Tamil families of the disappeared, some of whom last saw their loved ones in one of Gotabaya’s infamous “white vans,” recently marked their one-thousandth day of protest. In Sri Lanka, there are at least 60,000 to 100,000 unresolved cases of enforced disappearances — most of which were perpetrated by the state against Tamils during the final phase of the armed conflict between the state and Tamils. [...]
In a press conference last weekend, a white-van driver spoke plainly of his experience abducting and torturing people during the armed conflict. Without flinching, he explained this was done under the authority of former defense minister and now freshly elected President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. He provided gruesome details of the torture campaign run by Gotabaya — at one particular site in Monaragala, victims’ organs were removed and flung into a nearby reservoir to be fed to crocodiles.[...]
Following the Easter Sunday bombings, in which three churches and three luxury hotels were targeted in attacks by militant Islamists that killed 259 people, Rajapaksa capitalized on the severe failure in state security that led to the worst terror attack this year. He gallantly announced his presidential bid post-attacks and built his campaign around being Sri Lanka’s strongman. His counterpart, Premadasa, was considerably the “lesser evil,” though he too ran on a platform of securitization and bolstering intelligence networks. Neither intended to address the issues of concern to Tamils, including enforced disappearances, military occupation, land grabs, and security sector reform. [...]
This fails to recognize the ferocity with which Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism is protected by the state and the intensity with which it infiltrates its institutions and structures. The constitution itself places Buddhism as having the “first and foremost” place in the country, a testament to the island’s nationalist politics following independence. This analysis further ignores the decade of impunity following the end of the armed conflict that has enabled genocidaires to be treated as “war heroes” and elected to Sri Lanka’s highest office.
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