By Louis Charbonneau | Reuters
.............................................................................................................................................................................................
Ban sent the report of his own advisory panel, which was published in April, to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, as well as the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva late on Monday, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said.
"While the Secretary-General had given time to the government of Sri Lanka to respond to the report, the government has declined to do so, and instead has produced its own reports on the situation in the north of Sri Lanka, which are being forwarded (too)," Nesirky said in a statement.
Asked what follow-up actions Ban would like to to see, Nesirky said: "This is a matter for the member states of the Human Rights Council to decide."
The New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch (HRW) welcomed Ban's move, saying the 47-nation rights council should launch its own investigation into the final phase of the war.
"When a U.N. Panel of Experts report concludes up to 40,000 civilians died amid war crimes, the Human Rights Council should feel compelled to act," said Brad Adams, HRW's Asia director.
"The council should order a full international investigation -- anything less would be a shameful abdication of responsibility," Abrams said in a statement.
Ban's move could lead the European Union to put the issue of Sri Lanka's behavior in the final months of the Sri Lankan government's quarter-century war against Tamil Tiger separatist rebels on the Council's program of work, but no action was likely until next year, diplomats in Geneva said.
'Credible evidence'
After the report was issued in the spring, human rights groups urged Ban and the United Nations to follow up on the panel's findings. Nesirky said at the time that Ban lacked the authority to personally order a full investigation of the final phase of the war in late 2008 and early 2009. [ID:nN25207770]
The Human Rights Council, however, can order such a probe and has done so in relation to the recent violence in Syria and Israel's December 2008-January 2009 assault on the Gaza Strip.
Sri Lanka's government set up its own investigation panel, which U.N. diplomats and rights groups have said would be neither independent nor credible.
The report of Ban's advisory panel said that as many as 40,000 civilians likely died in the government's final battles against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who had holed up along a narrow strip of land in northeastern Sri Lanka with hundreds of thousands of civilians as human shields.
It said there was "credible evidence" the Sri Lankan government was guilty of war crimes, an allegation the country's leadership has repeatedly rejected.
The U.N. report specifically accused the government of widespread shelling including targeting field hospitals, denying humanitarian aid, and committing rights violations against people inside and outside the conflict zone.
Ban's panel blamed both sides for deaths. But the elimination of the LTTE's leadership by the government and its definitive defeat of the insurgency in May 2009 meant that only government forces would be held to account in any inquiry.
© AlertNet
No comments:
Post a Comment