Surrendering and Disappearing: Where are they now?

Surrendering and Disappearing: Where are they now?

Groundviews 5 May, 2012 Jayashika Padmasiri

Image from WSWS

“Disappearance is far worse than death, because when a person dies, when I know that, so and so is dead, the story ends and somehow or other we close the chapter. But when a person has disappeared, it is an eternal suffering.”

(A.Santhipali, before the LLRC at Jaffna on 12^th November 2010)

In the controversial Commission of Inquiry on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation, 53 LTTE cadres who surrendered during the final days of the war in May 2009 are alleged to have been disappeared and are reported to be under the category of ‘missing’. What happened to these 53 people? Their relatives and close kith and kin say that they were last seen and heard surrendering to the Sri Lankan Army.Continue reading »