Confronting the Complexity of Loss

including 3,210 informants, 2,222 government supporters and servants, 649 members of
the government security forces and 70 politicians. 78 The subsequent leader of the JVP,
Somawansa Amarasinghe allegedly corroborated this figure, although no verifiable
source for this figure exists to date. 79
In 1989, the JVP threatened that it would execute the families of the security forces if the
state continued operations against it. 80 Several families were in fact killed, although there
were later unverified claims that the government perpetrated these egregious attacks and
blamed the JVP. In any event, these attacks destroyed the public image of the JVP, and
motivated the security forces to annihilate it. 81 State-sponsored paramilitary groups were
formed and deployed to carry out attacks against the JVP. The then State Minister of
Defence recalled the operations as highly effective. 82 From mid-1989 to early-1990,
government forces killed approximately 15,000 persons on suspicion of being either part
of the JVP movement or being JVP sympathisers. 83 One particularly egregious example
of these killings took place in the Menikhinna-Kundasale area where almost an entire
village of 200 people was wiped out. 84
Amongst those killed were prominent journalists and artistes. Premakeerthi de Alwis, a
prominent radio and television broadcaster and lyricist was abducted and shot by
unidentified men on 31 July 1989. In 1994, a member of the JVP was convicted of
committing the crime. 85 However, de Alwis’s widow, Nirmala de Alwis, claimed—both
in her autobiography Premakeerthi and later in public during his 25 th death anniversary—
that the JVP was not responsible for his death and that the killers were still at large. 86
Journalist, author and actor Richard de Zoysa was abducted and shot by unidentified men
on 18 February 1990. The government was accused of the murder, as de Zoysa was
linked to the JVP and was a vocal critic of the government at the time. In November
2005, the High Court of Colombo acquitted the three police officers accused of his
murder.
The new government in 1994 established under Chandrika Kumaratunga Bandaranaike
appointed several Commissions of Inquiry to inquire into the spate of disappearances that
took place during the 1980s. These Commissions were appointed according to
geographical area: (1) the Western, Southern and Sabaragamuwa Provinces, (2) the
Central, North Western, North Central and Uva Provinces, and (3) the Northern and
Eastern Provinces. An All-Island Commission of Inquiry was later appointed in 1998.
78 Bennett, op. cit. at 57. Also see Tamil Centre for Human Rights, An Appeal to the United Nations
Commission on Human Rights, 58 th Session 18 March to 26 April 2002, at http://www.tchr.net/reports_
commission_2002.htm.
79 Ibid.
80 Moore, op. cit. at 638.
81 Ibid. Bennett, op. cit. at 57.
82 Gunaratna, op. cit. at 335.
83 Chandraprema, op. cit. at 312.
84 Ibid.
85 Judgment of the High Court in Case No. 5377/93 dated 18 March 1994.
86
See ‘Unofficial Presidential Election Battles Begin’, The Sunday Leader, 3 August, 2014, at
http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2014/08/03/unofficial-presidential-election-battles-begin.
19