Agencies
Colombo
Leader of Sri Lanka’s main Tamil party, Tamil National Alliance (TNA), MP R. Sampanthan has said that the party can take an official stand on the latest US policy of supporting Sri Lanka to institute a domestic mechanism to investigate the alleged war crimes, only after reading the report of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
Indicating a major shift in policy towards Sri Lanka, the US last week expressed support to the new government of Sri Lanka to conduct its own domestic probe into the alleged war crimes, the ColomboPage online newspaper reported.
According to Sampanthan, the US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Nisha Biswal’s declaration in Colombo last week that the US will support a domestic mechanism, did not signify departure from the previous policy, Express News reported.
“The US has always talked about a domestic investigation and an international investigation,” he said.
The OHCHR report is expected to be presented to the Sri Lankan government soon for its comments and the report will be submitted on September 30 to the UNHRC at its 30th session in Geneva from September 14 - October 2.
If the report is hard hitting, the TNA could press for a full-fledged international investigation or a stricter international monitoring of any domestic Lankan inquiry mechanism. The US itself has said that its resolution on Lanka will take into account the findings and recommendations of the OHCHR report.
The TNA leader has said that the party is willing to give the new Lankan government under President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, a chance to move away from the intransigence of the earlier Mahinda Rajapaksa regime.
Sampanthan has recalled that in Rajapaksa’s time, inquiry commissions would be set up and foreign monitors appointed, but only to be rendered ineffective.
