Lankan Govt begins prosecution of guilty soldiers, cops

Since a special police unit began gathering evidence to file charges a month ago, 21 policemen, a soldier and a local politician have been charged, deputy police chief Tilak Sumanasekera told reporters here yesterday. Sumanasekera is in charge of the 150-man unit investigating police abuses.

The arrests are for eight disappearances, the first of 3,868 cases in which police are likely to press charges, said Sumanasekera. The charges also include kidnapping and murder. Those found guilty of murder could be hanged, however, the death sentence is rarely carried out in Sri Lanka.

Most of the disappearances came at the height of theArmy’s drive from 1988-90 to crush an insurrection by the Marxist People’s Liberation Front. The violence overlapped with an uprising by ethnic Tamil separatists that began in 1983 and continues till date.

By the time the People’s Liberation Front fighting was over, up to 30,000 people had died, according to Amnesty International.

The reports of the special commissions, and the subsequent setting up of the police unit, marks the first time that a systematic effort is being made to bring the killers to justice. At the time, the Marxists were accused of murdering hundreds of government officials and stringing up their bodies on lamp posts.

In response, government-sponsored death squads abducted suspected Marxist supporters and left their bodies burning in the streets.