Sri Lanka: UN issues much-delayed report on conflict

BBC News
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The UN has said widespread shelling by the Sri Lankan government killed most of the tens of thousands of civilians who died in the final months of the 25-year-long war, in 2009.

The report also accuses Tamil Tigers separatists of using civilians as human shields.

The UN is calling for an independent investigation into what it says could constitute war crimes.

Sri Lanka had asked the UN not to publish its findings.

It said the report could damage reconciliation efforts.

The government has consistently denied allegations that it targeted civilians, and has rejected the report's findings as biased and fraudulent.

'Public interest'

In a statement, the secretary general's spokesperson said: "The decision to release the report was made as a matter of transparency and in the broader public interest."

He said a copy of the report had been made available "in its entirety" to the government of Sri Lanka on 12 April, adding that the Sri Lankan government had failed to respond to a repeated offer to publish its response to the panel's finding alongside the report.

The panel recommends that the Sri Lankan government should respond to the serious allegations "by initiating an effective accountability process beginning with genuine investigations".

The BBC's Barbara Plett, in New York, says that a divided Security Council was initially reluctant to address Sri Lanka's war and much less call for an inquiry.

However, the secretary general appointed the panel after mounting evidence of serious human rights abuses and massive civilian casualties in the five-month offensive which ended the war.

© BBC News