By Eranga Jayawrdane (AP)
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The National Heritage Party consisting largely of monks said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's appointment of the three-member panel last week was interfering in Sri Lanka's domestic affairs and helping terrorism.
Dozens of monks, laymen and laywomen marched to the U.N. office in Sri Lanka's capital Colombo, chanting slogans against the world body.
"The U.N. has no right, authority or mandate to appoint a committee. It's an interference with Sri Lankan affairs," party leader Rev. Omalpe Sobitha told the gathering. "The U.N. is acting as an agent of terrorism."
Sri Lankan military forces last year defeated the Tamil Tiger rebels, ending 25 years of civil war.
The rebels — designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union — fought for an independent state for ethnic minority Tamils, mostly Hindus, after decades of marginalization by successive governments controlled by majority ethnic Sinhalese, most of them Buddhists.
According to the U.N., more than 7,000 Tamil civilians were killed in the last five months of the war that ended in May 2009. Human rights groups have accused both government forces and the now-vanquished Tamil Tiger rebels of deliberate targeting of civilians.
Ban's committee led by former Indonesian Attorney-General Marzuki Darusman, also the U.N.'s special rights investigator for North Korea, has been asked to advise him on the alleged abuses during the war's final stages.
The Sri Lankan government has already opposed the move as "an unwarranted and unnecessary interference with a sovereign nation."
Buddhist monks here are considered protectors of the nation and wield big influence in the country's social and political affairs.
© Brandon Sun
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