OMP trying to match Vanni mass grave remains with forcibly disappeared
Sri Lanka’s Office for Missing Persons (OMP) wants to find out whether the skeletal remains from the most recently found in the northern Kokkuthoduvai mass grave are of those who disappeared during the war and its aftermath, despite forensic experts establishing the bodies to be of Tamil Tiger cadres killed in the mid-90s.
“We hope to go for the best compliance standards and then finding the fate of the missing people and any relationship with already complained missing people and the found bodies.”
The head of the OMP Mahesh Katulanda told local journalists a day after the fourth phase of the excavations resumed.
An interim 35-page report submitted to the Mullaitivu Magistrate Court by fornesic archaeologist Professor Raj Somadeva said the bodies exhumed from the Kokkuthoduvai mass grave date between1994 and 1996. This was during the presidency of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge.
In the first two phases of exhumation from September to November 2023 with the participation of Dr. Kanagasabapathi Vasudeva, the Judicial Medical Officer of the Mullaitivu district, 40 skeletons were dug out and identified as Tamil Tigers killed in battle.
“The trench excavated is a clandestine burial. The deceased lying in the burial trench are militants of the organization named the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elem (LTTE)” said the report.
The interim report further said, those buried faced gunfights before they were dead and were not buried either before 1994 or after 1996.
Attorney at Law Mahesh Katulanda claims the exhumation in Kokkuthoduvai is a ‘significant milestone’ following international standards.
“Actually, this process will be a significant event and a milestone in Sri Lankan excavating and exhumation process applying the global standards – the standard operation procedures set by the Sri Lankan experts.”
He assured the operation would be carried out ‘very independently’ even though the government funded the exhumation activities.
“We are mainly the facilitators in this endeavour. We are involved in financing through the ministry of justice,” said OMP Chief Katulanda.
“Information will be sought from the Military also”
Replying to a question raised by a local journalist who pointed out that the area where the Kokkuthoduvai mass grave is situated was under military control from 1984 to 2012, the executive director of the OMP Jaganathan Thatparan said that information would be sought from them too.
“This area was not under the control of one side alone, it was under the control of various government departments and individuals at various times. We are now involved in the process of collecting information from the military and those who came out from various armed groups and underwent rehabilitation,” said Attorney at Law Thatparan.
Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) has revealed that the 4th Battalion of the Gemunu Watch was stationed at the Kokkuthoduvai camp under the command of Lt. Col. Rohitha Wickrematilaka, who functioned as the battalion commander from February 1995 to November 1996.
The mass grave in Kokkuthoduvai was accidentally discovered at the end of June 2023 about 200 meters from the Kokkuthoduvai Maha Vidyalayam, when the National Water Supply and Drainage Board was laying pipelines.
