Leading archaeologist calls for accountability on Matale mass grave

The skulls and partial skeletons were discovered in November 2012 by construction workers building a biogas facility at the main government hospital in Matale.

30 MARCH 2013

BY KITHISIRI WIJESINGHE
Following reports submitted by Professor in Archaeology Raj Somadeva and Forensic medical specialist Ajith Jayasena, who investigated the unearthed human remains, Matale Magistrate Court has confirmed that the deaths can be dated to a period when a Sinhala youth uprising was defeated by Sri Lanka’s military.

The time of the killings were determined by ‘material objects’ identified by the investigators. On the basis of archaeological and forensic evidence provided by experts Matale Magistrate and Additional District Judge Chaturika De Silva has said that the bodies were found to be of those killed between 1986 and 1990.

The Sinhala youth uprising led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) during the period was crushed by  state armed forces in 1989. The number of unaccounted youth at the time under the rule of United national Party (UNP) was estimated to be over 30,000.

Professor Raj Somadeva says that no evidence could be found to demonstrate the Matale mass grave deaths were due to natural causes or an epidemic.

Therefore, ‘I have said in my report that there should be someone who is responsible for this mass grave,’ the Uppsala University archaeology scholar told JDS by telephone.

Judicial Medical Officer Dr. Ajith Jayasena has earlier told BBC that the mass grave should be regarded as a crime site as it was not a regular place of burial.

"Evidence of decapitation, dismemberment and concealment" indicates that "crimes were committed," Dr. Jayasena told Al Jazeera.

Raj Somadeva of the Kelaniya University’s Postgraduate Institute of Archaeology said that the bodies were buried ‘not in a manner that is characteristic of any Sri Lankan community’.

“Some were found by themselves. There were other bodies stacked in groups of six and four. Only skulls of some of the deceased could be found. Only partial skeletons in some other cases,” he added.

‘Gota’s War’ on Matale

Sri Lanka’s powerful defence secretary was the military commander in Matale a few years into the JVP uprising, reveals a biography released last year. In ‘Gota’s War,’ Journalist C. A. Chandraprema says that Gotabhaya Rajapaksa was promoted as ‘the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion of the Gajaba Regiment’.

“With this promotion, he was posted to Matale as the district coordinating officer tasked with bringing the JVP under control. The first Gajaba Battalion, which had been in Trincomalee for nearly one and a half years, was brought down to Matale,” Chandraprema writes in chapter twenty eight ‘The Second JVP Insurrection’.

He also records that senior Sri Lankan commanders accused of war crimes during the offensive that defeated Tamil Tigers militarily in 2009, assisted Gotabhaya Rajapaksa in the crushing of the JVP in Matale district.

“Lieutenants Shavendra Silva, Jagath Dias and Sumedha Perera were among his company commanders in Matale,” says ‘Gota’s War’. Until the military defeat of the JVP in 1989 the present defence secretary has ‘remained the security coordinating officer of Matale,’ and in January 1990, ‘he applied for three months leave and went to the USA to see his family’.

The JVP and its breakaway group Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) who suspect that the destiny of their former comrades and their loved ones could be established from the Matale mass grave remains, have called for a ‘thorough inquiry’.

Meanwhile, a senior official of the presidential committee appointed to investigate disappearance during the period says that the UNP government prevented the publishing of evidence provided by members of the public. Former Secretary of the Special Commission of Inquiries on Disappearances, ICM Iqbal told JDS that the government ‘intentionally removed evidence given by victims on mass graves and torture chambers’

“The commission was barred from publishing those details for a further thirty years,” he added.

Military torture chamber near Matale mass grave

by Ranga Jayasuriya-2013-03-30 In a damning disclosure, the survivors of a military-run detention centre that existed during the southern counter-insurgency campaign have alleged the army had operated a torture chamber in a government school in the vicinity of the mass grave of Matale in 1989-90, and that the skeletons of the mass grave belong to the victims of that torture chamber.   The shocking disclosures come in the wake of Carbon C 14 Dating findings that have revealed the skeletal remains of over 150 bodies, unearthed from the mass grave, were buried in the period of 1986-90. Pubudu Jayakody, Political Secretary of the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), who insisted the remains that were unearthed from the mass grave were of his former comrades of the JVP, said the inmates of the torture chamber, which was operated from Vijaya Vidyalaya in the 1989-90, would soon come out to narrate their ordeal in the torture chamber. Concern for their security is keeping them away for the moment, he said. "A torture chamber was operated by a unit of the Gajaba Regiment of the Army in the Vijaya Vidyalaya, which was located in the vicinity of the Matale Hospital," he said. "There are survivors of that torture chamber. And some of them are active members of our party to date and they will soon come out to reveal their experiences in the camp," he said. On Thursday, Jayakody lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka demanding an inquiry into the mass grave. Two specialist reports, which were submitted to the Matale Magistrate, have revealed the skeletal remains belong to the period of the Southern uprising, during which the security forces and the State-backed death squads were accused of carrying out large-scale extra-judicial killings and mass disappearances. A report of the Judicial Medical Officer of Matale, which was submitted to the Matale Magistrate early this week, has explained in gory detail the torture the victims had been subjected to. The report detailed that heads had been severed from the bodies of the victims using an electric saw and some skulls bore evidence that nails had been inserted into the heads of the victims. The report has also revealed the skeletons bore marks of being attacked using blunt weapons and subjected to extreme torture. Prof. Raj Somadeva, professor of forensic archaeology at the University of Kelaniya in an earlier report confirmed the grave cannot be older than 1986 and newer than 1990. Prof. Somadeva was commissioned by the Magistrate to prepare a report on the mass grave