Sri Lanka on Tuesday rejected a report ordered by the UN chief blaming it for thousands of civilian deaths at end of its civil war, and said it can defend itself should the world body formally take up the accusations. On Monday, the United Nations published the findings of a three-member panel Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed to advise him on "issues of accountability" from the end of Sri Lanka's quarter-century war with the separatist Tamil Tigers.
The panel, which did not have an investigatory mandate, blamed the victorious Sri Lankan forces for killing tens of thousands of civilians, and said there is "credible evidence" that war crimes were committed by both sides. Ban nonetheless said he could not order an international probe, which the Indian Ocean nation has refused as a violation of its sovereignty, without Sri Lanka's consent or a decision from member states to push it ahead.
"We don't consider this report an official UN report. It is a personal report. We totally reject it. If officially asked by the UN Security Council or any of the UN bodies, the government has enough evidence and material to provide," said Lakshman Hulugalle, director-general of the state's Media Centre for National Security. Sri Lanka's government since last week has repeatedly called the report fraudulent and biased, after parts of it were leaked in local newspapers. It also said the world body was seeking to pre-empt the findings of its own Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission. The foreign ministry had no immediate comment on the report, which marks the biggest pressure brought to bear on the government since the end of the war, when Western governments pushed in vain for a cease-fire to protect civilians.
The government refused on the grounds that the Tigers had created civilian crises in the past to build international pressure for truces, which it then used to re-arm. Stepping up the pressure, UN human rights chief Navi Pillay called on Tuesday for a "full, impartial, independent and transparent" investigation.
"Unless there is a sea-change in the government's response, which has so far been one of total denial and blanket impunity, a full-fledged international inquiry will clearly be needed," she said in a statement issued in Geneva. Sri Lanka has consistently denied allegations that it targeted civilians. It has acknowledged that some were killed as troops advanced on an ever-shrinking patch of land on the north-eastern coast of the island.
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