Sri Lankan minority Tamil workers belonging to government affiliated plantation unions stage a token hunger strike against the UN war crimes report outside Colombo’s main railway station yesterday.
Sri Lanka has denounced allegations as biased, malicious and tending towards sensationalist “fiction”. The report released on April 25, 2011 had highlighted “credible allegations” that both the Sri Lankan army and Tamil Tiger rebels had been involved in violations that could amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity. The allegations referred to the final months of the government’s ultimately successful 2009 offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in which tens of thousands of civilians are estimated to have died.