By Brian Lanciault
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka–Britain has joined the US and three other countries in pushing for a full international inquiry into alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka. The announcement came Sunday, after the Sri Lankan government failed to satisfy international calls for an inquiry.
In an announcement last November at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Colombo, David Cameron gave Sri Lanka four months to conduct “a credible, thorough inquiry” into crimes alleged to have been committed during Sri Lanka’s 26-year civil war.
The Prime Minister’s office said on Sunday that Sri Lanka had failed to fulfill the request. The UK had joined four other countries in tabling a motion at the UN Human Rights Council. The UK now fully supports the call by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for an international, independent investigation into violations of human rights and related crimes by both sides during the war.
A vote on the resolution is expected to take place at the end of this month.
A spokesperson for the PM added: “Ahead of the vote, we are working hard to secure support from other countries. The PM has personally written to a number of leaders whose countries are on the human rights council this session calling on them to support this resolution which would help to deliver progress on reconciliation and human rights in Sri Lanka.”
Sri Lanka has historically refused to allow the UN unrestricted access to former war zones.
The Sri Lankan army extinguished Tamil Tiger separatist forces in the final battle of a long civil war in 2009, in a strategy partly drawn up by President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s brother, the Defense Secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
About 300,000 civilians were trapped on a narrow beach during the onslaught and the UN panel has estimated that 40,000 non-combatants died. Although both sides are alleged to have committed atrocities, the panel concluded that army shelling killed most civilian victims.
Since the end of the war, harassment of government critics, including attacks on journalists and human rights workers have continued. A heavy army presence in the former Tamil Tiger strongholds in the north of the country angers contributes to tensions with local ethnic Tamils, who feel they are treated as enemies of the state.
On Sunday, UK Channel 4 News said it had obtained new evidence which it, and Tamil campaigners, have said demonstrated that an underlying culture of systematic brutality and sexual violence existed within the ranks of the Sri Lankan military.
The footage was reported to have been filmed by a soldier on a mobile phone, and was said to show troops laughing and cheering as they celebrated the deaths of Tamil insurgents. The footage also depicts the soldiers performing acts of grotesque sexual violation on the bodies.
Channel 4 News has continued to report on what it said was evidence, in the form of various pieces of footage, of the apparently systematic execution and sexual violation of prisoners.
The Sri Lankan government has claimed that the footage was doctored, manipulated, or falsified by Tamil insurgents dressed as government soldiers and speaking Sinhala, the language of the vast majority of government soldiers.
For more information, please see:
The Guardian–Britain joins call for UN to investigate alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka–9 March 2014
Australia Network News–Sri Lanka warns against UN war crimes inquiries–11 March 2014
Times Sri Lanka–Protests in Geneva for Sri Lanka war crimes probe–11 March 2014
Arab News–4,000 Tamils protest in Geneva for Sri Lanka war crimes probe–10 March 2014
UK 4 News–Sri Lanka: new video evidence of grotesque violations–9 March 2014
