War crimes: no response to Northern Council’s demand

War crimes: no response to Northern Council’s demand -

 

 January 30, 2014 01:40 IST War crimes: no response to Northern Council’s demandMeera SrinivasanShare  ·   Comment(1)  ·  print  ·   TweetTOPICS World Sri Lanka unrest, conflicts and war Holding a probe would only cause chaos: officialTwo days after the Northern Provincial Council demanded an international inquiry into alleged war crimes, the Sri Lankan government has not responded to the resolution that goes against its own position on an outside investigation, but an official aide to President Mahinda Rajapaksa said in Washington that holding an international probe would only cause chaos.

Secretary to the President, Lalith Weeratunga, currently in the United States to lobby against a possibly strong resolution in Geneva, said the country needed at least five years – from the July 2012 date which the Sri Lankan government considers as the start of its reconciliation process – for the effort to take root, news agency Reuters has reported..

The report, published in the state-owned Daily News on Wednesday, quoted him as saying: “After 26 years of conflict ... we want to make it a sustainable peace. It's a very delicate, delicate process.”

Mr. Weeratunga said: “If there is an international investigation, the whole period has to be investigated - from the 1980s onward - which includes the two-year tenure of the Indian peacekeeping force, which will upset India, which will upset our relationship with India.”

Observers here say that by adopting the resolution, the NPC is being openly hostile to the Sri Lankan administration.

Speaking to The Hindu, Dayan Jayatilleka, a former Sri Lankan envoy to the U.N. in Geneva said the resolution did not present the Council as a pragmatic partner in the process of political resettlement. “The resolutions are not only premature, but dangerously polarising,” he said.

Keywords: Sri Lanka war crimes, war crimes probe demand, Northern Provincial Council, Lalith Weeratunga, Mahinda Rajapaksa

View comment(1)Post Comment RELATED NEWS “Resolution reflects people’s feelings”

 

January 29, 2014 Sri Lanka mass grave toll reaches 50January 28, 2014 US to press Sri Lanka again at UN rights council January 28, 2014 Sri Lanka’s Northern Council seeks international war crimes probeJanuary 27, 2014 More In: South Asia | International | News Tweet Comments(1)RecommendedPost a comment The resolution is not only polarizing and not conducive to
reconciliation, it is illegal, as Sri Lanka, like India, the US and
Israel, has not ratified the Rome ICC War Crimes Treaty, and therefore
the UN Security Council - not the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva -
must authorize a war crimes investigation and prosecution. China and
Russia will veto such action on the Security Council, so the US and
the UK really do not have any political power to make this happen.

And war crimes against a government fighting an internationally
declared terrorist group (LTTE) is a dicey proposition, as the
terrorists routinely commit war crimes by killing innocent civilians
and use civilians as human shields to attempt evade the military
consequences of their actions. This is not like two states fighting,
and one state fighting dirty by deliberately targeting civilians. The
Sri Lanka war is similar to the US War on Terror, in which killed a
lot of civilians to take out Al Qaeda terrorist leaders.from:  Metteyya Brahmana Posted on: Jan 30, 2014 at 08:22 IST                                       

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