Amnesty International’s concerns about continuing human rights violations in Sri Lanka in 1990 are summarized here. Thousands of “disappearances” and extrajudicial executions by government forces were reported in the northeast and south. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) reportedly killed hundreds of civilians and prisoners, including policemen. At the end of 1990 about 9,000 political prisoners remained in detention for alleged connections with an armed Sinhalese opposition group, the Janatha Vikmukthi Peramuna (JVP). The government took no steps to clarify the fate of the many thousands of “disappeared” (the establishment of a commission of inquiry to investigate future reports of “disappearances” was reported in mid-January 1991).
