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Journalism of Courage
JAFFNA, APRIL 21: Progress has yet to be made to find out more about the mass grave discovered at the Alfred Duriappah stadium last month. About 22 skeletons have been unearth till now, but investigators fear that the pit may hold more than just 22 skeletons. Of the skeletons excavated one belongs to a woman, while another is that of a small boy.
Labourers digging pit latrines by the side of the stadium, stumbled onto a few bones, which led to an excavation and the discovery of a mass grave.
"From the way the bodies have been dumped in, one on top of another, it is quite clear that this is not a normal grave," said Jaffna Judicial Medical Officer (JMO) S K Sri Rajeswaran, who conducted the excavation under the supervision of district Judge S A E Ekanathan.
The bones and skulls unearthed are kept in plastic bags in the JMO’s office awaiting forensic examination along with empties of bullets, a piece of green metal and a blue piece of cloth also found at the site.
According to Sri Rajeswaran, it wouldbe next to impossible to determine the identity of the skeletons, or even their cause of death because of the decayed state of the bones. But he expected forensic analysis to reveal at least the year in which the mass burial took place.
However, if one is to go by Sri Rajeswaran’s on-the-spot assessment, the bones are "about 10 years old" – thus pointing the needle of suspicion at the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) which was in Sri Lanka’s northern peninsula to disarm all militant groups including the LTTE and assist in the implementation of the 1987 Indo-Lanka Peace Accord.
A senior civil servant in Jaffna declared it was the IPKF that had the "most chances" of dumping bodies of its "victims" at the Duriappah stadium because it had a camp at Jaffna fort, only a few metres away from the grave site, from 1987 to the time it pulled out of the island in 1990.
Only dating the bones would enable anyone to get closer to the truth about the grave, but going by the facts available now, the answer to themysteries that it has raised may not be as simple as many in Jaffna choose to believe.
Along with the IPKF at Jaffna Fort was a detachment of the Sri Lankan security forces, and such was the animosity between the two at that time that a mass burial by Indian soldiers would not have remained secret for long.
The discovery of empty cartridges from SMGs and automatic weapons, however, is not definite evidence of the IPKF’s involvement, because various armed groups in Jaffna, including the LTTE, used these weapons.
Prior to that, between 1985 to 1987, the stadium was no-man’s land. A Sri Lankan army detachment boxed inside the fort and the LTTE positioned in nearby buildings exchanged mortars and shells by day and night. No soldier dared step out of the fort for fear of being gunned down by Tiger snipers and vice-versa.
Earlier, the area was known as the Jaffna Esplanade and a was a popular meeting point for the town’s citizens. Though militants of all hues roamed Jaffna from about the mid-seventies,Duriappah Stadium was a well-used playground and a police station stood close by which would have made it difficult for one to dig a grave there.
The only group that once had untrammelled control over the area was the LTTE, from mid-1990 to December 1995. In the aftermath of the IPKF’s departure, the Tigers captured the fort from the Sri Lankan forces and established themselves there.
It is also well-known that after the LTTE took over Jaffna in 1990, it arrested thousands of people suspected of co-operating with the Indian Army or its ally, the EPRLF. Very few were seen again. By the time the Tigers abandoned Jaffna in 1995-1996, they were believed to have over 3,000 prisoners. No one knows how many of these are still alive.
It is clear from the number of agencies that had either successive control of the place or simultaneous access to it, that establishing the real story behind the grave is going to be tough. For now, what the human remains do offer is the story of Jaffna’s brutalisation over theyears.
"Who died where, how and at whose hands, it’s all hazy. There are no public records from that time which recount these things accurately," said Daya Somasundaram of Jaffna University’s department of psychiatry.
He said, "Many things about our history have been brushed under the carpet and we must now set the record straight.
However, unlike in the Chemmani case where a mass grave implicating the Sri Lanka Army has been alleged, the usually vociferous Tamil politicians – many of them ex-militants or moderates with links to militants – have been unnaturally silent over the discovery of the Duriappah grave.
Due to the large-scale dislocation of the Tamil population from Jaffna over the years and the absence of accurate records, no one has yet come forward in the belief that the bones could be those of their family members or friends.
Pro-Eelam sites on the internet, which raised full-throated cries for the excavation of Chemmani, have been strangely quiet about the one that has already been dugup.
Nor has the Sri Lankan Government broken its silence over the issue and offered on its own an investigation. It is almost as if everybody is apprehensive of the dark secrets of the past that may be unveil during an inquiry.
