by Shenali Waduge · 1st September 2025

The Association for Relatives of the Enforced Disappearances has issued a letter to the UNHRC Head on 30 August 2025 appealing to the international community”. Claims of enforced disappearances” in Sri Lanka are being weaponised to construct a one-sided narrative that erases LTTE atrocities and unfairly blames the State. Any serious investigation must distinguish between combat deaths, LTTE abductions, forced recruitment, and genuine disappearances — without this identification, broad accusations of a state policy of disappearances are misleading, politically motivated, and devoid of credibility tarnishing the image of the State & its Armed Forces/Police.

General Claims of Enforced Disappearances”

1. If enforced disappearances” were a systematic state policy, why do Sri Lanka’s official inquiries (e.g., LLRC, Paranagama) and missing-persons records show a large number of complaints lodged after 2009, many by families of LTTE cadres who went missing during combat?

Please provide the data and methodology you used to exclude combat deaths from your totals.

2. Your statement, groups all missing persons together without clarification.

Can you please specify how each case has been classified?

• How many are confirmed LTTE combatant deaths during hostilities?
• How many are civilians abducted, forcibly recruited, or detained by the LTTE?
• How many are alleged state-perpetrated enforced disappearances (excluding voluntary or forced LTTE conscription), and what documentary evidence substantiates this claim — such as arrest records, official detention logs, CCTV footage, sworn witness statements, forensic DNA identification, or a verifiable chain-of-custody for human remains?

Without such disaggregation, the claim of systematic state ‘enforced disappearances’ lacks any credibility.

In short, ARED must clarify:

• No of LTTE combat deaths
• No of abductions/forced recruits (by LTTE)
• No of Tamils killed by LTTE since 1970s (those from other militant groups, unarmed civilians)
• No of alleged state-linked disappearances & proof (arrest/detention records, CCTV, DNA, chain-of-custody, verified witnesses)

• UNICEF (claimed LTTE had abducted over 5000 children) and other credible sources documented extensive LTTE child abduction and recruitment. Are these children not also categorized as disappeared”.

If ARED’s objective is accountability for vanished children, why is there no equal emphasis on the thousands of children abducted and militarised by the LTTE? How many of your listed cases are proven to be LTTE abductions, training deaths, combat deaths, or executions by LTTE internal discipline?

• Further, ARED overlooks that the LTTE deliberately blurred the line between combatant and civilian by creating a trained and armed civilian force. When such units were engaged in hostilities, casualties cannot truthfully be classified as civilian dead” or missing.”

None of these (deaths of missing) can be attributed to state-perpetrated disappearances.

• Furthermore, Sri Lanka’s population statistics do not reflect any form of genocide. Tamil population growth before, during, and after the conflict clearly disproves allegations of mass extermination intentional or otherwise.

2. Tamil Genocide” Narrative

• Why does ARED frame disappearances as part of Tamil genocide” when Sinhalese and Muslimswere also victims of enforced disappearances and LTTE killings (e.g., Muslim villagers massacred in Eravur, Sinhala villagers in Kebithigollewa – number of villages LTTE attacked are too many to name)?
• Why are the disappearances of over 600 policemen executed by the LTTE in 1990not part of this genocide” narrative?
• If disappearances = genocide, how do they explain the fact that more Tamils live freely in Colombo and other government-controlled areas than in the LTTE’s former areas during the war?
• Why would Sri Lanka’s Armed Forces save close to 300,000 Tamils but kill unverified 40,000 whose names have still not been given even after 16 years.

3. Chemmani Mass Grave Claim (2025 Excavations)

• If Chemmani is presented as new evidence,” why have earlier excavations since the 1990s not proven a systematic pattern of state-led killings?
• How do we verify that the skeletonsallegedly found are victims of enforced disappearances” and not:
  • LTTE battlefield deaths,
  • Civilian war casualties buried in haste,
  • Or even LTTE’s own executions of dissidents?
• Why are forensic reports or DNA results not shared transparently with both local and international observers?

4. No Confidence in OMP / Domestic Mechanisms

• If the Office on Missing Persons (OMP) is politicized, why did international actors (including UN) previously endorse its establishment or rather demand it?
• Why does ARED call every domestic mechanism dead” unless it gives the verdict they demand? Does justice mean only outcomes favorable to their narrative?
• If Sri Lanka’s judiciary is incapable, why do these groups continue to file petitions and cases in Sri Lankan courts?

5. Genocide of the Tamils – Renewed Fears

• Did the 12,000 LTTE who surrendered not do so in civilian clothing?
• If surrendering LTTE cadres were disappeared,” why do thousands of surrendered cadres still live openly in the North and East, rehabilitated by the government?
• Why do ARED documents omit the fact that LTTE leadership itself killed surrendering cadres and dissenters (e.g., Mahattaya, dissenting cadres in 1994–95 as well as the injured LTTE during the last phase who were put into buses & set on fire)?
• Can ARED provide verifiable lists (with names, dates, and evidence) of those who allegedly surrendered and disappeared,” or are they relying on hearsay?

6. Role of International Community / Call for ICC Referral

• Why should Sri Lanka be singled out for ICC referral when far larger civilian casualties occurred in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, and Gaza — with no ICC referrals?
• If universal jurisdiction is the principle, why are Western leaders (Bush, Blair, Obama, Sarkozy) not equally pursued for war crimes?
• Why does ARED call only for a country-specific rapporteur” for Sri Lanka but remain silent on enforced disappearances in India (Kashmir), Pakistan (Balochistan), or Latin America?

Evidence & documentary requests to attach or demand

• ARED must publish acase-by-case spreadsheet (name, date, last-seen location, alleged perpetrator, evidence type, status of investigation). Insist on non-redacted identification where safety allows.
• ARED must provideforensic/DNA reports, chain-of-custody logs, and independent excavation reports for sites they cite (e.g., Chemmani).
• ARED must provide clarity on methodology: how were combatant vs civilian deaths distinguished? who conducted that classification & source documents?
• ARED must provide copies of letters, petitions and replies between ARED and Sri Lankan state agencies (OMP, courts), including response times and outcomes.

While we recognise and do not dismiss the grief of families who cannot locate loved ones, assertions that Sri Lanka conducted a state policy of widespread ‘enforced disappearances’ are unproven without transparent case-level evidence.

Many missing-person reports post-date 2009 and involve LTTE cadres lost in combat or children abducted and militarised by the LTTE.

We call on ARED and UN bodies to publish detailed case data and forensic findings so that legitimate claims can be distinguished from combat losses or LTTE crimes —so true justice for all victims may be pursued.

7. The Double Standards Question

• Is this campaign about justice for allvictims of disappearances in Sri Lanka — Sinhala, Muslim, and Tamil — or only about building a separatist case for international intervention in favor of one community and done timed for Geneva sessions?
• If justice is truly the aim, why not demand accountability for both LTTE and state actors, instead of erasing LTTE’s atrocities from the record?
• Why do these organizations repeatedly release statements timed with UNHRC sessions, but rarely engage in reconciliation or truth-sharing with other communities within Sri Lanka?

Justice cannot be selective.

To ignore LTTE abductions, child soldier recruitment, the deliberate militarisation of civilians, and LTTE’s killings of its own cadres & Tamil people while exaggerating unverified disappearance” claims is to distort history and deny victims on all sides. Unless ARED and its partners produce transparent, case-by-case evidence separating combatants, LTTE crimes, and genuine civilian disappearances, their allegations remain propaganda — not justice.

Shenali D Waduge