Colombo (AsiaNews) – One year after a young Catholic priest,Fr Thiruchelvam Nihal Jimbrown, and his assistant, Wenceslaus Vimalathas, disappeared in Jaffna in northern Sri Lanka, still nothing is known of their fate and no one has been called to account for what happened to them.
Fr Jimbrown, 34, and Vimalathas, a father of five children, went missing on 20 August 2006 amid escalated warfare between the security forces and separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). They were last seen on a motorcycle at a checkpoint in Allaipiddy, an area tightly controlled by the security forces.
The Apostolic Nuncio to Sri Lanka, Mgr Mario Zenari, has followed the case closely from the beginning. Two days before the first anniversary of the priest’s disappearance, the Vatican diplomat told AsiaNews how things stood: “Alas, to date, there is no trace of Fr Jimbrown. On the anniversary of his disappearance and that of his companion Vimalathas, one can only entrust their fate into the hands of the Lord, and implore God to grant consolation to their relatives and to the faithful of the Diocese of Jaffna.” The nuncio also expressed “solidarity with all those who have disappeared, especially in recent months, as well as their families”.
The de facto return to civil war in Sri Lanka has led to an alarming rise in abductions and ‘disappearances’ – often a euphemism for extrajudicial execution. In the past year and a half, there have been more than 1,100 cases, including many in Jaffna, which has been isolated from the rest of the island since the government closed the A-9 highway just over a year ago.
Events will be held in Jaffna and Colombo on 20 August to remember Fr Jimbrown and Vimalathas. In the capital, the Christian Alliance for Social Action, together with the Law & Society Trust, will hold a prayer service at the Centre for Society and Religion. In Jaffna, a prayer and fasting service will take place at St Mary’s Cathedral. Despite the forbidding omnipresence of the army, Jaffna residents have bravely held many such services and demonstrations over the past year, praying for the deliverance of the two men and calling on the authorities to shed light on what happened to them.
The government’s “cosmetic” commitment
But the heartfelt appeals of the Church and local and international NGOs have proved useless. Mgr Zenari said: “The apposite Commission set up by the President of the Republic and charged to examine 15 cases of serious human rights violations with the assistance of a panel of international experts, started to examine one or two cases a few months ago. Investigations are proceeding rather slowly. Some time ago, I was told by the authorities that the case of Fr Jimbrown was the only one concerning a disappearance that would be examined by the commission.”
In June, the international experts appointed to observe the commission of inquiry criticised its activities, saying they did “not satisfy international norms” and citing delays and “serious conflicts of interest”, due to the involvement of the Attorney General’s Office. And earlier this month, Human Rights Watch said the commission “has proven inadequate to handle the deteriorating human rights situation” and seemed to be just “an effort to stave off domestic and international criticism rather than a sincere attempt to promote accountability”.
The government’s inability to reverse the ‘disappearances’ trend comes as no surprise, considering that the security forces and paramilitaries complicit with them are implicated in the majority of cases (the LTTE are also held responsible for some). And thus it could have been for Fr Jimbrown and Vimalathas. According to priests from Jaffna, the commanding officer of the Naval Camp at Allaipiddy – the first and last parish of the missing priest – had accused Fr Jimbrown of being an LTTE supporter and had threatened him.
Enforced disappearances are nothing new in Sri Lanka: the number of reports made to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) ranks second only to Iraq.
