(New York) – The Sri Lankan army’s announcement that it had appointed a five-member court of inquiry to investigate allegations that its forces committed serious violations of the laws of war appears to be another government delaying tactic in the face of mounting international pressure, Human Rights Watch said today.
The United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva is expected to discuss at its next session a resolution on the lack of accountability for violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by government forces and the secessionist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam during the final months of their armed conflict, which ended in May 2009. The session begins February 27, 2012.
(Bangkok, 13 February 2012) The Sri Lankan government must make available the post-mortem report and the DNA test report of human rights defender, P. Razeek to the court, the family and the lawyer of Razeek’s family soonest possible, said the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA) that marked the second anniversary of the abduction and killing of P. Razeek. The group also expressed its disappointment and concerns that several individuals implicated in the case have yet to be investigated by the authorities to this date.
Your Excellency,
We write to urge your delegation to work with other member and observer states of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) to bring the issue of accountability for wartime abuses in Sri Lanka onto the agenda of the Council during its March 2012 session. Almost three years after the end of the military conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the government has not kept its commitments to the people of Sri Lanka, the UN Secretary-General, and the Human Rights Council to undertake credible measures to provide justice and accountability for the widespread and serious wartime abuses.