 1996. Seven military personnel were charged, but the investigation was stalled.
No further excavations were conducted and by 2006, Chemmani was forgotten in the official narrative without any conclusions, until the recent discovery.
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The battle for Jaffna
The Jaffna peninsula, a Tamil-dominated stronghold of the LTTE, was at the heart of the civil war in Sri Lanka. The Tamil Tigers briefly captured it in 1986, subsequently losing control of the area to the Indian Peacekeeping Forces (IPKF) in 1987, and then reoccupying it in 1990 as IPKF withdrew from the region, ending the first phase of the civil war.
The LTTE maintained control over the northern peninsula throughout the second phase, which concluded in 1995 with the militants and state forces entering peace negotiations.
The result was a hundred-day ceasefire, which broke down in April 1995 after the ‘Sea Tigers’, naval wing of LTTE, planted explosives on two Sri Lankan navy gun boats and blew them up. This marked the beginning of third phase of the war.
In October 1995, Sri Lankan armed forces launched ‘Operation Riviresa’. The objective was to recapture Jaffna. The operation was successful and while the Tigers were able to gain key territories elsewhere, they could never regain their old northern fortress.
Following the recapture, cases of widespread torture, rape and disappearances by the Sri Lankan army were reported by human rights organisations.
Amnesty International, which sent a three-member delegation to Sri Lanka in August 1997 to investigate the “disappearances”, said in a report that approximately 600 people had been reported “disappeared” by the time the government in Colombo “acknowledged the reality of what was happening in Jaffna”.
(Edited by Kasturi Walimbe)
Saksham Thakur and Kasturi Walimbe are alum of ThePrint School of Journalism, currently interning with ThePrint.
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