In Sri Lanka, Fear of Being 'Disappeared'

In an interview, Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona said the rebels have exaggerated reports of abductions for propaganda purposes. He also said that after U.S. diplomats provided a list of 355 missing people, the government launched an investigation and found that most of the missing had left the country of their own volition.

"We reviewed the lists meticulously; 23 people were found alive and kicking. But there were repetitions on the list," Kohona said. Other names "were suspiciously similar to those recorded by immigration officials as people who had left the country."

He emphasized that the Tigers are recognized as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government and others across the world. He also said the Tigers were using violence and intimidation abroad to fund the rebel group, shaking down Tamil shopkeepers from London to Virginia for contributions.

"We are fighting a brutal terrorist group," Kohona said. "Our friends abroad must look at the pressures they are putting on us very carefully. They may be throwing a lifeline to a brutal terrorist group."

On Web sites and in statements, the rebels holed up in the north say they are part of a populist movement that wants a separate homeland on this island off the coast of southern India. They claim to be defending the rights of Hindu and Christian Tamils, who they contend are discriminated against by the Buddhist Sinhalese majority. The government does not permit journalists near the front lines.

Sri Lanka's ethnic tensions are rooted in history. The British colonized Sri Lanka with the help of Tamil administrators, giving Tamils, then about 15 percent of the population, political power way beyond their numbers. After independence in 1948, the Sinhalese gained back power, often with a nationalist program that Tamils say excluded them from government posts.

Mano Ganesan, a Tamil member of Parliament who heads a civil monitoring commission on disappearances, said that the unexplained arrests only further marginalize the Tamil community and breed anger among frustrated youth.

"The government arrests Tamils for being Tamil," Ganesan said. "And they ask questions later. I hate terrorism. I don't want bombs to go off. But that doesn't mean the government should conduct mass arrests without even giving proof or updates to the families."

In a neighborhood where alleyways hold tea shops and temples with shrines to Hindu gods, many Tamils worry and wait for their missing relatives to appear.

Mithralatha, the grandmother whose son is missing, said she was surprised how the war has affected her family. Her son married a Sinhalese in what is known here as "a mixed-fruit marriage."

"My son was Tamil, but he was never involved in anything with the rebel movements," she said. "I can't believe that this has happened."

Her oldest granddaughter, Vartha Rasta, spends her afternoons caring for siblings. She doesn't see the issue as complicated.

"We just want our father back," she said as her grandmother cried.