Death of Jacintha Peiris

By Manekshaw-2017-10-21

A few days ago 58 years old Jacintha Peiris of Mannar died of heart attack following her futile attempt in search for her husband Amalan Leon and son Roshan Leon. Jacintha was in Colombo to attend a Court case hearing last week over the disappearances of her husband and son.

The case hearing was on some identity cards found at an alleged secret camp believed to have been operated by the Navy and the identity card of Jacintha's son Roshan Leon was also seized by the investigators who are currently investigating the issue with the arrest of former Navy Spokesman D. K. P. Dassanayake who is a prime suspect believed to be involved in the abductions carried out in the suburbs of Colombo.

Jacintha was one of the hundreds of persons from the Northern and the Eastern Provinces who have been in search of their beloved ones who were involuntarily disappeared when the separatist war was in progress.

Even now for the past several months agitations have been carried out in the form of hunger strikes and marches in various parts of the Northern and the Eastern Provinces by the family members of the involuntarily disappeared persons seeking justice from the Government over the disappearances.
Jacintha who died of a heart attack had come to Colombo last week and after attending her case hearing had come out of the Court House and shouted that it was going to be her last appearance and she won't be coming to the Court in the future.

According to the Association of Family Members of Involuntarily Disappeared Persons, Jacintha was the seventh person to die, disheartened over the disappearance of their loved ones.

Former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga was the first to appoint the Presidential Commissions covering every province in the country to look into the complaints received on involuntarily disappeared persons soon after she came into power in 2004.

However, the final reports of those Presidential Commissions presented to former President Kumaratunga were considered as another political 'gimmickry' with no constructive outcome from the sittings chaired by eminent persons of the legal fraternity and the academic field.

The previous regime, of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, appointed a Commission headed by retired High Court Judge Maxwell Paranagama in August 2013, on the complaints of abductions and disappearances.

The Maxwell Paranagama Commission lasted for two years and the Commissioner in his final report released in October 2015 mentioned categorically that the Commissioners listening to the complaints and the grievances of the family members of the involuntarily disappeared persons were very conscious of the fact that those giving evidence were traumatized and in some cases were giving evidence for the third or fourth time.

So it is clear how far the 58 years old Jacintha from Mannar would have been traumatized and the manner she shouted finally at the Court saying that she won't be coming hereafter in search of her husband and son to Colombo, had proved that the Maxwell Paranagama Commission had very rightly pointed out the traumatic mind frame of those who appeared before the Presidential Commission and how they were tired of appearing before the Commissions and other legal institutions for more than two to three times.

The involuntary disappearances were the order of the day from the time the separatist war started in the North and the East.

At the early stages of the war when law and order collapsed in the North and the East the rivalry among the Tamil militant outfits also led to enormous amount of abductions and disappearances.

However, it is sad to understand from the evidence recorded in a mega scale at the Presidential Commissions given by the family members of the disappeared persons that most of the people including young women disappeared after they were arrested or taken into custody when they surrendered to the Security Forces.

The disappearances of a large number of persons who surrendered to the Armed Forces at the final phase of the separatist war in May 2009 still remain a mystery.

Even the relatives of those who surrendered to the Armed Forces claim that they had seen them, having been taken in buses and trucks to undisclosed locations.

Jacintha Peiris's death occurred at a time when three Tamil LTTE suspects in remand custody staged a fast unto death at the Anuradhapura Prison demanding that their cases should be taken up at the Vavuniya High Court and they should also be released as early as possible.

In the meantime, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa was in tears when he saw his eldest son Namal in remand custody at the Tangalle Prison before he was released on bail last week.

Namal who is a lawyer by profession and a parliamentarian commenting on his remand custody said that it was terrifying with rain water coming into the cell and there were even bugs inside his cell.

So while a few days of detention of Namal Rajapaksa, highlighting the plight of the Tamil political prisoners put behind bars for years without any legal action, the death of Jacintha Peiris of Mannar clearly indicate how far the cry of the traumatized families of the involuntarily disappeared persons remains unheard.