November remembrance sans justice

PRESIDENT Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s attendance last week at the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna’s (JVP) Il Maha Viru Samaruma (November heroes celebration), the annual commemoration of the party’s fallen comrades in two insurgencies against the State, was rich with political symbolism.

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Held in honour of those who died for the JVP including its founder Rohana Wijeweera, the ceremony marks not only a moment of remembrance, but a reminder of one of the darkest chapters in Sri Lanka’s recent history. Between 1987 and 1989, over 100,000 people were subjected to enforced disappearances or extrajudicial killings. The majority of these victims were young JVP members or suspected sympathisers, taken by State forces and never seen again.

For decades, families have lived with the grief of absence with no bodies returned, no answers provided, no perpetrators held to account. The President himself has discussed how a close relative was abducted never to be seen again. When President Dissanayake and his administration came to power a year ago, they did so promising structural transformation, transparency, and justice. One of those promises was to address the past atrocities committed by the State, including the mass disappearances of the late 1980s.