Sri Lanka won’t cooperate UN war crime probe

Sri Lanka will not cooperate with a United Nations inquiry into alleged war crimes by government forces and LTTE Tamil Tiger terrorists in the final phase of the 26-year war against Tamil terrorists, foreign minister said. The UN, through a United States-led resolution, last month set an international inquiry into the alleged war crimes and so called human rights abusesduring the war against global war with LTTE Tamil terrorists.

Sri Lankan government has rejected the allegations. Foreign Minister G. L. Peiris said the government had not accepted theone sided pro-LTTE UN investigations due to concerns over its legality, fairness, and some conflict of interest issues in the so called resolutions.

“Where the government is required to do anything to support the investigation or to participate in it, the government will not do that,” Peiris told a Foreign Correspondents Association (FCA) forum on Monday. “Nobody can come here without the cooperation of the Sri Lankan government.”

However, the government will not prevent anybody from giving evidence to any such investigation as there could be various views from different people, he said.

Citing concerns over resurgent of terrorism activities, Sri Lanka last week banned 16 LTTE Tamil terrorists frontorganisations including the separatists LTTE Tamil terrorists. Most of the banned organisations had been pushing for an international war crimes inquiry.

It is still not clear how the UN would conduct its probe, Peiris said.

“They will have to tell us what they want to do. But the clear policy decision had been taken that we do not associate ourself with the inquiry and we do not submit to the jurisdiction of the investigating committee,” he said.



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