Sri Lanka: UN asks gov't to investigate itself

Chris Slee
March 25, 2012
Issue 
916
World

The United Nations Human Rights Council had passed a resolution calling for the Sri Lankan government to carry out the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission.

The LLRC was appointed by the Sri Lankan government to appease international concern over atrocities committed by the Sri Lankan Army during its war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The LLRC cleared Sri Lanka of war crimes and made limited recommendations to ease the plight of the Tamil people, who now live under military occupation. The government has been reluctant to carry out the recommendations, which include disbanding pro-government paramilitary groups and reducing the role of the army in civilian affairs.

The Human Rights Council (HRC) resolution, which was moved by the United States, also "requests" the government of Sri Lanka to investigate violations of international human rights law in Sri Lanka. Since the government was and remains the main perpetrator of such crimes, this amounts to asking the government to investigate itself. 

The proposal for an international investigations into war crimes in Sri Lanka, put forward by a panel of experts appointed by UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, was ignored in the HRC resolution.

Democracy
National liberation
Sri Lanka

Comments

ewilli14 replied on

LLRC is a joke. Some sri lankan politicians already think it is too much and should not be completed when every government and Amnesty International and other human rights organizations think it is not enough. and there will never be any investigation of crimes because if there is then the ruling sri lankan regime would then be exposed for its crimes also. It almost seems pointless. The world wants sri lankas hands cleaned in order to control the indian ocean. The only thing you can expect from the US and their lapdog the UN is ass kissing sri lanka for use of their sea ports and when things go wrong or sri lanka gets too close to china: "a need for investigations of alleged war crimes", that will never truly happen, to force sri lanka to their side again.

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