SRI Lanka has slammed the United Nations over its plans to investigate alleged human rights abuses in the final months of the island’s civil war.
Government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella accused the UN of having a “hidden agenda” on Sri Lanka, where government troops finally wiped out separatist Tamil Tiger guerrillas last May after decades of ethnic bloodshed.
Mr Rambukwella said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s appointment of a panel to advise on any violations of international human rights in Sri Lanka was “an attempt to provide oxygen to the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam)”.
“The United Nations and its Secretary-General have revealed their hidden agenda in no uncertain terms,” Mr Rambukwella said in remarks posted on a government website.
Mr Ban’s latest move followed international pressure for a probe into allegations that thousands of ethnic Tamil civilians were killed by government troops in the military offensive that won the war.
UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said the panel would be chaired by Marzuki Darusman from Indonesia, the UN’s special envoy for North Korea, and hoped to complete its work in four months.
Mr Nesirky emphasised the group had a mostly consultative role, and that “primary responsibility for investigating rests with the authorities of Sri Lanka.”
The panel’s job is to advise Mr Ban on alleged violations of international rights and humanitarian laws during the war’s final stages. The panel aims to get cooperation from Sri Lankan officials and to complete its advisory work within four months.
The other two members are Yasmin Sooka, a South African former member of the commission that investigated apartheid atrocities, and Steven Ratner, an American lawyer and author of a book on the struggle among nations to hold people accountable for human rights abuses.
Specifically, Mr Ban said he is looking to the panel for an assessment of how well Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse has followed up on the commitment he made to human rights accountability when the UN chief visited in May 2009.
Human rights groups say the government is illegally detaining the war refugees who comprise the country’s minority Tamil population.
Aid groups say the camps are prone to disease, and they fear that monsoon rains expected in November-December will create a public health crisis.
Peggy Hicks, global advocacy director with Human Rights Watch, welcomed the panel, saying it had “long been abundantly clear that the Sri Lankan government is unwilling to seriously investigate wartime abuses”.
Sri Lankan authorities faced numerous allegations of war crimes during the fighting in early 2009 against Tamil rebels in the northeast of the island.
President Rajapakse had previously described the UN’s planned investigations as “unwarranted and uncalled for”.
A separate government official said appointing the former Indonesian attorney-general Mr Darusman as the head of the panel was “unfair” as he had previously had disagreements with Sri Lankan authorities.
Mr Darusman was a member of the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) which quit observing human rights investigations in Sri Lanka in April 2008 after clashing with the local administratio
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