TIMECODE

DIALOGUE

10:00:03

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101 EAST

10:00:07

STEVE CHAO VOICEOVER:   Sri Lanka had used abduction as a way to instil fear since the days of its civil war.  The conflict is over, but critics say authorities are still kidnapping citizens who speak out.     

10:00:24

STEVE CHAO VOICEOVER:  This small island nation has one of the highest numbers of unsolved disappearances in the world.  Will a new investigation agency help victims and their families get justice? 

10:00:37

STEVE CHAO:  I’m Steve Chao.  On this episode of 101 East we investigate Sri Lanka enforced disappearances. 

10:00:44

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SRI LANKA:  ABDUCTION ISLAND

A FILM BY DREW AMBROSE & SARAH YEO

10:00:54

NIHAL SERASIGHE VOICEOVER: Whenever I see a white van, when I see a soldier or policeman, I look at them suspiciously.  Even when I think about the moment I was kidnapped, it scares me.

10:01:08

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  Nihal Serasighe never thought he would live to tell his story.  He’s one of the few in Sri Lanka to survive an abduction.  Sixty thousand others have gone missing over the past three decades.    

10:01:29

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER: It was a sunny morning in May 2009.  Nihal was walking near the courthouse in the capital of Colombo when a white van started following him.  Soon he was surrounded.   

10:01:42

NIHAL SERASIGHE VOICEOVER:  Men put a weapon to my right hip. They told me to shut up and keep walking.  A van came up from 100 metres away and I was dragged into it.    

10:01:59

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  He was thrown into a garage on a coconut estate.  Nihal alleges he was tortured by plain clothed men and uniformed officers. 

10:02:17

NIHAL SERASIGHE VOICEOVER: They threw me into this corner and started attacking me.  They straightened me and started hitting me with metal pipes. 

10:02:35

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  Using bricks, Nihal plots out a torture chamber 12 feet in length.   

10:02:42

NIHAL SERASIGHE VOICEOVER:  It was an area like this.  No matter how much I screamed, no one could hear.  There was urine and blood all over the place. 

10:02:54

NIHAL SERASIGHE VOICEOVER:  They took my belt and started beating my back.  After that, they dragged me by my legs on the rocks.  They hit me in here and here.  They also hit my soles of my feet.   

10:03:14

NIHAL SERASIGHE VOICEOVER:  After that, they filled a plastic bag with petrol and tied my head with it for two minutes, until I started suffocating.  Just when I was about to lose consciousness, they would let go.  

10:03:29

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  During long interrogations, the officers accused Nihal of aiding the Tamil Tigers, a separatist group who fought a 26-year civil war against the Sri Lankan government.  Nihal is from the Sinhalese majority, but the trade union publication he worked for, promoted the rights of the Tamil minority.

10:03:51

DREW AMBROSE: Was there a point where you thought you were going to die?

NIHAL SERASIGHE VOICEOVER: I had no hope of living at that point. They belted me so much.

10:04:04

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER: Nihal says he was taken to police headquarters where he says he faced more torture to force him into making a confession.  But after seven years in custody, Nihal was eventually released because there wasn’t enough evidence to charge him.  Under Sri Lanka’s terrorism laws, hundreds of others have also been held in detention for years without charge or access to a lawyer.

10:04:27

NIHAL SERASIGHE VOICEOVER:  With these laws the government is able to use military personnel to get rid of threats and kidnap people. They can get rid of any threat which opposes the government.   

10:04:42

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  Survivor stories like Nihal provide a faint glimmer of hope for other families of the disappeared.  Sandya Eknaligoda hasn’t seen her husband since 2010.  Her house is filled with cartoons by the political journalist, who vanished without a trace.

10:05:05

SANDYA EKNALIGODA VOICEOVER: Ever since Prageeth disappeared, there’s only been sadness and emptiness in this house.  If someone is dead, you have their body.  You can deal with the emotions and get over their death.  If a person is abducted, it’s one of the worst crimes out there.

10:05:30

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  Prageeth’s cartoons and articles focused on human rights abuses and social inequality in Sri Lanka.  His work was published by a left-wing news website, one of the few medial outlets that criticised then President Mahinda Rajapaksa. 

10:05:46

SANDYA EKNALIGODA: [subtitle] This is our wedding photos.

10:05:52

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  Sandya says in 2009, her husband started receiving death threats.

10:05:57

SANDYA EKNALIGODA VOICEOVER: He had received a few calls from people threatening to cut his limbs off.  He was never scared.  However, a week before he went missing, he was worried by one incident.  One of Prageeth’s friends who worked for the government told him he was on top of the Rajapakae target list.

10:06:21

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  One night in 2010, Prageeth called his wife to say he would be home late.  That evening, Prageeth’s neighbours saw a suspicious white van driving around his house.  Prageeth has never been seen or heard from again. 

10:06:46

SANDYA EKNALIGODA VOICEOVER:  I want truth and justice.  There’s a lot of lies about Prageeth in this country.  The truth about Prageeth must emerge.  What happened?  What did he do? Who did it?

10:07:02

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  Eight years and 90 court appearances later, she’s still searching for the truth.  A former army officer came forward and alleged that Prageeth was interrogated at a military camp.  Eleven army officers were arrested in connection with his disappearance but were later released.   

10:07:20

FORMER ARMY CHIEF GENERAL SARATH FONSEKA: [subtitle] Eknaligoda’s case is definitely a murder.  To my conscience, I think he was murdered.    

10:07:26

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  Former Army Chief General Sarath Fonseka has no doubt about what happened to the cartoonist.  Prageeth disappeared just 5 days before national elections after he’d publicly backed Fonseka over the incumbent President Rajapaksa.

10:07:42

DREW AMBROSE:  But why do you think he was abducted?

FORMER ARMY CHIEF GENERAL SARATH FONSEKA: [subtitle] What he was doing at that time was not in favour of the other party… Rajapaksa’s party.  So, I’m a 100% sure they were very angry with him.

10:07:56

DREW AMBROSE:  Rajapaksa’s?

FORMER ARMY CHIEF GENERAL SARATH FONSEKA: [subtitle] Yes.  There is no question, no doubt about it.  The whole country believes it I think.    

10:08:03

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  General Fonseka lost that election but is now a minister in Sri Lanka’s new government which ousted the Rajapaksa regime in 2015.  Fonseka alleges that in the past, rogue elements in the security forces conducted white van abductions to silence critics like Prageeth.  Sr Lanka passed a new law in April which criminalises enforced disappearances. 

10:08:28

DREW AMBROSE: And as a government minister you’re quite willing to reprimand people that were under your command that behaved inappropriately?  You have no…

10:08:37

FORMER ARMY CHIEF GENERAL SARATH FONSEKA: [subtitle] Yes, in my time I never spared anyone.  The slightest information I got… whatever I got, I took very stern action.  No man in the security forces can commit murders… crimes.  Obviously if they’ve done it, they have to be taken to task.  We have to take legal action against them. I had very good tight control of the military. But there are other people like some in the police, some in intelligence agencies… who prefer to please this man and join hands with him.

10:09:14

DREW AMBROSE:  Who, by name?

FORMER ARMY CHIEF GENERAL SARATH FONSEKA: [subtitle] Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the previous defence secretary.

10:09:19

DREW AMBROSE: Was using white vans to…

FORMER ARMY CHIEF GENERAL SARATH FONSEKA: [subtitle] Yes.  Abductions were taking place.  Whoever did that, they did not do it during the process of their legitimate duties.  It was outside their duties.

10:09:35

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  101 East approached former President Mahinda Rajapakse who declined to comment.  In a statement, former defence secretary, Gotabaye Rajapakse described Fonseka’s claims as “Baseless allegations”.  He denies the security forces or government in power at the time carried out enforced disappearances.  

10:10:19

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  Human rights activist, Ruki Fernando, says the authorities have tried to ignore this issue for decades.

10:10:26

RUKI FERNANDO:  Sri Lanka has the second largest number of enforced disappearances reported to the UN after Iraq.   

10:10:35

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  Today Ruki is going to document some cases in Mullaitivu, on the northern tip of Sri Lanka.  In 2009, this district was the frontline in the final battles between the separatist Tamil Tigers and the government forces.  It was then that some of the country’s most notorious disappearances happened.  

10:11:00

PROTESTOR: [subtitle] Bring our children back before our eyes.  Don’t say that they are no more.  Don’t say they are no more.

10:11:04

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  Every day for the past year, Tamil families in towns across the region have been holding vigils.  They say many of their relatives were taken by the military and have never been seen again.   

10:11:16

RUKI FERNANDO:  I think the pain and the grief and the tears are the same whether they are Tamil, Sinhalese or Muslim or any other country for that matter.  But what is clearly visible among these Tamil families of disappeared people is their desperation and their anger that there’s been no answers forthcoming and they feel cheated.

10:11:35

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  The protest began when the government backtracked on a promise to release a list of those still in custody. Chelliah Sawbagiam’s son, Nanthakumar, is one of those still missing after surrendering to the army at the end of the war.

10:11:52

CHELLIAH SAWBAGIAM VOICEOVER: Our children must come back.  That’s what we think.

10:11:58

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  She says the women are prepared to protest until they get answers.

10:12:02

CHELLIAH SAWBAGIAM VOICEOVER: What else am I to do? Where else am I going to go? I have no one at home.

10:12:14

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  Sawbagiam has reported her son’s disappearance to the UN and the Red Cross.  But she has limited evidence and can’t identify the soldiers who took him.

10:12:25

CHELLIAH SAWBAGIAM VOICEOVER: The fact that I surrendered him is the proof.  There is no other proof.  No proof.

10:12:37

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER: This bridge is where Sawbagiam and hundreds of others say they handed over their family members. 

10:12:44

RUKI FERNANDO: It’s a mass disappearance, several hundred at least.  Several buses.

DREW AMBROSE:  Several hundred people went missing from this bridge?

RUKI FERNANDO:  Yes.  They have simply vanished in the custody of the army.  Not just vanished but vanished in the custody of the army.   

10:13:00

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  When Sawbagiam returns here, the memories flood back.

CHELLIAH SAWBAGIAM VOICEOVER:  It happened at about nine or ten in the morning.  I was looking at my son. He was sitting by the bus window so I could see him.  He was looking at me.  He was crying.   

10:13:28

CHELLIAH SAWBAGIAM VOICEOVER: The soldiers took him saying they will release him.  They said they would release him in a month. They took him and went.

10:13:38

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  Twenty court cases regarding this mass disappearance have dragged on for the last five years.  No one has ever been brought to justice and the only army officer to testify, offered a blanket denial.

10:13:51

RUKI FERNANDO:  It is an absurd situation for the army of a country to take away its citizens in buses, in front of their family members and then claim that they don’t know what happened to them. And the former army commander, Sarath Fonseka is now our government minister.  He was the army commander when this incident happened on that day in 2009 May.  He can’t just wash his hands off and say no, I don’t know what happened.

10:14:17

DREW AMBROSE: Where have they gone?

FORMER ARMY CHIEF GENERAL SARATH FONSEKA: [subtitle] I don’t know.  I can’t visualise how it could have been taking place.  During the war and the last two weeks of the war, we had a very good system where we had made a beautiful arrangement with everybody coming and surrendering to security forces.

10:14:40

FORMER ARMY CHIEF GENERAL SARATH FONSEKA:  [subtitle] I even went there in personally.  I am 100% sure.  Incidents of this nature never took place.  The people being taken in busloads and they never returned? That is definitely an exaggerated story. 

10:14:52

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  Sarath Fonseka says under his command, all 215,000 Tamils who surrendered in the war were properly processed.

10:15:02

FORMER ARMY CHIEF GENERAL SARATH FONSEKA: [subtitle] Our conscience is clear.

DREW AMBROSE: Your conscience is clear?

FORMER ARMY CHIEF GENERAL SARATH FONSEKA: [subtitle] Yes.  Just because some 10, 15 family members come and say that our children were taken… they have gone missing, you can’t take it as gospel truth of something.

10:15:16

DREW AMBROSE:  But this is not just ten, this is one hundred, two hundred…

FORMER ARMY CHIEF GENERAL SARATH FONSEKA: [subtitle] That is the reason why I’m ruling it out.  You can’t do things like that, you know… when there are thousands and thousands watching.  It is not practically possible.

10:15:32

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  To find the truth of what happened to Sri Lanka’s disappeared, the government announced three years ago it would set up an office of missing persons. Saliya Pieris and six other commissioners were only recently appointed but the office won’t be fully operational for months.  He says one of their most pressing cases will be the mass disappearances on the bridge. 

10:15:55

SALIYA PIERIS:  Naturally one would expect that while some of the allegations would be against the Sri Lankan authorities, I do not for one moment say that the task is going to be easy.  But for the moment I’m confident that we will have the cooperation of the authorities.  That I am confident of. 

10:16:13

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  But the office has no criminal powers and can only refer suspects to the Attorney General. 

10:16:19

SALIYA PIERIS: One must understand the purpose of the Office of Missing Persons, it is not punitive.  It is to find out what happened to person.  It is to trace people.

10:16:30

DREW AMBROSE: So, families of the disappeared may get answers, but not necessarily justice?

SALIYA PIERIS: That would be by another mechanism. 

10:16:42

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER: But in the past, similar commissions have failed to solve any disappearance cases.  Ruki is helping affected families write witness statements to present to the Office of Missing Persons.  He says many of them don’t trust the officials.   

10:16:57

RUKI FERNANDO:  One of the reasons is because one of the commissioners who has been appointed, is a former army major general.  And because for many people, the army is responsible for a vast majority of these disappearances. That is true for Tamils but that is also true for Sinhalese. 

10:17:12

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER: The security forces have their own concerns, saying the Office of Missing Persons will subject war heroes to unfair scrutiny.   

10:17:20

MAJOR GENERAL UDAYA PERERA:  It’s completely biased.  When you have people, who have been critical of the army as commissioners, I don’t think personally I would not like to go there and get humiliated.  So, it’s a matter of having credible, neutral people in the commission rather than having activists and people who have been working for NGOs. 

10:17:45

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  Major General Udaya Perera was a Director of Operations in the military during and after the war. 

10:17:53

DREW AMBROSE:  So, you’re saying that the army is not complicit at all in their disappearance?

MAJOR GENERAL UDAYA PERERA:  I can vouch and say there was no policy of such nature.

10:18:04

DREW AMBROSE: So, you’re saying the use of abductions was never used during war and never used during post war?

MAJOR GENERAL UDAYA PERERA:  Never used in war, never used in post war by the army, by the military. This is not a banana state.  If someone things that the Sri Lanka can hide and keep a person in today’s context, I think he should go and see a psychiatrist. 

10:18:32

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:   But many Sri Lankans insist the authorities are still using enforced disappearances to stifle dissent. Some only feel safe talking about it from the other side of the world. 

10:18:43

DREW AMBROSE:  Tamil asylum seekers here in London claim they were abducted and abused by the authorities in the past two years. 

10:18:52

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER: Milton Thusanathan alleges that he was abducted twice – in 2016 and more recently in 2017.  The 20-year-old took part in protests where villagers complained that the army was stealing their land to build new bases.  One-night last June, he says man in a van snatched him off the streets in Mullaitivu and took him to a secret torture site.  

10:19:17

MILTON THUSANATHAN: They had a long stick.  They’d lay me on the ground and beat my back and feet.  They’d burn my back and thighs with cigarettes.  They used a bottle to sexually abuse me. 

10:19:33

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  Milton says a local priest brokered his release, then his parents bought him a one-way ticket out of Sri Lanka.  He claims his father and other men in his village have also been abducted, tortured and then released by the police in the last two years.  Milton believes his family is a target because his uncles fought for the Tamil Tigers.

10:19:55

MILTON THUSANATHAN: I think I could be abducted again if I went back.  I have no faith in our current government as they preach something and do something else.  If I’m forced back to Sri Lanka, I will commit suicide.

10:20:13

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  Milton’s lawyer says many young relatives of former Tamil Tiger fighters have been kidnapped and tortured in Sri Lanka.    

10:20:20

KULASEGARAM GEETHARHANAN:  When did they abduct you?

CLIENT:  2016. They blindfolded me and took me by van to an unknown place.   

10:20:29

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  Kulasegaram Geetharhanan represents a number of Tamil men who are claiming asylum in the UK because they fear their lives are in danger under Sri Lanka’s current regime.    

10:20:40

 KULASEGARAM GEETHARHANAN:  The torture is systematic and widespread.  The purpose we can see is to instil fear among the Tamils, not to revolt again or at the same time not to give evidence against the war crimes in 2009.

10:20:56

DREW AMBROSE:  How many cases do you have where Sri Lankans have been abducted and tortured under the current government?

10:21:04

KULASEGARAM GEETHARHANAN: Since 2015, since the new government came into force, we have documented at least 80 cases which have been corroborated by medical evidence and other source of independent evidence.  Most recently we have in 2018 we have at least 6 cases of torture.

10:21:26

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER: Other asylum seekers in London claim they were abducted and tortured for months before managing to escape Sri Lanka. This man who we’ll call Arjuna, was accused of trying to revive the Tamil Tiger movement, an allegation he denies.  

10:21:43

ARJUNA VOICEOVER:  I was there from April to August.  They abused me and beat me many times.  But I can’t tell you certain things about how they tortured me. Two or three times I resisted but they beat me up.  They burnt my back with a hot iron rod. I still have the scars.  After the beatings, I fainted.    

10:22:19

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  Arjuna says he was held at a military base called Joseph Camp where he was tortured and sexually abused at least thirty times. He could hear the screams of other men being tortured.  These Tamil asylum seekers still carry the scars.  Arjuna remains haunted by the experience. 

10:22:39

ARJUNA VOICEOVER: People say that I scream aloud in my sleep.  At night I have bad dreams, dreams that I’m dead, that I’m being beaten to death.

10:22:53

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  In art therapy at a London city church, other Tamil asylum seekers capture the beauty of their new home.  But Arjuna can’t forget the horrors of war.  Independent doctors confirm both Arjuna and Milton have injuries consistent with torture, but the UK Home Office has rejected their asylum claims.   

10:23:15

MILTON THUSANATHAN VOICEOVER: I was working in my uncle’s shop in Mullaitivu.  My father was a fisherman and I’d also get paid to help him on the shore. There was no economic hardship if my life was not under threat, I would be in Sri Lanka with my family. 

10:23:34

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER; The Sri Lankan government and the police deny there are torture sites in the country.  They say the asylum seekers are economic refugees, seeking a better life.

10:23:45

FORMER ARMY CHIEF GENERAL SARATH FONSEKA: [subtitle] Under this government there are no events reported like that, that I’m aware of.  And this government, the way we are functioning, I don’t think there is any room for anyone to commit offences like that, at the moment. 

10:24:04

DREW AMBROSE:  So, you’re confident that the days of the white van are over?

FORMER ARMY CHIEF GENERAL SARATH FONSEKA: [subtitle] Yes.  Not after this government came, definitely.

10:24:13

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  Despite those denials, the Office of Missing Persons wants to investigate all white van abductions and military bases where torture is said to have occurred.   

10:24:23

DREW AMBROSE: Can you seek testimony from people who have survived white van abductions?

SALIYA PIERIS:  Yes… we, we have… and there is provision even by video link to listen to witnesses who are not in the immediate vicinity of the commission.

10:24:41

DREW AMBROSE:  Overseas?

SALIYA PIERIS:  Overseas, yes.    

10:24:45

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  The Sri Lankan government is promising to provide compensation to families of the disappeared, if they think it’s justified. 

10:24:52

FORMER ARMY CHIEF GENERAL SARATH FONSEKA: [subtitle] If it’s a civilian casualty of something like that, an innocent person… not involved with illegal battles against the military or against the government, to topple the government, they can be compensated.  There is no problem in that.

10:25:08

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  Sandya Eknaligoda wants all families of the missing to be treated fairly.   

10:25:14

SANDYA EKNALIGODA VOICEOVER:  I’ve learnt that the pain and sadness is the same for all widows.  It doesn’t matter if they are from the north or south, Tamil or Sinhalese, everyone is looking for truth and justice.  My fear is how long will I have to fight this battle?

10:25:39

DREW AMBROSE VOICEOVER:  If enforced disappearances continue with impunity, it’s a battle that will tear more Sri Lankan families apart. 

10:25:54

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