Sri Lanka rejects call for foreign war crimes probe

GENEVA: Sri Lanka’s new government on Monday rejected a call by the United Nations for an international investigation into alleged war crimes committed during its ethnic conflict which claimed over 100,000 lives.

Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath told the Human Rights Council in Geneva that his administration opposed the UN’s “Accountability Project”, which preserves evidence for possible future prosecutions.

He said the leftist government of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who came to power a year ago, was committed to ethnic reconciliation and upholding judicial independence.

Successive governments in Colombo have resisted calls to investigate allegations that security forces killed at least 40,000 minority Tamil civilians in the final months of the war, which ended in May 2009.

Herath urged the council to note progress made under the new government and to recognise its commitment to promote the rights of all communities in the ethnically divided nation.

“The government is opposed to any external mechanism imposed on us, such as the Sri Lanka Accountability Project, which serves to create divisions and complicate the national reconciliation process underway in Sri Lanka,” Herath said.

He did not elaborate on any new national accountability initiative.

UN rights chief Volker Turk called for sanctions against individuals credibly accused of war crimes and urged other governments to prosecute Sri Lankan perpetrators.

He appealed to council members to support the Accountability Project despite Sri Lanka’s opposition.

“I also call on them (other member states) to cooperate in investigating and prosecuting alleged perpetrators of international crimes committed in Sri Lanka, under principles of universal jurisdiction,” he said.

The crushing of the Tamil Tiger leadership 16 years ago ended 37 years of conflict that claimed at least 100,000 lives on all sides.

Sri Lanka’s governments have consistently refused to allow an independent investigation into alleged war crimes committed by its own troops or by its adversary, the Tamil Tigers.

They have also not proposed any credible domestic mechanism to probe the allegations.