Hotline Asia Urgent Appeals -- UA001116(17)

Action Requested || Sample Letter || Background
update

Summary

In the early hours of the morning of the 25th. of October 2000, a mob of over a thousand Sinhala villagers from the vicinity attacked the Bindunuweva Rehabilitation Centre near Bandarawela town (110 km. from Colombo), hacking to death at least 24 detainees and seriously injuring about 16 others. The detainees were all Tamils aged between 11 and 16 and had surrendered or been arrested as suspected members of the Liberation of Tamil Tigers Eelam (LTTE) who are currently at war with the Sri Lankan government.

This camp was under the administrative control of the National Youth Services Council (NYSC) functioning under the Ministry of Youth Affairs. Two Army officers were in charge of the Centre and it is said that there was a good relationship between those in charge and the inmates. It was also disclosed that it was a model rehabilitation centre, an open camp where inmates were allowed to go outside to mix and work in the nearby village. A Police post was situated within the Centre and manned by personnel from the Bandarawela Police division.

'This bizarre massacre of youth in state custody is yet another shameful event in the history of our country' claims a source, 'We have had similar custodial killings in the past at Welikada Prisons (1983), Kalutara (1997) and again at Kalutara prisons in January this year.' In all these killings of people in custody nothing is known of the investigations made and of their findings.

Please write polite letters to express your concern on this case and ask the authorities to:

1. Appoint an independent Commission to inquire into who was responsible for this horrendous massacre, uncover the reasons for the inaction on the part of those in charge of the camp and make known to the public the report within a specified time.

2. Provide maximum security to the surviving victims who are in military and government hospitals. These are the only 'true' witnesses of the crime.

3. Formulate a just and fair process of rehabilitation for internally displaced persons in keeping with international standards.

Sample Letter

Background

At 5.00a.m in the morning of 25 October 2000, around 2000 persons wielding knives, machetes, axes and iron rods stormed a rehabilitation centre in Bindunuwewa which houses more than 50 Tamil detainees. They hacked to death at least 24 defenceless Tamil political detainees and then set fire to the whole centre. 16 detainees were seriously wounded and a further seven were injured. Bindunuwewa is in Bandarawela district, in the central part of Sri Lanka.

Police officers on duty took no serious action to stop the violence. They called the army base, 15km away. By the time the (army) "rescue team" arrived two hours later, the horrific incident was over.

The centre was run by the National Youth Service Council. The young Tamil people housed there had been arbitrarily arrested under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and the Emergency Regulations (ERs). Thousands of such arrests take place in the south of the island. Human rights organisations have denounced the PTA and ERs as facilitating torture and the violations of non-derogable rights such as the right to life. The United Nations (UN) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Sri Lanka acceded in 1980, states in Article 9 (2) that persons arrested should receive prompt notification of the reason for their arrest and any charges made against them. Article 9 (3) states that they should be promptly brought before a judge and brought to trial or released. ER20, the Emergency regulation pertaining to Rehabilitation orders grossly and massively contravenes both these international human rights standards.

The Tamil youths who were in the centre were mostly under 19 years old. These detainees, arrested under the PTA, had been planning to hold a hunger strike to demand that they be either charged or released.

It is claimed that the Sri Lankan government encourages violence against young Tamils; this accusation based on the propaganda against Tamils to the injustice of the PTA and ER against them. There are many accusations of the routine use of torture of Tamil detainees. Recent reports of routine medieval style torture in Colombo detention centres, have also written of sexual violence against Tamil men and boys.

The civilian police and military authorities are all the responsibility of the Sri Lankan government, which failed to protect the lives of these innocent youth. The latest killings follow several others. In 1983 Sinhala convicts butchered 53 Tamil political prisoners in Welikade prison - prison guards joined in. In December 1997 three Tamils were hacked to death while guards looked on. Two Tamil political prisoners were murdered in Kalutara jail in January this year.

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