As Sri Lanka began excavating an alleged mass grave at Chemmani on the outskirts of this town in the northern peninsula, 62-year-old Paramanathan Selvarajah's words reflected the hopes and worst fears of nearly 400 families that await news of a son, husband or father who disappeared after being arrested by the army in 1996.

It is the remains of these ``disappeared'' of Jaffna that the excavators hope to dig out from under the windswept marshland. The digging began around noon, after Somnath Rajapakse, the soldier who alleged the existence of the mass grave in the area, was taken under heavy police guard to the spot and asked to point out a site where he believed bodies had been buried.

Rajapakse, a death row prisoner convicted last year for the 1996 rape and murder of a teenager, chose a sitewhere he claimed that on instructions from superior officers, he buried two men whose tortured dead bodies he and other soldiers had transported to Chemmani from a nearby army camp. A huge contingent of armed police and soldiers stood guard as Lankan forensic experts, watched by a magistrate and foreign observers from Amnesty International, Physicians for Human Rights and Asia Foundation, began digging at the site pointed out by Rajapakse in accordance with international norms.

Hours later, as the shadows lengthened across the marsh, forensic experts stumbled on a piece of bone under a tattered bit of cloth. The excavators refused to commit themselves on the evidence that had surfaced, but said digging would continue tomorrow in better light.

``This information is very primitive. We can comment on it only when we dig up some more,'' said state counsel Yasantha Kodagoda, who represented the government at the excavation.

The government-initiated excavation has come nearly one year after Rajapakse firstmade his allegation after increasing pressure to dig up the site from the Tamil community and international orgnaisations. Sri Lanka is hopeful that the process that began today in the presence of international watchdogs, will help to make it plain to the world that President Chandrika Kumaratunga is committed to safeguarding human rights of all Sri Lankans.

The excavation has raised hopes among the relatives and families of the disappeared that they will very soon have news of their loved ones. However, it is likely to be a long wait. The experts assembled here plan to look just for four sets of human bones in order to verify that Rajapakse is indeed telling the truth. If they do get the evidence they are seeking, the task of identifying the logistics for digging up a wider area will begin. ``The planning could take six to eight months,'' warned Dr William Hagland of the Physicians for Human Rights and a veteran of mass graves in Rwanda, Bosnia and other places.

The identification of the skeletons couldtake longer, depending upon ``how kind'' the grave has been to the remains and how much resources are committed to it, Hagland pointed out. He warned that any attempt to rush matters could lead to the destruction of evidence, denying the victims an opportunity to ``voice'' their stories.

The present limited excavation is funded by the Sri Lankan government. ``This is a small step, but a very important one,'' said Amnesty representative Ingrid Massage, one of the observers. The excavation of the alleged grave at Chemmani has also raised demands from the Tamil community for investigations into allegations of more mass graves all over the embattled northern peninsula.

``There must be a permanent body established by the government for this job,'' said Maheshwari Velautham, human rights lawyer, who played a lead role in pushing the case of Jaffna's disappeared. State counsel Kodagoda said this was the first time in the world's post-Second World War history that an excavation of an alleged mass grave was beingcarried out by the government during the pendency of an armed conflict in the region.