The Pain of One Disappearance

S. Jayasinghe

Reflecting on the 20th century, we turn back only to find death and destruction overrunning new innovations. There were shocking atrocities and wars of mankind in this century. It was the most ferocious century ever. The wave of terror that flew all over the world throughout the century did not ignore the small island of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean one decade ago.

Between the years 1988 and 1990, more than 20,000 people disappeared in the country according to official records. Of this number, 15 percent were below the age of 19. They were kidnapped, tortured, murdered and burned along the roads. Those who were killed were simply branded as members of the then-outlawed political party the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna or JVP (People's Liberation Front). The police, common criminals, corrupt politicians and their henchmen were living in the lap of luxury. It was a time of tyranny and terror. Justice and the law were gagged and blindfolded. The calamity of this period of terror in Sri Lanka was that most of the people who disappeared were killed because of private grudges.

Terror

In this dreadful period, 36-year-old George Anthony was working as a conductor at the Ja-ela bus deport. He was happily married with two small daughters and was living in the nearby town of Ekela. On the night of Sept. 21, 1989, five armed masked men forcibly entered Anthony's house and ordered the occupants not to switch on any lights. The men grabbed Anthony in his nightclothes and pushed him into a jeep parked outside in the dark. His wife, out of sheer horror, kept her hands raised long after they had left. It was the last time she ever saw him alive. On that horrible night, he was taken to a torture house in Batalanda. Like many others, he was an innocent victim of a private dispute.

The following day Mary Margaret, Anthony's mother, rushed to the police station to make a complaint. At the police station, she was asked by a police officer, "Which political party do you belong to?"

When she saw that she could not get much help from the legal system, she turned to a powerful politician, the then-fisheries minister, to assist her in her efforts to get her son released. When she went to the residence of the politician, she saw tires which were numbered and mounted to be later used for presumably burning the bodies of those who were killed.

A few days later, based on information received by his family, his mother went to a spot by the roadside and witnessed the burning body of Anthony. He was blindfolded, and his hands were tied behind him. Unfortunately, no one could save him as he burned. Margaret and her relatives wailed helplessly. They did not dare put out the fire. Later dogs and animals fed on him. Up to this day, he has never been given a proper burial.

"It was the most miserable scene I've ever seen," says Mary Margaret.

His Mother's Story

"At that time, as I was also a United National Party supporter, I went to see the then-minister of fisheries and aquatic resources and pleaded with him to find my son who had been abducted. He casually took a list of names and said, 'Yes, Anthony was taken from my list. He still has to give a statement. He will be released after his statement has been recorded.'"

"After the meeting with the minister, I was sure that my son would come home so I waited patiently," she recalls. "A few days later though when my son didn't return home I went back to the politician. I pleaded with him to spare my son, but he became very cross and stamped on his desk and shouted, 'Don't ever come here to ask me about your son!'"

It was thereafter that she saw the burning body of her son.

Mary Margaret's story is just another story for many criminologists, but her story is a saga of survival. Now 64, she finds comfort looking after the two daughters he has left. For a long and hard 10 years, she has strived to make ends meet. Mrs. Anthony, the wife of the deceased, received 50,000 rupees (US1) as compensation from the government after a different political party came to power in the parliamentary election in 1994. Mary Margaret did not want a single cent from it because, she says, "I didn't want money for the flesh of my son."