A Sri Lankan government commission's inquiry into the conduct of the island's civil war has cleared the military of deliberately targeting civilians in the final stages of the conflict. In a 400-page report presented in parliament Friday, the commission said it was "satisfied" the military's strategy had given the "highest priority" to protecting the civilian population.
The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) was created by President Mahinda Rajapakse in May 2010, a year after the military's victory over separatist Tamil Tiger rebels. Various foreign governments and rights groups have called for an independent probe into charges that the Sri Lankan army was responsible for thousands of civilian deaths in its final military offensive against the rebels.
Sri Lanka narrowly avoided censure at the UN Human Rights Council in September, despite a UN expert report highlighting "credible" allegations of abuses by government troops. Sri Lanka has resisted all calls for an independent probe, saying the LLRC investigation would suffice, even though the commission was not mandated to probe war crimes allegations. "The movement of the security forces in conducting their operations was deliberately slow during the final stages of the conflict, thereby evidencing a carefully worked out strategy of avoiding civilian casualties or minimising them," the commission's report said.
It also blamed the Tamil Tigers for targeting and killing civilians who tried to flee to safety. Widely criticised as biased by international rights groups, the LLRC submitted its report to President Rajapaksa on November 20. Since then the international community has pressed for its early public release. The United Nations estimate some 100,000 people perished during the 37-year ethnic conflict.
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