Gotabaya Rajapaksa ‘destroyed’ records of mass graves during 1989 Marxist rebellion

Colombo, June 23

Sri Lanka’s former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa reportedly destroyed police records of a mass grave discovered in the country when he was the military coordinator during the Marxist rebellion of 1988-89, an international rights group has alleged.

The report titled ‘Mass graves and failed exhumations in Sri Lanka’, authored by four organisations Centre for Human Rights Development (CHRD), Families of the Disappeared (FOD), International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) and Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) was released on Thursday.

The mass graves were discovered in Matale district of central Sri Lanka in 2013. The report aims to analyse shortcomings in the Sri Lankan exhumations which include 155 bodies at Matale, and at Mannar where 81 bodies and 318 skeletons were exhumed.

The report said Rajapaksa’s alleged action was “a prime example of political interference”. The report advocated that Sri Lanka should take action against him under Article 12 (4) of the International Convention on the Protection of People from Enforced Disappearances.