Sri Lanka asks UN not to publish War Crimes Report

AFP | Sydney Morning Herald
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Sri Lanka asked the United Nations on Thursday (21) not to publish a forthcoming report on alleged war crimes during the island's ethnic war, saying it could set back reconciliation efforts.

Foreign Minister G. L. Peiris warned UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon about releasing the study compiled by a panel of experts who looked into alleged rights abuses and crimes against humanity during the war which ended in 2009.

"The publication of this report will cause irreparable damage to the reconciliation efforts of Sri Lanka. It will damage the UN system too," Peiris told reporters in Colombo. "This UN report is preposterous."

Peiris stressed that the government had never accepted Ban's appointment of the panel and warned him about initiating a full enquiry into suspected civilian deaths during the final stages of fighting.

He declined comment on the contents of the report, a copy of which was handed over to him nine days ago, even though parts of the 200-page document have been leaked in pro-government newspaper Island last weekend.

The UN has said it intends to make the report public some time this week.

"The consequences of publishing this report are far from favourable for the UN," Peiris warned. "It will undermine the principle of sovereign equality. A report as preposterous as this will inflict grave damage to the UN system."

Peiris also denied leaking the report, which recommends an enquiry into "credible allegations" of war crimes and crimes against humanity by both the government and the separatist Tamil rebels, according to the leaks.

It is said to state that "tens of thousands" of people died between January and May 2009 in the final government offensive that resulted in the defeat of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, ending a decades-old conflict.

It also listed alleged violations by the rebel forces, saying they had intentionally used civilians as human shields.

Peiris said Sri Lanka was ready to engage the UN in a construction discussion on taking the country's reconciliation process forward.

Sri Lanka's administration argues that no civilians were killed during its offensive against the Tigers.

The country has been fiercely criticised by international rights groups for failing to investigate deaths during the fighting.

President Mahinda Rajapakse has asked his supporters to turn this year's May Day rally into a demonstration against any UN war crimes investigation.

© Sydney Morning Herald

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Sri Lanka: Evidence of ongoing repression and abuse

Channel 4
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Two years on from the end of the devastating 26-year civil war that ripped Sri Lanka apart, Channel 4 News has obtained rare footage from inside the country's northern corner, formerly the Tamil stronghold.

This area has remained largely inaccessible since the end of the war and our footage was obtained by an independent source, who put their life at risk to film the material. The area remains under military control, and people still live in fear.

Tens of thousands of Tamils are still forced to live in makeshift camps and our film shows evidence and testimony of sytematic repression and the abuse of women.

War

Tens of thousands of civilians are believed to have died in the final few months of the Sri Lanka war, and many more were displaced.

Channel 4 News has also obtained documents which suggest that almost 100,000 people were unaccounted for at the end of the conflict.

Sri Lankan Government records show that, in 2008, 430,000 people were living in the northern area of Sri Lanka most affected by the civil war. After the chaos of the final few months of war, the Government moved civilians into camps - but UN figures mark only 290,000 held there. The whereabouts of the 100,000 or so remaining is unknown.

Many people are still searching for their families. Others want justice: including Dr Manoharan, who saw his son killed by security forces in 2006. He told Channel 4 News he had been searching for justice for his son, and all the other victims in Sri Lanka, ever since.

'War crimes' report

On Thursday, the UN will publish a report into the final months of the Sri Lanka war. The report, which has already been leaked, is expected to point to "crimes against humanity" which, if proven, suggest a "grave assault" on international law.

It will suggest that both the Sri Lankan Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE or Tamil Tigers) committed war crimes. The Government is accused of executions, rape and torture, as well as bombing civilians and hospitals, while the report suggests the Tamil Tigers used human shields and child soldiers.

The UN panel investigating the war also considered evidence submitted to them by Channel 4 News, in the form of an execution video which appeared to show clear evidence of war crimes.

The Sri Lankan Government has not responded fully to the report yet, but earlier branded it "fundamentally flawed".

Gordon Weiss, the UN spokesman in Sri Lanka during the Government's offensive against the Tamil Tigers in 2009, compared the war crimes claims to the infamous massacre of 7,000 men during the Bosnian war in 1995.

He told Channel 4 News: "This is Sri Lanka's Srebrenica moment, in fact it's a Srebrenica moment for the rest of the world."

© Channel 4

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'Forty thousand may have died' - UN

BBC Sinhala
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New disclosures about a United Nations (UN) report into the Sri Lankan civil war say it estimates that up to forty-thousand civilians were killed in the final phase of the conflict.

The figures were leaked by the Island newspaper and have since been confirmed by the UN.

"A number of credible sources have estimated that there could have been as many as 40,000 civilian deaths. Two years after the end of the war, there is still no reliable figure for civilian deaths, but multiple sources of information indicate that a range of up to 40,000 civilian deaths cannot be ruled out at this stage" says the report compiled by the UN expert pannel.

Indiscriminate shelling

The report accuses the Srilankan government forces of indiscriminate shelling causing civilian deaths and hindering of humanitarian assistance provided by ships of the International Red Cross (ICRC).

The report recommends a proper investigation which can lead to the identification of all of the victims and to the formulation of an accurate figure for the total number of civilian deaths.

The full report is expected to be published soon.

The Sri Lankan government, which was given a copy last week, has already rejected its findings.

© BBC Sinhala

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Sri Lanka opposition demands probe over UN report

AFP | Yahoo!! News
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Sri Lanka's main opposition party on Wednesday urged the government to respond to United Nations allegations of war crimes by launching an immediate official investigation.

The United National Party (UNP) demanded action over leaked parts of a UN report into alleged atrocities committed by Sri Lankan soldiers as the civil war against Tamil Tiger rebels came to an end in 2009.

The report, commissioned by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, is to be officially released this week.

Details printed in a Sri Lankan newspaper at the weekend said there were "credible" allegations that government forces committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in the final push to secure victory over the rebels.

"Sri Lanka's image has been tarnished by this report. The only way to redeem ourselves as a country is to go into the allegations," UNP spokesman Lakshman Kiriella told reporters in Colombo.

"We ask the government to start an immediate internal investigation."

Sri Lanka's administration argues that no civilians were killed during its offensive to beat the Tigers and end decades of warfare on the island.

President Mahinda Rajapakse has asked his supporters to turn this year's May Day rally into a demonstration against any war crimes investigation.

The UN report said allegations of attacks against civilians deserved serious examination and the prosecution of those responsible.

The Tiger rebels, who fought for an independent Tamil homeland, are also accused of using civilians as a human shield and killing those who tried to flee the war zone.

On Wednesday a court hearing into former army chief Sarath Fonseka, who led the campaign against the Tigers, was postponed ahead of the UN report's release.

Fonseka is facing charges over telling a newspaper editor that Rajapakse's brother ordered surrendering Tamil rebel leaders to be shot.

Fonseka quit the army and challenged Rajapakse at January 2010 presidential elections, but after losing the election he was arrested and jailed for 30 months. He faces several court cases.

© Yahoo! News

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UN report causes delay in trial of Sri Lanka's former army chief

Deutsche Presse Argentur | Monsters & Critics
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A UN report on Sri Lanka's civil war delayed the defamation trial Wednesday of the former army commander who had implicated the government in war crimes.

General Sarath Fonseka's lawyer sought the delay in order to study the report on the government's final military offensive against Tamil rebels two years ago.

'In view of the local and international ramifications the evidence may have, we have sought further time to give evidence. Accordingly the case was put off for May 4,' Nalin Ladduwahetti said.

Fonseka, who spearheaded the military campaign that defeated the rebels, is currently serving a 30-month jail term for following irregular purchasing procedures while serving as the Army commander.

He is currently on trial for comments made to a local newspaper in 2009 alleging that Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa had ordered the military not to spare any of the Tamil rebels even if they were surrendering.

Fonseka is charged with making false statements and arousing public anger at the government. Rajapaksa is the president's brother.

The report commissioned by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was handed over to the Sri Lankan government on April 12. Colombo was due to respond to the allegations on Thursday.

Parts of the report that have appeared in the media said the UN panel found credible allegations of a wide range of serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law by both the government forces and Tamil rebels.

The government has denied committing any war crimes during the conflict that ended with the defeat of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in May 2009.

The UN estimated that some 7,500 civilians died during the final phase of the conflict in the northern part of the country.

© Monsters & Critics

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Was the UN Report delayed at request of Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative?

By Matthew Russell Lee | Inner City Press
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The scanned portion of the UN Panel of Experts report on Sri Lanka war crimes leaked, presumptively by the government, to The Island newspaper has been obtained by Inner City Press and is being put online here.

It shows that the Panel's three members signed off on the report on March 31, 2011. Why was it only on April 12 that it was handed to Ban Ki-moon, who on April 13 gave it to Sri Lankan Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN General Shavendra Silva?

Inner City Press spoke both with Silva and with Permanent Representative Palitha Kohona on the evening of April 19, arriving uninvited at a reception at Kohona's residence. Despite statements by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesmen that the report would be released, Kohona argued that it should not be made available to the public.

Kohona emphasized, as it seems his government did to Ban Ki-moon, that because April 13 onward was a holiday in Sri Lanka, the UN should not release the full report. Kohona said that Monday was a lunar holiday, and the UN could not release the report - giving a new meaning to Ban Ki-MOON.

Those days were used to leak portions of the report to The Island newspaper, with President Mahinda Rajapaksa calling for mass protests against the UN report on May 1.

At Kohona's reception, the Permanent Representative of Egypt - Maged Abdelaziz, the same one as under Hosni Mubarak - arrived and chatted with Silva and Kohona, Egypt, as head of the Non Aligned Movement, pressured Ban Ki-moon against any real investigation of war crimes in Sri Lanka.

Abdelaziz left early, as did Inner City Press. Silva said he had two other events to attend - part of a campaign about and against the Panel of Experts report.

© Inner City Press

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U.N. panel: Sri Lankan government attacked civilians

By the CNN Wire Staff | CNN
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A United Nations panel investigating alleged war crimes in the Sri Lankan conflict has found credible evidence that the military shelled civilians in no-fire zones and sought to silence critics in brutal fashion, according to the panel's report, leaked to a Sri Lankan newspaper.

The report contradicts claims by the Sri Lankan government that it adopted a policy of "zero civilian casualties" in the final stages of its bloody 25-year battle with the Tamil rebels.

"The government shelled on a large scale in three consecutive no-fire zones, where it had encouraged the civilian population to concentrate, even after indicating that it would cease the use of heavy weapons," according to the report, published last week on the website of the newspaper, The Island.

"It shelled the United Nations hub, food distribution lines and near the International Committee of the Red Cross ships that were coming to pick up the wounded and their relatives from the beaches. It shelled in spite of its knowledge of the impact. ... Most civilian casualties in the final phases of the war were caused by government shelling."

The Sri Lankan government denounced the report as "fundamentally flawed."

A statement from the Ministry of External Affairs said that "among other deficiencies, the report is based on patently biased material, which is presented without any verification."

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has said he will turn a planned May Day rally into a protest against the United Nations.

U.N. officials would not comment on the leaked report, but spokesman Farhan Haq said the published portions are accurate.

"They are incomplete, they're certainly not the full report, but they are accurate renditions of things that appear in the text," he said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed the three-member panel last year to advise him on accountability issues relating to alleged human rights violations during the final stages of the Sri Lankan war, which ended in May 2009.

The panel found both sides accountable for serious war crimes.

The report says the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who fought fiercely to secure an independent state for minority Tamils, "refused civilians permission to leave, using them as hostages, at times even using their presence as a strategic human buffer between themselves and the advancing Sri Lanka army.

"All of this was done in a quest to pursue a war that was clearly lost; many civilians were sacrificed on the altar of the LTTE cause and its efforts to preserve its senior leadership," the report says.

The government, the report says, "systematically shelled hospitals on the frontlines."

It also "systematically deprived people in the conflict zone of humanitarian aid, in the form of food and medical supplies, particularly surgical supplies, adding to their suffering. To this end, it purposely underestimated the number of civilians who remained in the conflict zone. Tens of thousands lost their lives from January to May 2009, many of whom died anonymously in the carnage of the final few days."

The report also is critical of government soldiers' screening of civilians in their hunt for rebels. Sometimes, it says, those who were singled out as suspects were summarily executed.

"If proven, those most responsible, including Sri Lanka Army commanders and senior government officials, as well as military and civilian LTTE leaders, would bear criminal liability for international crimes," the report says.

Sri Lanka's long and bloody conflict devastated nearly two-thirds of the population in its northern and eastern provinces. As many as 70,000 people were killed.

© CNN

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Tamil man, returned from overseas, found murdered

Sri Lanka Mirror
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A Tamil man, believed to have returned home recently from overseas, has been found murdered at Punnalaikattuwan.

His body was found at a tobacco cultivation near a high security zone yesterday (Apr. 17).

A passport discovered near the body points to the deceased being 42-year-old Chaithyalingam Selvaganeshan of Urumpirai North.

Authorities are investigating to find out the perpetrators of the crime.

© Sri Lanka Mirror

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India must take position on Lanka's war crimes: rights group

PTI | Deccan Herald
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Following allegations of war crimes against the Sri Lankan government, a top human rights expert has said that India needs to make public its position on the issue.

"India will have to take a public position," Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director of Human Rights Watch, told PTI. Ganguly added that if India wanted to emerge as a leader on the global stage then the country's leadership would have to show its intention of "protecting the rights of people over government."

An independent panel of experts, which submitted its report to the UN, has found "credible allegations" of crimes against humanity and war crimes against the Sri Lankan government and the rebel Tamil Tigers.

The excerpts leaked to Sri Lanka's 'Island' newspaper, said that "the panel found credible allegations, which if proven, indicate that a wide range of serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law were committed both by the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE, some of which would amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity".

The Sri Lankan government has rejected the report as "fundamentally flawed" and "based on patently biased material, which is presented without any verification".

If calls for accountability grow, observers have noted that the Indian government would probably discuss the issue privately with the Sri Lankan government. India's position on human rights has come under increasing scrutiny as New Delhi hopes to get a permanent seat in the Security Council.

Recently India, which is currently a non-permanent member on the Council, voted for the first round of sanctions against Muammar Gaddafi but it abstained on the resolution authorising use of force.

Ganguly noted that India had played a positive role in dealing with the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East but said it wasn't enough to address human rights situations in a "middle ground way".

"There are people in Tamil Nadu who also care about it (India's position on the Lankan war crimes)," she said.

© Deccan Herald

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Sri Lanka "war crimes" is "Srebrenica moment"

Channel 4 News
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The former UN spokesman in Sri Lanka Gordon Weiss tells Channel 4 News that a leaked UN report into "credible allegations" of war crimes represent Sri Lanka's "Srebrenica moment".

A leaked United Nations report estimates that tens of thousands of civilians were killed during the fighting between Sri Lankan forces and the LTTE - known as the Tamil Tigers in 2009.

The document cites "credible allegations" that government forces deliberately shelled civilians and repeatedly targeted hospitals. If proven, the allegations amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The Tamil Tigers are also heavily criticised by the three member panel, and stand accused of forcing civilians to remain in the conflict zone and using them as hostages and human shields.

Gordon Weiss, the UN spokesman in Sri Lanka during the government's offensive against the LTTE in 2009, compared the war crimes claims to the infamous massacre of 7,000 men during the Bosnian war in 1995.

He told Channel 4 News: "This is Sri Lanka's Srebrenica moment, in fact it's a Srebrenica moment for the rest of the world."

The UN is also criticised in the reporting for failing "to take actions that might have protected civilians." The panel says casualty figures collected by the UN should have been made public at the time.

Releasing the figures "would have strengthened the call for the protection of civilians while those events ...were unfolding" the panel concludes.

But conditions for aid agencies and UN officials on the ground were difficult.

Weiss told Channel 4 News they were at the "hard edge of humanitarian work" and were prevented from reaching the area by the Sri Lankan government. There "no foreign observers there to observe what was happening", Weiss said.

Weiss, who left the UN to write a book on Sri Lanka's civil war said he was "part of that structure" and "I bare my portion of the responsibility and blame for that."

He said that culpability rested on a "a fairly narrow range of senior leaders in Sri Lanka".

The Sri Lankan government, who received a copy of the report, said they found the report "fundamentally flawed in many respects" and that it was based on biased material.

In a statement on their website the Sri Lankan government said that it will respond in due course.

Weiss said however that he thinks ultimately there will be a war crimes tribunal:

"I think it will be very difficult for any of the great powers to ignore now what went on in Sri Lanka.

"It may well have been swept under the carpet, but this panel report has reversed the tide and I think we will see action.

"I believe we will eventually see a war crime process."

The civil war, which lasted 26 years, officially finished in the summer of 2009 when the government forces pushed the LTTE forces into northern Sri Lanka and defeated them within an area designated the "no-fire zone".

Hundreds of thousands of civilians were trapped in the fighting and it's estimated that between 20,000 to 40,000 were killed.

In August 2009 Channel 4 News received a video showing naked, bound men being executed with a shot to the back of the head by two men who appear to be Soldiers.

The Sri Lankan government said the video was a fake, but in January 2010, a UN investigation said the video "appeared authentic". Following pressure from human rights groups and western governments the UN setup a panel into the end of the war.

He said: "I believe any inquiry will be narrowing on the circle of people around the Rajapaska family in Sri Lanka, who were ultimately responsible for driving and steering the decisions over this offensive."

© Channel 4 News

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