A Monument Dedicated to Fight Disappearance

(Ed. Note: Large numbers of "disappearances" have been reported in Sri Lanka since the mid 1980s. The United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances visited Sri Lanka in October 1999 to evaluate the government’s progress in implementing its recommendations made after two previous visits in 1991 and 1992. The report of its visit is due to be submitted to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in March 2000.)

Ms. Jayanthi Dandeniya and her friends conducted the ceremony on 10 December, 1999 at Raddoluwa, Seeduwa, Sri Lanka to commemorate the disappearance of the two members of her family (younger brother on 5 October 1989, elder brother on 10 October 1989), her fiancée (fiancée and his lawyer on 27 October 1989), the lawyer and all the other disappeared persons in Sri Lanka numbering over 30,000, according to statistics published by the Commission of Inquiry Into Involuntary Removal or Disappearance of Persons.

The monument constructed in co-operation with the Asian Human Rights Commission marks a very important stage in the attempt to keep alive the memory of disappeared persons, to create social awareness required to prevent its recurrence, and to seek justice on behalf of the disappeared and their families. This is the first of such monuments to be constructed in Sri Lanka.

The land for the memorial was offered by the local authorities at the request of Dandeniya and her friends who have kept alive the memory of the disappeared by organising a number of activities through out the last ten years.

It is hoped that this monument will serve as a gathering place for the families of the disappeared persons and those concerned with the issue. The human obligations towards persons who have been so much wronged by the society need to be faced, and the attempts by some to prevent this issue being kept alive, must be considered inhuman.

Asian Human Rights Commission commemorated the 1998 Human Rights Day by creating the Cyber Space Grave Yard on Disappearances, a web-site providing detailed information on disappearances in Asia. The web-site has contributed significantly in generating greater interest in the issue of disappearances both at the level of the community and at the higher echelons in the United Nations.

It is hoped that this monument will push further the discussion on disappearances, leading eventually to the construction of many more monuments during the coming year.