Kumarapuram massacre

Kumarapuram massacre also known as 1996 Trincomalee massacre or 1996 Killiveddy massacre refers to the murder of 26 Sri Lankan Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan Army soldiers on February 11, 1996. The victims included 13 women and 9 children below the age of 12. Further 28 civilians were severely injured as well. The event took place in a village called Kumarapuram, located in the eastern district of Trincomalee. It was a notable mass murder of civilians since the resumption of armed conflict between rebel forces and Sri Lankan armed forces since April 1995, as part of the Sri Lankan civil war. The then-government arrested a number of soldiers and home guards who allegedly carried out the massacre. A court case was started on 2004. On 27 July 2016 the court acquitted six former army Corporals who were accused over the massacre, after they were found not guilty.

Background information
After the 1983 Black July pogrom, full scale civil war erupted between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil rebel groups. During the course of the civil war there were number of massacres of civilians, war rapes, torture and enforced disappearances attributed to both the government and allied groups as well as the various rebel groups.

The area around Kumarapuram had become target of increasing harassment from the Sri Lankan military, with the civilians being subjected to forced labor and verbal and physical abuse. In the days leading up to the massacre, villagers heard soldiers firing guns in the air and issuing threats, often in an intoxicated state. Due to the forced labor, Kumarapuram villagers had come to know many of the soldiers from the nearby camps and check points by their names.

Massacre
The massacre took place in the village called Kumarapuram located in the Trincomalee district on February 11, 1996. According to several survivors interviewed by Amnesty International, 26 civilians, including 13 women and seven children below the age of 12, were killed by soldiers from the 58th mile post and Dehiwatte army camps, accompanied by Home Guards from Dehiwatte. Home guards are local civilians drafted as para-military by the government of Sri Lanka.

The killings were in apparent reprisal for the killings by the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of two soldiers near a location called the 58th mile post on February 11, 1996 about half an hour earlier. According to one witness, a group of soldiers, some of whom were drunk, gathered at Dehiwatte junction and then proceeded towards Kumarapuram, shouting "death to the Tamils". The villagers of Kumarapuram had taken refuge inside their houses. The soldiers broke open the shutters and aimed their guns at the people hiding inside. One woman recounted how she pleaded with them not to shoot but to no avail. In her house, seven people were killed, including a six-year-old child.

Among the villagers who survived the massacre were 28 individuals who were severely injured and they stated that the soldiers had attacked them with axes. Children as young as 3 and 6 years of age had axe injuries on their face. Arasaratham Nagarasa, one of the survivors of the massacre, later recounted the incidents that took place after he had taken refuge in his house with 18 other villagers:"We continued to hear gun-shots pelting down like rain, and so we were all terrified to step outside. Through a crack in the wall we saw four army personnel come towards our house. When they got to our house, they shouted from outside 'para demalu [a Sinhala pejorative for Tamils implying 'inferior alien'], eliyata wareng!' (Tamils, get out here now!) [...] A bullet went through my left eye and out the right. My neighbours tried to take me to the nearby dispensary, but, while going, we heard shooting again, so we ran into another nearby house. There I heard that my wife and son had been shot, but, as I was in and out of consciousness at the time, I didn’t fully understand what they were telling me."Chokkalingam Stephen, a 51-year-old villager whose daughter was killed in the massacre, stated that on the following morning the local soldiers had told him, "two of our boys were killed, so we too went killing". According to many local observers and other reliable testimonies from several sources, a senior army officer had instigated the massacre, who allegedly ordered, "turn the place into powder".

Rapes and murder
Among the victims was 15-year old Arumathurai Thanaluxmi. She was dragged from a boutique in the village and taken to the milk collection centre where she was gang-raped by the soldiers before being shot dead. Anthony Joseph, a 10-year-old boy, who tried to stop the soldiers from dragging her away, was shot between his legs. There were reports of one more rape and murder as well. In total two girls were raped and murdered as part of the massacre.

Investigation and trial
In March 1996, the Muttur Magistrate Court called on the witnesses from Kumarapuram to identify the perpetrators and 24 witnesses were able to identify 8 soldiers from the 58th Mile Post and Dehiwatta army camps and the Killiveddy check point from a group of 95 soldiers in the three-day long identification parade of over 500 soldiers. The accused were arrested and were promptly released. On November 4, 1998, the Muttur Magistrate committed the case for the Trincomalee High Court, with 120 charges listed against each of eight soldiers. On June 3, 2002, after nearly four years of taking no action to indict the accused, the Attorney General’s department indicted the six accused soldiers on 101 charges each: Corporals SG Nishantha, NM Ajith Sisira Kumara, MP Kapila Darshana, HM Abeysinghe, PP Upasena and HM Abeyratne. Two of the eight accused had died while out on bail. The Attorney General’s department didn't indict any commanding officer in the area who had allegedly directed the massacre, indicating a lack of will to prosecute higher-ranked military personnel.

On June 14, 2005, when the case was taken up for inquiry, the State Counsel Mr. S. Halimdeen told the Trincomalee High Court Judge Mr. Anton Balasingham that all material evidence, including weapons used in the massacre, had been destroyed in 2004 when the office of the Government Analyst in Colombo was gutted by fire. Survivors and witnesses were also subjected to continuous intimidation and harassment from local military personnel, such as when the villagers tried to commemorate the massacre in 2006. After being repeatedly postponed for four years, in October 2006 the Court of Appeal ordered the case to be transferred from the Trincomalee High Court to the Sinhalese-dominated Anuradhapura High Court at the request of the accused (apparently to avoid a Tamil judge in Trincomalee), without giving an opportunity for the counsel of victims to object.

After being dragged on for 20 years, the jury trial began on June 27, 2016. 120 witnesses were notified and 40 of them gave evidence. On July 27, 2016, an all-Sinhalese jury of the Anuradhapura High Court acquitted the six accused former soldiers of all 606 charges against them. Following the acquittal, the victims' families appealed to the President to direct the Attorney General to appeal against the judgement and re-try the accused. In the appeal submitted to the Court of Appeal against the Anuradhapura High Court's decision, the Attorney General stated:"While the plaintiff has proved beyond reasonable doubt that the Defendants were guilty of the accusations against them, the Anuradhapura High Court Jury verdict, exonerating them of all wrongdoing and releasing them, is complete injustice to the victims."