'Casualty Figures withheld as Sri Lanka made threats ' says Ban Ki Moon

By Matthew Russell Lee | Inner City Press
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After the Sri Lanka war crimes report by the UN Panel of Experts was quietly presented to the UN Security Council by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Inner City Press asked Ban two questions about the report.

Among his answers on Sri Lanka, Ban implicitly acknowledged the report's charge that the UN withheld casualty figures during the conflict.

Asked to "respond to the criticisms in the report that the UN failed in those last months to do what it could to help protect civilians, including keeping statistics of the actual casualty figures back," Ban said that the Sri Lankan authorities said that they couldn't guarantee the safety of UN staff:

“the security situation was very precarious, at the last stage of the crisis. And we were told by the Sri Lankan Government, as I understand and remember, that the Sri Lankan Government would not be able to ensure the safety and security of United Nations missions there. Then we were compelled to take the necessary action according to their advice.”

So, allowing the Rajapaksas to in essence point a gun at UN staff, Ban's UN withheld the facts about how many civilians were being killed. At the time, UN whistleblowers gave Inner City Press an internal count of deaths by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which the UN in New York refused to confirm even after Inner City Press published it.

Asked about his senior adviser Vijay Nambiar's role in the White Flag killings, Ban dodged the question by saying he will set up a review of the UN's performance, after consulting with his senior advisers -- that is, with Nambiar:

“I will try to review the work and performance of the United Nations missions in Sri Lanka at that time. I am going to discuss this matter with my senior advisors.”

Ban's cover letter to the report stated that for an “investigation mechanism, [Ban] is advised that this will require host country consent or a decision from Member States through an appropriate intergovernmental forum.”

Inner City Press asked Ban WHO advised him of this, and why after Ban three times claimed the Panel's members could travel to Sri Lanka, they ultimately did not.

Ban did not say who advised him, rather saying that he would welcome a mandate voted by Member States in an intergovernmental forum:

“about the future course of action, it is true and it is a fact that if I want to establish any independent international commission of inquiry, I will need to have a clear mandate from an intergovernmental body or the consent of the Sri Lankan Government.”

But when asked if he was requesting the Security Council to take the matter up and vote whether to start an investigation, Ban merely said that all members have the report. So, he is not asking.

This was confirmed by April's Security Council President Nestor Osorio of Colombia, who when Inner City Press asked if Ban had requested a vote in the Council replied that “we just took note” of the report, calling this the “normal course of justice.” But Ban says without a vote, there can be no investigation -- and refused to specify who gave him this advice.

Inner City Press asked Ban to explain his three statements that the Panel could go to Sri Lanka, and the fact that they were not allowed to go. They tried very hard, Ban said, then referred to the meeting, made secret at the time, by Attorney General Mohan Peiris with the Panel:

“We have been trying very hard to get the Sri Lankan Government to [agree to a visit] by the Panel of Experts. They have been very reluctant to receive the Panel of Experts. Finally they dispatched some high-level officials who met the Panel of Experts.”

That is a meeting which the UN initially denied took place. What explains all these irregularities? What gun might the Rajapaksa government have pointed?

© Inner City Press

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Indian civil society’s conscience stirred for Lankan Tamils

By Akash Bisht | The Weekend
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The Indian civil society has woken up to the human rights excesses of the Sri Lankan government against minority Tamils. A group of Delhi based civil rights activists have initiated an online campaign demanding an independent international enquiry into charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Sri Lankan State.

Sri Lanka has been accused of killing thousands of innocent Tamil civilians during its war against the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) - which was fighting for a separate State - in 2008-2009.

A petition prepared by the group has demanded that a White Paper be presented in the Indian Parliament on the role of Indian intelligence, armed forces, politicians and bureaucracy in the Sri Lankan war crimes.

The petition comes in the wake of the UN Expert Panel’s report that has found credible evidence of the Lankan government’s role in the deaths of thousands of Tamils caught in the war zone.

The petition has demanded that punishment be meted out to those in the Sri Lankan Armed Forces and Establishment found guilty, as per international law and in proportion to the gravity of their crimes. It also demanded that the UN report should not be used as an excuse to orchestrate any form of violence against the Tamils in Sri Lanka

The activists intend to take the petition to former Chief Justice of India Rajinder Sachar for endorsement. Sachar had earlier served on a “People’s Permanent Tribunal” in Dublin that investigated allegations against the Sri Lankan government. Sachar had then said that though the war was over, the situation was yet to change and Tamils were yet to get their due respect as fellow citizens.

The tribunal had found conclusive evidence of wanton atrocities committed by the Sri Lankan state on Tamil civilians and combatants alike. The petition stated: “These included usage of banned chemical weapons, cluster bombs, rampant torture, summary executions and sexual abuse of captured women. The Tribunal also concluded that the charges of genocide require investigation considering evidences of systemic violence against the Tamils, even after the war was said to be over.”

Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse has directed his party officials to use May 1, Labour Day, for protests against the UN Report. He has urged Sri Lankans to gather in millions in Colombo to express their anguish over the report.

Civil rights activist Satya Sivaraman, who filed the petition online said, “The issue isn’t a Tamils issue, it’s a human rights issue. The standoff between the Sri Lankan government and UN is for everyone to see. The Labour Day rally is anti-Tamil in nature and the situation is very tense in the island nation as fascist sentiments seem to have taken over.”

He also added that with the petition they intend to bring the Sri Lankan Tamils issue out of Tamil Nadu to the rest of India and South Asia.

“While reports of Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka are making headlines in the West, there is hardly anything that is being reported by the South Asian media. We want to make it a pan south Asian issue that should concern all in the region,” Sivaraman added.

He also mentioned that the role of the Indian government should also be investigated and if guilty the country should be implicated too. “Rajapakse was the chief guest at the Republic Day parade held in New Delhi. What does this mean? Does it imply that the Indian government and Sri Lankan government are hand in glove with each other?” he questioned.

Even writer-activist Arundhati Roy had raised serious doubts about the role of Indian media in its coverage of war crimes in Sri Lanka. Roy in her piece on the issue for Guardian in April 2009 wrote, “The horror that is unfolding in Sri Lanka becomes possible because of the silence that surrounds it. There is almost no reporting in the mainstream Indian media - or indeed in the international press - about what is happening there…”

Members of Delhi Tamil Students Union, Jawaharlal Nehru University, are playing an active role in the campaign.

Karthik, a member of the Union said they hope to get the support of Rajinder Sachar, and Arundhati Roy for their campaign to make the Sri Lankan government accountable for its war crimes.

At the same time, he expressed concern at the Rajaapkse government’s call for the May 1 rally.

"Rajapakse's call for strike could have serious repercussions. We want to bring it to the people's notice that every time there is a call for strike (on Tamils issue) either by the government or opposition, violence is unleashed against the Tamils," he said.

© The Weekend Leader

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With truth about Sri Lankan war crimes emerging, we need a proper inquiry

Photo courtesy: Guy Calaf

By Gordon Weiss | The Guardian
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Sri Lanka's response to the release of a UN panel report on the end of the civil war by three eminent international judicial experts has been entirely predictable.

After failing to stall its release altogether, the country's government has set about attacking it with its customary sledgehammer diplomacy.

Unlike Libya, the battlefields in Sri Lanka were sealed off to reporters, preventing them from covering the alleged war crimes as they happened. The government is similarly hoping to limit coverage of the report.

But, in the words of a friend of mine who worked in the camps which filled with wounded, frightened and desperate civilians who managed to escape from the Tamil Tigers during those months of 2009: "We're learning now what we knew then."

During the final phase of the war between January and May 2009, the government consistently denied that its forces were using heavy weapons. We now learn through the UN report that government shells accounted for most civilian deaths.

In February 2009 the government denied that there were any more than 70,000 civilians left inside the siege zone, when we now know there were at least four times that figure.

It denied constantly that it was shelling hospitals or makeshift clinics where children wounded by its artillery were being stitched. We now know that there were dozens of criminal attacks that killed patients and staff.

It even denied that it was stopping aid shipments to the stricken, trapped population. We now know that many died needlessly for want of medical supplies and food.

Similarly, the government continues to this day to deny that its forces killed any civilians during the conflict. It has called the UN report biased and unfair, and methodologically unsound.

It says that the reopening of old wounds will spoil the process of reconciliation. It has asserted that the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has no authority to examine allegations that the government of Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tigers committed war crimes.

Explanations gush from the government, all except the one that matters: an admission of responsibility for what seems to have been one of the worst war crimes of recent history.

The UN panel says that the sheer proportion of the alleged crimes constitutes a "grave assault on the entire regime of international law".

The Tamil Tigers are held responsible for effectively holding hundreds of thousands of its own people as a buffer against government assault.

They evidently killed women and children who tried to escape, and forced other children into the front lines as fodder. However, those Tigers responsible are mostly dead, many of them apparently summarily executed when they tried to surrender.

So it is no wonder that the government of Sri Lanka is little interested in investigating war crimes.

Culpability for any alleged crimes would almost certainly stop at the doorstep of the small circle of people who surround the Rajapaksa family. President Mahinda Rajapaksa instituted a domestic inquiry (the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission) which, as the panel report notes, is a political sop.

The very clarity of this unambiguous UN report leaves a gaping challenge for a world that tries to define its relationships according to the rule of law.

Given Sri Lanka's record of determined obfuscation, the next step must be a fully constituted international criminal investigation into the events of 2009.

Gordon Weiss is the author of The Cage: the Fight for Sri Lanka in the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers

© The Guardian

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Sri Lanka says UN report has pro-Tamil bias

Photo courtesy: Business Today

Radio Australia
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A United Nations report has painted a brutal picture of the final months of the civil war in Sri Lanka in 2009.

The report accuses Tamil Tiger rebels of using people as human shields, and government forces of killing tens of thousands of civilians through indiscriminate shelling. Sri Lanka's government has rejected the report as biased and fraudulent. Its External Affairs minister says the UN panel assumed for itself, a quasi-judicial role and its findings "bore the ingredients of the Tamil diaspora." Sri Lanka's military has denied it deliberately targeted civilian areas. Sen Lam spoke to Lakshman Hulugalle media director-general, at Sri Lanka's Ministry of Defence. Mr Hulugalle says foreign media was allowed access to cover the end of the civil war. But the Sri Lankan government has carefully controlled media access for many years and did not allow the foreign media to freely cover the last stages of the civil war.

Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Lakshman Hulugalle, director-general, media, Ministry of Defence, Sri Lanka

HULUGALLE: This is a panel appointed by the secretary-general of the UN in his personal capacity, and this is not a UN-appointed panel, first of all. And the panel's recommendations and details - the government of Sri Lanka totally rejects. There was no shelling of civilians. Unfortunately, this panel is talking about the last two weeks of the humanitarian operation happening in Sri Lanka, but they don't talk about the thousand three hundred weeks before, (when) the terrorists gunned down innocent civilians. We were able to keep the civilian numbers very low, because the government forces were very careful on the operational side, and we were able to protect the interests of the civilians.

LAM: The report also said that hospitals, UN centres and indeed, ships belonging to the Red Cross were deliberately targeted by the Sri Lankan military. Do you refute that as well?

HULUGALLE: Yes, we totally refute, because during that time, many UN representatives came into the country, and we allowed the foreign media to go into the areas during the operational times, and there were no allegations. And all the embassies were practically all western and asian embassies were in Sri Lanka and those representatives were there. So, there was no allegation against the Sri Lanka forces of shelling or killing of civilians during the war.

LAM: The government of Sri Lanka of course, has rejected this report as "biased and fraudulent" and yet the report also criticised the Tamil Tigers - that they found that both sides were guilty of human rights abuses?

HULUGALLE: Unfortunately, this report is being biased, because before the report was produced, no responsible government officer was contacted, or done anything. This is (based) on the information that they got from various sources, but they have not mentioned the killings and the terrors, what the LTTE did for the last thirty years. Killing innocent civilians who did not carry any arms, the clergy, pregnant mothers, innocent children - all these were not in the report.

LAM: If the Sri Lankan government wanted the truth, why did it not allow the UN investigators onto the island to conduct their investigations?

HULUGALLE: No, we have already appointed a Commission and they have now interviewed more than five hundred people. This is an independent body, so we don't have to give in to a private (UN) panel. So, we have appointed a very senior official, independent official, former judiciary officials into the Committee, so they're also giving the report, so we can see whether any Tamil people have made allegations like this.

LAM: What is the Sri Lankan government's response to a thorough, international, independent investigation into these claims and counter-claims of atrocities during the last few months of the war?

HULUGALLE: Any independent body can have an investigation, but they can't force into Sri Lanka, because we are in the process of development, after three decades. We have saved the Tamil community, Tamil nation from the LTTE terrorism, and the people of this country are really enjoying the freedom, Tamil, Sinhala, Muslim, everybody's right now enjoying it. So, we don't want these independent bodies to come and harm that unity. But if there is an official request, we are prepared, because we have all the evidence and documents to prove that Sri Lanka has not killed innocent civilians.

LAM: So are you saying then, that if the United Nations makes a formal request, that Sri Lanka will allow an independent investigation to be conducted?

HULUGALLE: Yes, Sri Lanka is a member of the UN. But that's a very high level answer, I think the government of Sri Lanka will have to answer. For me to answer that question, it's too early, because the UN Security Council or nor the UN has made any request yet. So let us see where or if they make a request.

© Radio Australia

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"Why do we respond to a report we do not accept?" asks SL Minister

By Chamikara Weerasinghe | Daily News
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Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella yesterday said that the controversial Darusman report on Sri Lanka was about breathing life into a dead terrorist organization.

The report was released publicly yesterday.

‘No one in the civilized world would accept it’, Rambukwella pointed out.

‘It is totally in favour of the LTTE, which had been one of the most ruthless terrorist organizations to have been banned internationally’, the minister said.

Commenting on the release of the Darusman report, Rambukwella said they were asked by the creators of the report to respond to their work.

”Why do we respond to a report we do not accept?,” he said.

© Daily News

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Sri Lanka: No-inquiry zone

Photo courtesy: vikalpa.org

Editorial | The Guardian
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When Richard Goldstone, the judge who headed a UN fact-finding mission to Gaza, partially recanted last month – an act that was disowned by fellow members of the mission – the saga was used as Exhibit A in the case against the UN. The organisation, it was claimed, was so inherently biased against Israel that it lacked the moral authority to investigate it. Where was the Goldstone report about Sri Lanka, some asked?

A UN panel has just produced such a report about the carnage of civilians which took place two years ago when government forces crushed the Tamil Tigers. It is as hard-hitting as anything Goldstone produced, and therefore is just as likely to be shelved. The point is that truth and accountability, let alone international justice, are not divisible. One country's ability to bury the evidence of war crimes endangers how civilians are treated in all other conflicts. A single failure of international justice is also a collective one.

That there is credible evidence that government soldiers targeted civilians, shelled hospitals and attacked aid workers in the final months of the war against the Tamil Tigers is indisputable. That the Tigers used civilians as human shields and shot those attempting to flee the carnage at point-blank range is equally true. Tens of thousands died as a result of these twin brutalities. The zone that the government established in the north-east of the country in the final months of its civil war was an area where savagery was organised on a daily basis. Civilians queueing at a food distribution centre would be shelled while President Mahinda Rajapaksa's office instructed the army to stop what it claimed it had not been doing. It was a no-journalist, no-aid-worker zone, but it was anything but a no-fire zone.

Two years on, the goal has to be to establish an independent inquiry into these events. The Sri Lankan government has consistently opposed the UN, and at one point organised demonstrations against UN staff in Colombo. It has established two ad hoc bodies, but no one has been held accountable. Its supporters claim that anything more trenchant would endanger the peace that has reigned on the island since. All of these arguments are self-serving.

That leaves the UN itself. The secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, claims he lacks the authority to order an inquiry into the mass killings without the consent of the Sri Lankan government, which is not a member of the international criminal court, or a decision by an appropriate international forum of member states. Human Rights Watch is right to disagree. Having fought to establish the panel, the UN secretary general has a responsibility to finish what he started.

© The Guardian

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A Canadian witness to shelling in Sri Lanka civil war

Stewart Bell | National Post
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She was in a bunker on a desolate beach in Sri Lanka’s war zone when a shell exploded 100 metres away. A hunk of shrapnel tore through her tarpaulin tent and struck her in the chest.

A Canadian, she sometimes thought about how her family would take it if she died. But she got lucky. By the time the shell fragment hit her, it had lost its force. It burnt away her skin but otherwise she was alright.

“Every life is precious and that is why I really hope that no more lives are taken away in a war,” the Canadian told the National Post. (She asked that her name not be published due to fears about the safety of her family.)

A United Nations report has corroborated her account of wanton shelling during the final stages of the civil war in Sri Lanka, where she got trapped by fighting and survived for months until making her escape.

The report by a UN panel says there are credible allegations the Sri Lankan military used “large-scale and widespread shelling” between September 2008 and May 2009, causing “large numbers of civilian deaths.”

It says government forces shelled “on a large scale” in the no fire zones that had been demarked for civilians fleeing the fighting — and where the Canadian had her close brush with a shell on May 4, 2009.

According to the report, the government shelled the UN, food distribution lines and hospitals. “Most civilian casualties in the final phases of the war were caused by government shelling,” the report says.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ordered the controversial study last year. He appointed a panel of experts to look into whether war crimes were committed at the end of the Sri Lankan conflict.

The panel’s 196-page report, made public Monday, concludes that, despite the government’s claim it adhered to a “zero human casualty” policy, Sri Lankan forces may have violated international law.

The government not only shelled civilians, the report says, it also denied humanitarian aid to those caught in the war zone, detained survivors in overcrowded camps and silenced the media and critics with threats, abductions and killings.

For their part, the LTTE rebels used civilians as human shields, shot those who tried to flee, fired heavy weapons from civilian areas, recruited children, made civilians dig trenches and killed civilians in suicide attacks, the report says.

“Even when civilian casualties rose significantly the LTTE refused to let people leave, hoping that the worsening situation would provoke an international intervention and a halt to the fighting,” it says.

The government, which did not cooperate with the investigation, has denied the allegations. But the Canadian said the UN got it right. She said she was among hundreds of thousands of civilians who made their way to the no fire zones only to face daily shelling.

She said she helped out at a hospital.

“Every day, every minute, volunteers would bring in truckloads of bodies, some injured, some dead. I was in the admission area initially trying to attend to their first-aid needs and later in the theatre. Deaths were to be reported in a book but sometimes it was too many, we would not even have the time to write down the name of the dead in the hospital registry book.

“Children as young as four months were brought in. Mothers with fractured limbs, head wounds, bullet wounds from bullets flying from the frontline, which was only a kilometre away,” she said. “Even at the hospital, shells were continuously fired.

“We lied down inside the theatre room or admission room, wherever we were, hoping that the shrapnel pieces wouldn’t hit us. Many civilians who were already wounded were wounded again in the shelling inside the hospital premises. Doctors were killed while attending to patients.”

The woman said she hoped the UN report would not be shelved. “I just hope that the report is not another eyewash by the international community and I really hope that something constructive will be done for the reconciliation of these people.”

© National Post

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UN feared for staff amid Sri Lanka conflict: Ban

Photo courtesy: UN News & Media

AFP | Yahoo! News
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The United Nations feared for its staff in Sri Lanka as government troops crushed a Tamil separatist uprising in 2009, UN chief Ban Ki-moon has said defending the actions of UN agencies.

As pressure grew for an international investigation into the killing of "tens of thousands" in the conflict's brutal finale, Ban was asked why the United Nations had played down casualty figures at the time.

The UN secretary general indicated that the global body could not have known the true number of dead in 2009 because staff had been withdrawn after the Sri Lankan government refused to guarantee their safety.

A UN panel this week said the Sri Lankan army and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam guerillas may have committed war crimes in the conflict. But the three member panel also said the UN should investigate the actions of its own officials and agencies.

They said that the UN could have saved lives by putting more pressure on the government by highlighting the true number of dead.

Ban has agreed to the review. But he said: "At the time, the security situation was very precarious at the last stage of the crisis.

"And we were told by the Sri Lankan government, as I understand and remember, that the Sri Lankan government would not be able to ensure the safety and security of United Nations' missions there."

"We were compelled to take the necessary action according to their advice," he added.

The UN panel said the Sri Lanka military killed most of the tens of thousands of civilian victims of the offensive when it shelled Tamil territory between January and May of 2009.

It concluded that "tens of thousands" died and both sides may be guilty of war crimes as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam had used civilians as a "human buffer" and shot people who tried to escape.

The United Nations is still waiting to hear an official response from Sri Lanka to the UN report which called on the Colombo government to set up a "genuine" investigation into the conflict.

Before the release of the report on Monday, the government had attacked the panel as "bias" and called its report "preposterous."

Ban has said he cannot order an international investigation unless Sri Lanka agrees or if an inter-government body such as the UN Security Council or General Assembly requests it.

He called on all nations to carefully read the report and added that if a mandate was secured "then I would be prepared to take the necessary actions" to set an investigation underway.

UN human rights chief Navi Pillay said earlier than an international inquiry was desperately needed.

"The eyewitness accounts and credible information contained in this report demand a full, impartial, independent and transparent investigation," said the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

"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 added.

The United States, which has taken a tough line on Sri Lanka over the conflict, also welcomed the panel's recommendations.

The report "makes a valuable contribution to next steps that should be taken in support of justice, accountability, human rights, and reconciliation in Sri Lanka," said the US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice.

Rice said there has to be "an independent and full accounting of the facts in order to ensure that allegations of abuse are addressed and impunity for human rights violations is avoided."

© Yahoo! News

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UN must act now on Sri Lanka war crimes report - Amnesty

Amnesty International
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A United Nations report on war crimes committed during the final stages of Sri Lanka’s civil war underscores the need for international accountability for those responsible, Amnesty International said on Tuesday (26).

The report, which was made public today, concluded that tens of thousands of civilians were killed in northern Sri Lanka from January to May 2009 and that the Sri Lankan Government knowingly shelled areas where it had encouraged civilians to gather.

The report gives credibility to allegations that both the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) committed serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law.

“Almost two years after the end of the conflict, this UN report finally exposes the Sri Lankan government’s whitewash in its efforts to deny justice to the war’s victims,” said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific Director.

“UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon must ensure that the UN established a commission of inquiry to collect evidence on the alleged crimes by both sides, to determine who did what to whom, and to recommend next steps for bringing suspected perpetrators to justice in a transparent and timely manner.”

The report also adds weight to other allegations made since the conflict ended.

These include claims that the Sri Lankan government deliberately underestimated the number of civilians remaining in the conflict zone and systematically deprived them of humanitarian aid, including food and medical supplies.

The LTTE recruited child soldiers, held civilians hostage, using them as human shields, and shot people who attempted to escape, the UN panel found.

“Eyewitness accounts by survivors of the final months of fighting paint a very grim picture,” said Sam Zarifi.

“They lived in profound fear, suffering injuries and loss of life, and were deprived of food, water and medical care. Many of those who finally escaped the conflict zone were detained by the army in miserable conditions; some remain in detention without trial two years later. How can we deny them justice now?”

In a statement posted on a state news agency website on 21 April, the Sri Lankan government called on the UN not to release the report and rejected its findings.

China, Russia and other states that supported the Sri Lankan government’s campaign against the LTTE have blocked moves at the UN to consider alleged war crimes during the conflict, and joined Sri Lanka in opposing the establishment in June 2010 of the Panel of Experts that produced the report.

These states have looked to a Sri Lankan government-established Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission as a possible substitute for an international commission of inquiry into war crimes.

The UN report bolsters Amnesty International’s position that the national Commission is not impartial and has no mandate or will to investigate and prosecute the alleged crimes.

“It is time for the governments that have obstructed international scrutiny of the crimes to step aside now. The many other governments who have remained disturbingly silent must now come forward and demand justice for the conflict’s victims,” said Sam Zarifi.

Amnesty International also calls on the national authorities of other countries to exercise universal jurisdiction to investigate crimes identified in the report and to prosecute them in their national courts, where appropriate.

“An international inquiry, especially into the violations committed by the LTTE, will greatly help the process of reconciliation in Sri Lanka,” added Sam Zarifi.

© Amnesty International

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UN rights chief urges further investigations into reports of war crimes

UN News Centre
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The United Nations human rights chief today urged further investigations into the conduct of the final stages of the conflict in Sri Lanka after a UN panel into those events found there were credible reports that both Government forces and Tamil rebels had committed war crimes.

Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said she hoped that the “disturbing new information” in the report of the three-member panel – which was released yesterday by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon – “will shock the conscience of the international community into finally taking serious action.

“As the report itself says, addressing violations of international humanitarian or human rights law is not a matter of choice or policy; it is a duty under domestic and international law,” Ms. Pillay said, according to a press release issued by her office in Geneva.

The panel was set up to advise Mr. Ban on accountability issues relating to the final stages of the conflict, which ended in May 2009 when Government forces declared victory over the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Thousands of people died during the conflict, which raged on and off for three decades, and the fighting ended with large numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs), especially in the country’s north.

The panel found credible allegations of serious violations committed by the Government, including killing of civilians through widespread shelling and the denial of humanitarian assistance.

The credible allegations regarding the LTTE concerned numerous serious violations, including using civilians as a human buffer and killing civilians attempting to flee LTTE control.

The panel’s first recommendation is that the Sri Lankan Government should respond to the serious allegations by initiating an effective accountability process beginning with genuine investigations.

“The eyewitness accounts and credible information contained in this report demand a full, impartial, independent and transparent investigation,” Ms. Pillay said. “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.”

The High Commissioner noted that the panel found that the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission convened by the Sri Lankan Government was deeply flawed and did not satisfy the joint commitment of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Mr. Ban for an accountability process.

She urged the Government to implement a series of measures suggested by the panel, including: repealing the Emergency Regulations and modifying provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act; resolving outstanding cases of disappearances; and ensuring due process for the remaining LTTE detainees.

Ms. Pillay stressed that in the long term, “justice will be essential if there is to be true reconciliation after this terrible and divisive conflict.”

She added that she remains very concerned about the protection of witnesses and civil society activists, including journalists, in Sri Lanka, especially in the wake of “calls from certain elements for reprisals in light of the panel’s report.”

Mr. Ban announced yesterday that he is carefully reviewing the report’s conclusions and recommendations.

Speaking to reporters today after briefing Security Council members in a closed-door session, he said he hoped that the Sri Lankan Government would give the UN “a constructive response that points the way towards national reconciliation and peace.”

He stressed that the report was released “as a matter of transparency and accountability,” adding that he hoped UN Member States would study it closely.

The panel members were Marzuki Darusman of Indonesia (chair), Yasmin Sooka of South Africa and Steven Ratner of the United States. They began their work in September 2010.

© UN News Centre

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Reconciliation and accountability after the UN Panel’s report

Groundviews
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Asia Pacific Forum is a pan-Asian radio show broadcast every Monday night from 9-10pm on WBAI 99.5 FM in New York City and live on the web. WBAI is part of the Pacifica Foundation, a national radio network founded in 1946 with additional affiliates in Houston, Los Angeles, Berkeley, and Washington, D.C. Pacifica is a non-commercial, listener-sponsored network founded on a strong community role in each individual station.

On the day the report of the UN Secretary General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka was released, the founding Editor of Groundviews Sanjana Hattotuwa joined Matthew Russell Lee, the NY Bureau Chief of Inner City Press covering the United Nations for a 20 minute segment of the Asia Pacific Forum looking at the challenge of meaningfully addressing war crimes, accountability and reconciliation issues in Sri Lanka, for the State as well as the UN system.

© Groundviews

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Sri Lanka rejects U.N. war crimes report, calls it unofficial

C. Bryson Hull and Ranga Sirilal | Reuters
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Sri Lanka Tuesday rejected as baseless a report commissioned by the U.N. chief blaming it for thousands of civilian deaths at end of its civil war, and said is has the evidence to defend itself should the world body formally take up the accusations.

Monday, the United Nations published the findings of a three-member panel U.N. 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 U.N. report. It is a personal report. We totally reject it. If officially asked by the U.N. Security Council or any of the U.N. 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. Last week, External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris said the government would comment on the contents after the report was made public.

The report represents 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.

Probe seen unlikely

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 northeastern coast of the island.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has urged supporters to rally on May Day against the report and its findings, which the government says are taken from biased accusations made by rights groups and pro-Tiger members of the Tamil diaspora.

Because Sri Lanka is not a member of the International Criminal Court, the U.N. Security Council would have to vote to ask the Hague-based court to probe war crimes, since the government will not permit an investigation.

Russia and China, which both have veto power on the council, and India are opposed to formal Security Council involvement in Sri Lanka, diplomats told Reuters. Practically, that means there is little chance of an international investigation.

Many ordinary Sri Lankans are bemused at the push to investigate war crimes, now that the country is enjoying its first peace in almost 30 years.

"Who did what war crimes and at what time to me are side games quite frankly," a Western diplomat serving in Colombo told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Sri Lanka's 40-year history of state-sponsored rights violations, borne of the separatist war and 1971 and 1988-89 Marxist insurgencies that were put down at the cost of more than 100,000 lives, is what needs to be addressed, the diplomat said.

"What's more important is that there is a national discussion about these issues, and the president has the perfect opportunity, with clear skies for the next five years until he has another election," the diplomat said.

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UN report on war crimes: India to engage with Lanka

Express News Service | Indian Express
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With a UN panel claiming that the killing of people in the final stages of the Sri Lankan Army’s battle with the LTTE led to “war crimes”, India on Tuesday (26) said that the issues raised in the report need to be studied carefully and it intends to engage with the Sri Lankan government on these matters.

“The government has seen the report of the panel of experts appointed by the UN Secretary General to advise him on accountability-related issues in the context of the end of the armed conflict in Sri Lanka in May, 2009. The issues raised in the report need to be studied carefully. As a first step, we intend to engage with the government of Sri Lanka on the issues contained in the report,” the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement on Tuesday.

Saying that most of the civilians lost their lives during shelling by Sri Lankan troops in the final stages of the war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009, the UN panel estimated 40,000 people were killed in the conflict. “Most civilian casualties in the final phases of the war were caused by government shelling. The government systematically shelled hospitals on all fronts. The government systematically deprived people in conflict zone of humanitarian aid in the form of food and medical supplies, particularly surgical supplies, adding to their suffering,” said the report which was officially released on Monday in New York.

© Indian Express

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