A war does not determine who is right.

Without Truth and reconcilation, there is no assurance of Peace.

Reconciliation is only between the offender and the offended.

Reconciliation is a process whereby the offender either recognises his
offence voluntarily or is found guilty by a judicial process.

When the guilty offender, expresses remorsefulness at the 0ffence and
asks for forgiveness from the offended, and when the offended person
agrees to forgive the offence and the offended, reconciliation is
complete and the animosity ceases to exist; resulting in healing,
restoration and peace.

Blame game by political parties could be an attempt to reconcile good
and evil done between them. But it is not ethnic reconciliation.

Ethnic reconciliation is simply between the offended Tamils and the
Sinhalese who caused the offence. It does not involve multiple laws.

Peace is absent because true reconciliation is absent.

Thank you Marisa for the response. This is a powerful article – is it possible for you to ask your readers(or tweet) to add LINK to this in the Wikipedia article on Disappearances?
Here is link;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enforced_disappearances_in_Sri_Lanka

Since you are already doing so much, I was hesitant to ask you. Thanks.

Dear Mr. Deshapriya,

All three of the authors live in the peninsula and our work mostly covers the entire North and East. The documentation of Jeyanthan’s disappearance by TID personnel was carried out in the days after the incident. We were receiving near daily reports of abductions that month (a bigger report will be out soon I hope). The families we spoke to and the activists we work with had no idea what was happening. The North and East was in tenterhooks. The fear and tension was real, alive and palpable (and personally, I felt that it was no coincidence that the wave of abductions, arrests and disappearances occurred in the run up to May 18). I understand it is easy and convenient for some of us to wish away these concerns when we are not faced with them, or when they don’t make themselves apparent on some scale in Colombo, or when we have vested interests i.e. privilege.

I certainly do not speak for the other two, but may I humbly suggest you re-check your privileges before calling our work fear mongering?

Thank you,

Gajen

No Sunanda, it’s not by any means a generalization. We’ve only highlighted one case as we were only able to contact one family. But, we’ve been speaking to lawyers who are handling many other cases, and are currently working on a follow-up articles citing at least 20 other confirmed cases of abduction/arbitrary arrest and unlawful detention. We are not in the habit of sensationalizing and generalizing. Just because things might seem to be better than under the Rajapaksa’s, don’t think that much has changed. The security apparatus and surveillance structure remains the same, just perhaps a bit more sophisticated and subtle. That’s actually more, if not, as dangerous, especially cos’ everyone, including many in civil society and the international community are giving this Govt. a wide margin for error, one that they were unwilling to give the Rajapaksa’s. So no, it’s not fear mongering, the fear is very real. And lastly, using the Rajapaksa regime as a yardstick is very, very problematic, cos’ then essentially what we’re saying is, that we’re ok with anything that is even minutely better (for want of a better word,) than the Rajapaksa’s. Is that actually all we want??? A wee bit better than the Rajapaksa’s??? Sorry, that’s not enough for me, and I’m sure as hell not going to go easy on this govt. because of it. They promised “change”. I plan on holding them to their promise.

Yes, they are still very much happening.

So the whiteVan incidents are STILL happening?

My… damned if I do and damned if I don’t….