Sri Lanka May Need Gaza-style Rights Inquiry: U.N

Saturday, October 24, 2009 at 12:03 pm

Sri Lanka May Need Gaza-style Rights Inquiry: U.N, An investigation similar to one that looked at the fighting in Gaza may be needed to determine whether war crimes were perpetrated in Sri Lanka in the final throes of his 26 years of war in the spring, a UN office said Friday . Sri Lanka May Need Gaza style Rights Inquiry: U.N

“There has been a full investigation into what did or did not happen in the last months of the war,” Rupert Colville, spokesman for the High Commissioner of United Nations Human Rights said.

He said an investigation into the conduct of the Sri Lankan troops and Tamil rebels could be done along the lines of research in Gaza, commissioned by the Human Rights Council and headed by jurist Richard Goldstone.

His comments came a day after the atrocities of the U.S. State Department detailed towards the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka.

That report described the allegations of military bombardment of civilians and the killing of prisoners and allegations that Tamil rebels recruited children to fight in the war officially declared in Colombo in May after killing the leader of the Tigers Liberation of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Sri Lanka rejected the report, stressed that Washington did not reach legal conclusions as “baseless and lacking corroborative evidence” and said that supporters of the Tamil Tigers had a history of fabricating stories to damage the reputation of the government.

Colville, told a press conference of the UN in Geneva, said that while the State Department’s findings are not exhaustive, it is important that a credible civilian population suffered as the conflict in Sri Lanka approached end.

“We still believe that something like the fact-finding mission to Gaza is certainly justified,” he said.

In late May, the Human Rights Council passed a resolution that commemorates the victory of Sri Lanka Tamils and blocked debate on a European text drawn increasing concerns about the conditions endured by survivors of war in camps in Sri Lanka .

Sri Lanka said the vote claimed his prosecution of the war against the Tamil Tigers and should silence the calls of an external probe into what he described as the country’s own affairs within the Indian Ocean.

But the United Nations – which estimates that 80,000 to 100,000 people died in Sri Lanka since civil war broke out in full in 1983 – then noted that the investigation could still go through the line.

The International Organization for Migration, said Friday that over 250,000 people can not return to their villages of Sri Lanka and staying in the displacement camp Manik Farm, where she continues to need food, water and medical help.

Sri Lanka May Need Gaza-style Rights Inquiry: U.N

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