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What precisely is the position of the National People’s Power (NPP) Government in regard to bringing closure for victims of mass graves in Sri Lanka beyond pious promises in Geneva and solemn affirmations by politicians in Colombo that, ‘though we are not responsible, we will assure justice’?

Terrible tales of mass atrocities

Many are familiar with the Chemmani mass graves (where the count of the dead has now reached 240 human remains many including children) but less so with the mass grave site at Kurukkalmadam, Batticaloa, the suspected gravesite of more than hundred Muslim pilgrims returning from a Haj pilgrimage on 13th July 1990. The story of Chemanni is as old as the hills themselves with terror, tragedy and state brutality all being weaved into one terrible tale.

The end result of such atrocities bring the ‘victor’ (the torturers) and the ‘vanquished’ (the tortured) into one common state of total negation as human beings, living or dead as the case may be. Where the Chemmani grave site is concerned, the Sri Lanka Army and the Sri Lanka Police have been named as ‘interested parties’ in the context of ‘historical disappearances in the Jaffna District’ as the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) circumspectly observes in a recent fact finding report (September 2025).

In regard to Kurukkalmadam, relatives of the dead and the disappeared have insisted in a fruitless decades-long search for justice that this site contains the remains of loved ones who were abducted and summarily executed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the process of ‘ethnically cleansing’ the East of Muslim villages at the time. Then again, we have the litany of numerous gravesites in the ‘Sinhala South’ including Suriyakande, the site of the massacre of over a hundred Sinhala schoolchildren (1987-1989) by the armed forces.

A collection of mass graves

That was during a ruthless crackdown of the State against the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, (the JVP), now firmly in the seats of government power in a far more comforting avatar of the NPP. The Southern mass graves also count Matale where the human remains are more disputed but where respected forensic archaeologists have identified the human remains to be of persons killed in the late 1980s. This has corresponded with the demands of residents to bring justice for family members killed during military exercises against the JVP.

Then again, the Mannar mass gravesite is another example of disputes over carbon dating of selected remains leaving the investigations in limbo with allegations of a ‘cover-up.’ But the purpose of these reflections this time around is not to dissect the acts of a Government that kills civilians with cold blooded purpose as a tool of state supremacy, which focus has often been central to these column spaces.

Nor is it the objective to examine the atrocities of ‘liberation movements’ (including the LTTE and the JVP) with the living yet to even acknowledge manifold sins committed against innocents in the name of ‘overthrowing the State.’ Let us also leave aside the profound irony of those who would talk with hushed horror of Chemmani but would prefer to be blind, deaf and dumb when the Kurukkalmadam massacre is mentioned. The fact that one massacre is blamed on the Sinhala State while the other is blamed on the LTTE is not incidental to that different response.

State policy regarding investigations of mass graves

But leave that astounding lack of empathy aside for the moment. Rather, the point is to critically look at state policy in regard to how the Sri Lankan Government is handling the question of excavation and investigations into the country’s  mass grave sites which, to put it mildly, leaves a lot to be desired. Let us take the Kurukkalmadam mass graves as an illustrative example of impunity on the part of State officials. To be clear, this grave site is not a new discovery.

The initial report regarding this gravesite was filed by the officer-in-charge of the Kaluwanchikudy police station as far back as 2014. The report detailed the summary execution by gunfire of individuals who were thereafter buried in a mass grave. Consequently, the Kaluwanchikudy Magistrate’s Court tasked with supervising the investigations initiated the process of conducting an excavation at the burial site. This process, which should have been prioritised was however, dragged on for many years till 2019.

Thereafter, repeated requests for postponements were made by the police on the basis that the advice of the Attorney General was necessary in order to proceed with the excavation. Proceedings again delayed for several months with that ‘advice’ being cited as a ground. Further, funding had to be secured for that purpose which remained in suspense. This was despite representatives of the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) informing the Court that the grave site had been identified as a ‘suspicious’ mass grave relating to ‘missing persons.’

Gaps in the legal process

Section 12 (d) of the Office of Missing Persons, OMP) Act empowers the OMP to ‘apply to the appropriate Magistrate’s Court having territorial jurisdiction’ for an order of Court. This is to ‘carry out an excavation and/or exhumation of suspected grave sites.’ The OMP is mandated to act as an observer at ‘such excavation or exhumation, and at other proceedings, pursuant to the same.’ In some instances, that power has been vigorously exercised, in others, less so.

In the case of the Kurukkalmadam gravesite, the process was further complicated by the police reportedly informing the Magistrate’s Court in late 2020 that, the advice of the state law office had been to ‘temporarily lay bye the case.’ That was reportedly on the ground that, ‘no further investigations were necessary.’ Five years later, the case was reopened after fervent requests were made by family members of the victims with the stand of the OMP remaining unchanged in regard to the gravesite being a ‘suspicious site’ of mass disappearances.

However, officers of the Attorney General have repeatedly failed to appear before the Kaluwanchikudy Magistrate’s Court leading to public perturbation. The question therefore arises as to the gravitas of establishing the OMP, an Office specifically tasked with monitoring the investigations and excavations of mass graves if that purpose is frustrated in this manner? The Kurukkalmadam gravesite is not the only indicator of concern as assessed against recent developments.

Is there state will to prevent intimidation?

Where the Chemmani mass graves are concerned it is deplorable that the Minister of Public Security has flippantly brushed aside the HRCSL cautioning against deploying police officers from surrounding police stations to the site, remarking that the Government cannot be expected to deploy police officers from ‘Colombo to Chemmani’. Why not? That is, if the Government wishes to preserve the legitimacy of the process.

But is there state will to stop what the HRCSL has strongly warned to be a pattern of intimidation of family members of the Chemmani victims by ‘interested parties’, namely the police and the army? Such intimidation has included questioning a journalist covering the mass grave site without reasonable grounds to do so. Public outrage resulted in a momentary step back in such incidents of harassment.

The onus is on the State and on its different branches including the state law office to demonstrate its credibility in that regard. Two important questions should be repeatedly asked until satisfactory answers are forthcoming; first, why has Sri Lanka conspicuously failed to adopt an exhumation policy or a standard operating procedure on mass graves in conformity to international law? Secondly, why has the process of excavations from the North to the East been repeatedly frustrated by lack of funds?

Undoubtedly, the commitment to address these two crucial lacunae goes much farther than parroting bland rhetoric in Geneva on truth and accountability or holding events at Temple Trees to mark the Day of Enforced Disappearances.