Sri Lanka: Mass graves everywhere, but where

are the killers? — Part 03

Burial, cremation, dumping in the sea, or feeding to animals are among methods
that have been used for expediting disposal of dead bodies to cover up human
rights abuses and war crimes.
Read Previous parts of this series: Part One and Part Two
by Lionel Bopage - Feb 20, 2018

Conceptual framework

( February 20, 2018, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) According to the UN Special
Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, a mass grave is a
location where three or more such victims are buried, not having died in combat
or armed confrontations (International Criminal Tribunal for The Former
Yugoslavia, 1996).[1] This definition of a mass grave provides primacy to victims of
a particular type, i.e., the manner in which those buried in graves had died. [2].
Another characteristic of a mass grave is the fact that the dead is placed in a
disorganised manner reflecting the ‘lack of dignity given to their disposal’.[3]

Burial or cremation has been a common cultural tradition of disposal of human

bodies dead under normal circumstances. However, under extra-ordinary
circumstances, such as for preventing spread of diseases, mass burials are legally
allowed. For example, when many deaths occur due to earthquakes, landslides,
floods or droughts such mass burials have become common practice.[4] Yet, mass
killings and the resulting mass graves do not allow for such cultural traditions or
opportunities for families and friends of those killed to achieve closure.[5] With
bodies lying in mass graves for decades, their families and friends continue to wait
to find conclusive closure.

Burial, cremation, dumping in the sea, or feeding to animals are among methods
that have been used for expediting disposal of dead bodies to cover up human
rights abuses and war crimes. Historically, fighting between groups for power,
mostly in the name of ethnicity, religion or class, wars between countries or
nations, terror campaigns of states or non-state actors fighting against the
political repression of the ‘other’, have led to many mass killings, mostly civilians.

Law and justice

Security and judiciary mechanisms established for “protecting” human rights do

not operate in a socio-economic and political vacuum. They are created for
protecting the socio-economic and political interests of those who establish such
mechanisms. On many occasions, the judiciary itself appears politicised or biased.
Reporting on these issues become harder.[6] Compounding the issue, sections of
the media have been biased; thus, making it almost impossible to assess the
extent of atrocities committed during a certain conflict. Thus, media has more
often allowed victors of many wars to write the history following a colonial or
neo-liberal text.
The gap between the concepts of statutory law and their practical application has
been widening for many decades. Practical application of certain statutes of law
has been found extremely difficult as legal, technical and political barriers are
being set on the path to achieving justice and fairness. Certain bureaucratic
mechanisms have been established since the 1960s, allegedly for protecting our
human rights. Yet, such mechanisms have more often been used for violating the
rights of those who oppose an autocratic or dictatorial system of governance.
Such mechanisms are found to have failed even to uphold the rights of the human
rights defenders themselves.

Exhumation and investigation of mass graves are necessary in a human rights

context. They are essential to find the narrative and collect physical evidence that
are needed to ensure accountability, so that those responsible for such crimes
can be brought to justice. This process involves identifying victims and returning
their remains to their surviving kith and kin. In a historic sense, this process
creates a documentary trail that enables people to stand up to appeasers of a
victors’ criminal activity. Such a process exposes atrocities of criminals to the
international community and helps establish international standards for
preventing the recurrence of such crimes in the future. In a humanitarian sense,
such a process will provide basic dignity to those piled up in mass graves and
closure to their living relatives.

Certain mass atrocities can be classified as war crimes and crimes against
humanity under the international law. However, application of the international
law has become so much problematic and hindered by those who seek to protect
their economic, political and ideological interests. Often this has been related to
establishing, maintaining, or consolidating power of a certain bloc or regime.

A cursory look at the atrocities committed during the last six decades in Sri Lanka
indicates that both the state and its opponents have been responsible for
committing colossal human rights violations. The state has been pre-equipped
with an armory of repressive legislation[7] like, providing the security forces
indemnity from prosecution, making them less than accountable for their
atrocities and killings most of the time. Such repressive legislation has been
enacted under the cover of protecting human rights, in many parts of the world.

Mass atrocities under colonialism and beyond

The early expansion of European colonial powers and the subsequent

establishment of nation states on foreign lands were achieved through violent
mass destruction of indigenous communities. Colonial destruction had mainly
been imposed either through deliberate clearing of indigenous inhabitants from
the territories, to make them exploitable for extracting resources, or for enlisting
them as forced labourers in colonial economic projects.[8] At the time, the main
perpetrators of crimes against the indigenous were the colonialists and their local
cohorts in the lands that had been colonised. Acts of violence against indigenous
groups in the Americas, Australia, Africa and Asia involved destruction of the
indigenous way of life,[9] and imposing a colonisers’ way of life on the indigenous
people.

International conventions on civil, political and economic rights did not exist
during the colonial days. Rhetorically at least, most of the western countries seem
to have moved from this phase of overt brutal mass crimes to a new phase of
championing human rights and freedoms in general. Yet, covert criminal
operations persist. Despite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
International Conventions and a UN Human Rights Council, current global events
make it clear that voicing for human rights exists only until the regimes are
confronted with critical social, economic or political contingencies, or so long as
the commoners stand up for their rights and threaten the autocratic and the
exploitative systems of governance that the colonialists themselves had imposed.

In light of the definition of crimes against humanity – such as mass murder, war
crimes, religious and ethnic cleansing, plunder of cultural artifacts, large scale
destruction and plunder of resources etc. – the colossal destruction the
colonialists inflicted on indigenous communities can be easily classified as crimes
against humanity. The technologies available for recording and reporting such
crimes at the time by those at the receiving end, were not as advanced and
sophisticated as the technologies available today[10]. As such, the evidence
related to the most brutal and repressive atrocities the colonialists committed in
the name of moving the local populations to modern civilization has been very
rare. Any resulting investigative trials have only been occasional.

It is appropriate to emphasise here that many mass killings and mass graves have
been found in almost all parts of the world. The largest ten mass graves[11] in the
world are said to have been found in Kampuchea[12], the former Soviet
Union[13], Chechnya[14], Iraq[15], Croatia[16], Sri Lanka[17], and the
Philippines[18].

[1] Anstett E and Dreyfus J 2015, Human remains and identification: Mass violence, genocide, and the ‘forensic turn’, 145,
Manchester University Press.

[2] Haglund, W D and Sorg, M H 2002, Advances in Forensic Taphonomy: Method, Theory, and Archaeological Perspectives,
244, CRC Press

[3] Skinner, M 1987, Planning the Archaeological Recovery of Evidence from Mass Graves. Forensic Science International, 34,
267-287.

[4] Thieren M and Guitteau R 2000, Identifying cadavers following disasters: why,
at: http://apps.who.int/disasters/repo/6077.html

[5] The Wire 14 June 2016, Sri Lanka’s 65,000 Disappeared: Will the Latest Missing Persons’ Office Bring
Answers? at: https://thewire.in/42687/sri-lankas-disappeared-will-the-latest-missing-persons-office-bring-answers/; and The

New York Times 26 January 2017, ‘Give Us Our Children Back’: Hunger Strikers in Sri Lanka Demand Answers,

at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/world/asia/sri-lanka-hunger-strike-missing.html?mcubz=1

[6] Both by the state and those who opposed the state

[7] State security forces and para militaries carried out the most of such violations under the Emergency Regulations,
Prevention of Terrorism Act and the Indemnity Act utilising the impunity and safeguards provided to them.

[8] Maybury-Lewis D. 2002. Indigenous peoples, ethnic groups, and the state, Allyn and Bacon, Boston,
at:http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/12330/12626747/myanthropologylibrary/PDF/CSS_5_Maybury_Lewis_5.pdf

[9] Lemkin, R 2008. Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. The Lawbook Exchange
[10] For example, the latest alleged crimes against humanity are supported by the satellite images that recorded systematic
torching of entire Rohingya villages in the Rakhine state in Myanmar. See Sydney Moring Herald 15 September 2017, Systematic

torching of entire Rohingya villages a ‘crime against humanity’,

at:http://www.smh.com.au/world/systematic-torching-of-entire-rohingya-villages-a-crime-against-humanity-20170914-

gyhwx7.html

[11] Thomas R 2012, Top 10 Mass Graves, at: http://listverse.com/2012/06/15/top-10-mass-graves/

[12] 20,000 mass graves under the Khmer Rouge regime containing at least 1.38 million bodies of intellectuals,
professionals, many ethnic/religious groups and anyone suspected with links to the former regime.

[13] About 700,000 bodies in mass graves, scattered all over the former Soviet Union executed by the secret police.

[14] So far, 57 mass graves, possibly with thousands of bodies, found including 5,000 civilians disappeared during the 2nd
Chechen War in 1999. The largest mass grave is in Grozny with 800 bodies from the 1st Chechen War.

[15] 40 confirmed mass graves of reported 250 sites and a million missing Iraqis.

[16] Outside the city of Vukovar, the 264 mostly Croatian victims, largely civilians and hospital patients killed by Serbians.
Seven have been charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

[17] Tens of thousands missing, believed to be in mass graves all over the island, or dumped in rivers to be flown by
water to the seas. In many cases, proper forensic methods seem to have not been used in the bodies found. Necessary

evidence could also have been destroyed.

[18] A total of 58 people, including at least 37 journalists killed. A helicopter found bodies while being buried.

Posted by Thavam