Chemmani Accountability Desk

A mass-grave accountability case in Jaffna.

A grave may be shallow. The suppression is not.

TLTE begins its public accountability work with Chemmani because no future for a people can be built while their dead remain unnamed and their families remain unanswered. This is not the only mass-grave file. It is the first one TLTE will hold visibly, as a public accountability case, on a permanent civic surface — until the identification, the cause, and the responsibility are matters of public record, not public memory.

The honest picture.

• ?01Many identities remain unknown. Identification can only be established by a credentialed forensic and judicial process.
• ?02Cause of death has not been publicly confirmed for all remains.
• ?03Responsibility — command chain, unit, individual — must be established through proper investigation. The Institute does not name perpetrators.
• ?04The site requires continuous protection from disturbance and from political interference with chain of custody.
• ?05Families require a victim-safe DNA and truth pathway. That pathway is not the Institute's to build — it belongs to OHCHR, ITJP, OMP, and the courts.

Where the record lives.

The Institute does not hold the casework. These bodies do. We point.

• OHCHR — Sri Lanka Accountability ProjectConfirmedStanding
  Standing accountability file (HRC res. 46/1, 51/1, 57/1; renewed 60/1)

  Mandated UN repository of evidence on past gross violations, including mass-grave casework. Chemmani sits inside this standing file.

  Open source
• Jaffna Magistrate's Court (Sri Lanka)Confirmed1999 → present
  Court-supervised excavations at Chemmani / Kokkuthoduvai (1999 onwards; renewed 2024–25)

  First exhumations followed Corporal Somaratne Rajapakse's 1998 court testimony naming the site. Renewed under judicial supervision after fresh remains surfaced. ~283 sets of remains are publicly referenced on the judicial record; only a court process can establish identification and cause.

  Open source
• Bishop of Mannar — Rt Rev Rayappu Joseph (2013, LLRC)ConfirmedStanding
  Standing call for independent international forensic oversight of mass-grave sites in the North-East

  The Bishop of Mannar's standing testimony — the original civic call for credentialed independent forensic process. Cited as a standing demand on /institute/chemmani/demands.

  Open source
• International Truth & Justice Project (ITJP)ConfirmedStanding
  Sri Lanka mass-grave documentation

  Credentialed casework custodian. Families and journalists with material should go here, not to TLTE.

  Open source
• PEARL ActionConfirmedStanding
  Disappearances and mass-grave casework

  Diaspora-side documentation and family liaison.

  Open source
• Adayaalam Centre for Policy ResearchConfirmedStanding
  Northern transitional-justice monitoring (mass graves)

  Jaffna-based research centre; standing source on mass-grave protocol failures in the Northern Province.

  Open source
• Office on Missing Persons (Sri Lanka)Credible reportStanding
  Statutory missing-persons casework

  Statutory body. Honesty index — approximately 6,700 cases formally under review against the ~16,700 UN-recognised cumulative caseload. Chemmani remains sit alongside this gap.

  Open source
• Tamil GuardianCredible reportLive
  Chemmani excavations — running news file

  Independent diaspora outlet tracking each court session and exhumation phase. Used as a link target only.

  Open source

Seven Sins · enforced

• ·We never publish a name, photograph, or identifying detail of any victim or family member.
• ·We never publish our own count of remains. The judicial record carries the figure; we cite it.
• ·We never publish op-sec or coordinates beyond what the court itself has placed on the public record.
• ·We never assert cause of death, perpetrator, command chain, or unit.
• ·We never accept survivor or family intake. Families are routed to ITJP, PEARL, OMP, OHCHR, and the UK 999 / Refuge line.
• ·We never frame this as a Tamil-versus-Sinhalese question. It is a question of judicial process and forensic standards under international law.