Men report abuse under Sri Lankan government

LONDON — He was barely a teenager when Sri Lanka’s civil war ended, spared by youth from witnessing its horrors.

But last year, the brutal conflict caught up with Witness No. 205.

Raped, branded and beaten, he is one of more than 50 men who say they were abducted and tortured under Sri Lanka’s current government. The men’s previously unpublished accounts conjure images of the bloody civil war that ended in 2009.

The men agreed to tell their stories to The Associated Press and to have extensive scars on their legs, chests and backs photographed in July and August. The AP reviewed 30 medical and psychological evaluations and did interviews with 20 men. The strangers said they were accused of trying to revive the Tamil Tiger rebel group and tortured between early 2016 to as recently as July of this year.

Sri Lankan authorities deny the allegations.

“The army was not involved — and as for that matter — I’m sure that police also were not involved,” Sri Lanka army commander Lt. Gen. Mahesh Senanayake told the AP in an interview last week in Sri Lanka. “There’s no reason for us to do that now.”

The Sri Lankan government minister in charge of the police agreed to an interview with the AP last month but did not follow through.

Sri Lanka’s current government was elected in 2015. Many had hoped the new leadership would bring long promised reforms.

Piers Pigou, a South African human rights investigator, said he has not seen torture of this scale in his 40-year career.

“The levels of sexual abuse

‘The levels of sexual abuse being perpetuated in Sri Lanka by authorities are the most egregious and perverted that I’ve ever seen.’

Piers Pigou South African human rights investigator

being perpetuated in Sri Lanka by authorities are the most egregious and perverted that I’ve ever seen.”

Sri Lanka has so far failed to investigate war crimes allegations stemming from its 26-year civil war. At the end of August, human rights groups in South America filed lawsuits against Sri Lanka’s ambassador to Brazil, a former general accused of overseeing military units that attacked hospitals and tortured thousands at the end of the war. Upon his return, Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena said neither the former general nor other “war heroes” would

be touched — a pledge that drew criticism from human rights groups.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka’s global profile is on the rise. In May, the European Union restored the special trade status Sri Lanka lost in 2010 after the European Commission found the country failed to implement key international conventions. The country also participates in U.N. peacekeeping missions. Recently, the Indian Ocean nation was asked to sit on a U.N. leadership committee trying to combat sexual abuse. An AP investigation earlier this year found 134 Sri Lankan peacekeepers participated in a child sex ring in Haiti that persisted for three years. No one was ever prosecuted.

Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, a top U.N. diplomat who has pushed for accountability in Sri Lanka, was aghast at the AP’s accounts of the 50 men.

“While the U.N. is unable to confirm this until we mount an investigation, clearly the reports are horrifying and merit a much closer inspection from our part, especially if they occurred in 2016 and 2017,” said Zeid, U.N. high commissioner for human rights.

FRANK AUGSTEIN / ASSOCIATED PRESS A Sri Lankan known as Witness No. 249 shows brands on his back in an interview in London. He said his captors used hot rods to make marks meant to symbolize tiger stripes for the Tamil Tigers rebel group.