Lanka to resist US war crimes move

AFP/Colombo

Supporters of Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse pray during a ceremony to bless the nation and Rajapakse in Colombo

Sri Lanka yesterday dismissed as “ill-timed and ill-conceived” a US move at the UN Human Rights Council to censure Colombo over alleged crimes against humanity in the final phase of its separatist war. Water Supply Minister Dinesh Gunawardena said Sri Lanka was confident of defeating the three-point resolution at the UNHRC sessions in Geneva urging the island to probe alleged war crimes. “This resolution is ill-timed, ill-conceived and borne out of ignorance,” Gunawardena, who is also the chief government whip in parliament, told reporters. He accused the US of ignoring Sri Lanka’s reconciliation moves. Sri Lanka has faced strong international criticism over the bloody finale of its separatist war in 2009 but has avoided censure at previous UN meetings thanks to support from China and Russia. The US resolution, urges Sri Lanka to ensure “justice, equity, accountability and reconciliation” and says Colombo’s own probe, the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, did not adequately address concerns. The Sri Lankan government initiated nationwide demonstrations last month to coincide with the opening of the UNHRC sessions and denounced Washington for leading international calls for a war crimes probe. Rights groups say up to 40,000 civilians perished in the final months of Colombo’s military campaign to crush the Tamil Tigers, who waged a bloody decades-long campaign for a separate homeland for minority Tamils. The UN estimates some 100,000 people died during Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict between 1972 and 2009. A Catholic bishop and 30 priests have written a letter to the United Nations and Sri Lanka’s president to call for an inquiry into war crimes, the Catholic news agency Misna reported yesterday. The letter to President Mahinda Rajapakse and the UN Human Rights Council was signed by Joseph Rayappu, the bishop of Jaffna in northern Sri Lanka who is already well known for his campaigning for the rights of ethnic Tamils. “Only an independent international organism can help us find the path to true reconciliation,” the signatories said, criticising the work of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) set up by the government in 2010. The LLRC “has identified well the crimes carried out by the Tamil Tigers but has failed to treat important issues... even though it has collected evidence and testimonies” on crimes carried out by the armed forces, the letter said. The UN estimates that around 7,000 Tamil civilians were killed in the last months of a civil war that it says killed up to 100,000 people since 1972.