Anguish Without Closure … As Sri Lankan Tamils Lament The Missing

As on previous anniversaries, Tamils this year lit candles in remembrance of their loved ones and held a moment of silence. Dressed in black, people paid their respects before a memorial fire and ate kanji, the gruel consumed by civilians when they were trapped in Mullivaikkal amid acute food shortages.

This year’s commemorations were the first to take place under the new government helmed by leftist Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who was elected president in September and has prompted hopes of possible justice and answers for the Tamil community.

The Tamil community alleges that a genocide of civilians took place during the war’s final stages, estimating that nearly 170,000 people were killed by government forces. UN estimates put the figure at 40,000.

Dissanayake, the leader of the Marxist party Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which itself led violent uprisings against the Sri Lankan government in the 1970s and 1980s, has emphasised “national unity” and its aim to wipe out racism. He made several promises to Tamil voters before the elections last year, including the withdrawal from military-occupied territory in Tamil heartlands and the release of political prisoners.

But eight months after he was elected, those commitments are now being tested – and while it’s still early days for his administration, many in the Tamil community say what they’ve seen so far is mixed, with some progress, but also disappointments.

No ‘climate of fear’ but no ‘real change’ either

In March 2009, Jeevarani lost several members of her family, including her parents, her sister and three-year-old daughter when Sri Lankan forces shelled the tents in which they were sheltering, near Mullivaikkal.

“We had just cooked and eaten and we were happy,” she said. “When the shell fell it was like we had woken up from a dream.”

Jeevarani, now 36, buried all her family members in a bunker and left the area, her movements dictated by shelling until she reached Mullivaikkal. In May 2009, she and the surviving members of her family entered army-controlled territory.

Now, 16 years later, as she and other Sri Lankan Tamils commemorated their lost family members, most said their memorials had gone largely unobstructed, although there were reports of police disrupting one event in the eastern part of the country.

This was a contrast from previous years of state crackdowns on such commemorative events.

“There isn’t that climate of fear which existed during the two Rajapaksa regimes,” said Ambika Satkunanathan, a human rights lawyer and former commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, referring to former presidents Mahinda and Gotabaya Rajapaksa, brothers who between them ruled Sri Lanka for 13 out of 17 years between 2005 and 2022.

It was under Mahinda Rajapaksa that the Sri Lankan army carried out the final, bloody assaults that ended the war in 2009, amid allegations of human rights abuses.

“But has anything changed substantively [under Dissanayake]? Not yet,” said Satkunanathan.

Satkunanathan cited the government’s continued use of Sri Lanka’s controversial Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and a gazette issued on March 28 to seize land in Mullivaikkal as problematic examples of manifesto promises being overturned in an evident lack of transparency.

Despite his pre-election promises, Dissnayake’s government earlier this month denounced Tamil claims of genocide as “a false narrative”. On May 19, one day after the Tamil commemorations, Dissanayake also attended a “War Heroes” celebration of the Sri Lankan armed forces as the chief guest, while the Ministry of Defence announced the promotion of a number of military and navy personnel. In his speech, Dissanayake stated that “grief knows no ethnicity”, suggesting a reconciliatory stance, while also paying tribute to the “fallen heroes” of the army who “we forever honour in our hearts.”

‘We walked over dead bodies’

Kathiravelu Sooriyakumari, a 60-year-old retired principal, said casualties in Mullivaikkal in 2009 were so extreme that “we even had to walk over dead bodies.”

She said government forces had used white phosphorus during the civil war, a claim Sri Lankan authorities have repeatedly denied. Although not explicitly banned, many legal scholars interpret international law as prohibiting the use of white phosphorus – an incendiary chemical that can burn the skin down to the bone – in densely populated areas.

Sooriyakumari’s husband, Rasenthiram, died during an attack near Mullivaikkal while trying to protect others. “He was sending everyone to the bunker. When he had sent everyone and was about to come himself, a shell hit a tree and then bounced off and hit him, and he died,” she said. Although his internal organs were coming out, “he raised his head and looked around at all of us, to see we were safe.”

Her son was just seven months old. “He has never seen his father’s face,” she said.

The war left many households like Sooriyakumari’s without breadwinners. They have experienced even more acute food shortage following Sri Lanka’s 2022 economic crisis and the subsequent rise in the cost of living.

“If we starve, will anyone come and check on us?” said 63-year-old Manoharan Kalimuthu, whose son died in Mullivaikkal after leaving a bunker to relieve himself and being hit by a shell. “If they [children who died in the final stages of the war] were here, they would’ve looked after us.”

Kalimuthu said she did not think the new government would deliver justice to Tamils, saying, “We can believe it only when we see it.”

‘No accountability’

Sooriyakumari also said she did not believe anything would change under the new administration.

“There’s been a lot of talk but no action. No foundations have been laid, so how can we believe them?” she told Al Jazeera. “So many Sinhalese people these days have understood our pain and suffering and are supporting us … but the government is against us.”

She also expressed suspicion of Dissanayake’s JVP party and its history of violence, saying she and the wider Tamil community “were scared of the JVP before”. The party had backed Rajapaksa’s government when the army crushed the Tamil separatist movement.

Satkunanathan said the JVP’s track record showed “they supported the Rajapaksas, they were pro-war, they were anti-devolution, anti-international community, were all anti-UN, all of which they viewed as conspiring against Sri Lanka.”

She conceded that the party was seeking to show that it had “evolved to a more progressive position but their action is falling short of rhetoric”.

Although Dissanayake’s government has announced plans to establish a truth and reconciliation commission, it has rejected a United Nations Human Rights Council resolution on accountability for war crimes, much like previous governments. Before the presidential elections, Dissanayake said he would not seek to prosecute those responsible for war crimes.

“On accountability for wartime violations, they have not moved at all,” Satkunanathan told Al Jazeera, citing the government’s refusal to engage with the UN-initiated Sri Lanka Accountability Project (SLAP), which was set up to collect evidence of potential war crimes. “I would love them to prove me wrong.”

The government has also repeatedly changed its stance on the Thirteenth Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution, which promises devolved powers to Tamil-majority areas in the north and east. Before the presidential election, Dissanayake said he supported its implementation in meetings with Tamil parties, but the government has not outlined a clear plan for this, with the JVP’s general secretary dismissing it as unnecessary shortly after the presidential election.

‘We need answers’

“Six months since coming into office, there’s no indication of the new government’s plan or intention to address the most urgent grievances of the Tamils affected by the war,” Thyagi Ruwanpathirana, South Asia researcher at Amnesty International, said. “And the truth about the forcibly disappeared features high on the agenda of those in the North and the East.”

Still, some, like 48-year-old Krishnapillai Sothilakshmi, remain hopeful. Sothilakshmi’s husband Senthivel was forcibly disappeared in 2008. She said she believed the new government would give her answers.

A 2017 report by Amnesty International [PDF] estimated that between 60,000 and 100,000 people have disappeared in Sri Lanka since the late 1980s. Although Sri Lanka established an Office of Missing Persons (OMP) in 2017, there has been no clear progress since.

“We need answers. Are they alive or not? We want to know,” Sothilakshmi said.

But for Jeevarani, weeping on the beach as she looked at a photograph of her three-year-old daughter Nila, it’s too late for any hope. Palm trees are growing over her family’s grave, and she is no longer even able to pinpoint the exact spot where they were buried.

“If someone is sick, this government or that government can say they’ll cure them,” she said. “But no government can bring back the dead, can they?”