Individual, Familial and Social Impacts of Enforced Disappearances: Tactics of a ‘Repressive Ecology’ and Ways of Responding

Enforced disappearances have been a well known phenomenon to Sri Lanka before, during and in the ‘post’ conflict scenario.² However, from time to time we had large-scale disappearances, becoming widely used from the 1980s onwards, connected to the politico–military situation and in local areas of the country.³

For the first time in Sri Lanka, we came to know about the phenomenon of enforced disappearance during the 1971 JVP⁴ insurgence which was brutally crushed by the state forces. Thousands of youths were reported missing. Then the same fate happened to many Tamil speaking youths since the early eighties (before the 1983 riots⁵), who were suspected to have connections with the militant organizations.⁶ Like in many parts of the world, ‘disappearance’ was systematically used by the state to suppress opposition and to terrorise society. Ironically, during late 80’s both, Sinhalese and Tamil militant organizations also adopted this inhumane, cruel phenomenon to deal with their opponents, suspected informants and their own ‘traitors’.