A new site of a mass grave was located this week in Mannaar, 75 meters from Maanthai junction towards Thirukkeatheesvaram, in an area that has been under the control of the occupying Sri Lanka Army since 1990 to the end of Vanni war. Such discoveries, which get highlighted as news stories, do not get proper investigative follow-up by the media, complain legal activists in Jaffna. Observing the pattern of systematic sabotage by the Colombo-centric Sri Lankan justice system on similar discoveries of mass graves in North in the past, Tamil lawyers say all requests for forensic examinations forwarded to Colombo by the SL courts in North and East get blocked in Colombo.
“Everything gets stopped in Colombo. There has been no single action on any request for DNA analysis on the recent discoveries of mass graves in Jaffna,” a lawyer who didn’t wish to be named told TamilNet.
There should be efforts by independent groups to send such skeletal remains outside the island for inspections in the future, the lawyers say.
A mechanism should be evolved to do this in a clandestine manner, as the Sri Lankan system would not allow it. However, the process should be credible enough to meet the standards of any future investigation on Sri Lanka at international level.
There is no use of demanding justice from a genocidal system to document the evidences, the lawyers say.
When the water supply workers were laying a pipeline along the roadside near Maanthai junction, they located two skeletal remains. Later, there were more than 10 skeletal remains found at the mass grave.
Similar graves were located in Jaffna inside the former ‘High Security Zone’ surrounding the military bases. Abducted Tamils were taken into cells operated by the SL military intelligence operatives. The victims were tortured and executed and dumped inside the abandoned wells, toilet pits or inside the bunkers dug for the purpose of doing away with the victims.
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