(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Sri Lanka promised yesterday to punish those found guilty of war crimes but stopped short of supporting an internationally backed probe, a day after a damning UN report on abuses committed during the island's conflict.
Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera said the government would work with the international community to ensure accountability and reconciliation following the island's separatist war, which ended in 2009.
But Samaraweera did not commit to the UN's key recommendation to allow international experts to assist its domestic investigation, saying more discussions were needed with stake holders.
He said the government would establish its own "credible, domestic mechanism" within 18 months to probe allegations in the UN report.
"We have a well crafted and a sober report," Samaraweera said. "It is now up to us to investigate and ensure justice is rolled out."
"Whoever is responsible, if proved, we will punish them without considering their rank or position," Samaraweera told reporters in Colombo. "By doing that we can protect the good name of the army."
Releasing the long-awaited report on Wednesday, UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said Sri Lanka needed international help to address the "horrific level of violations and abuses" during the decades-long war.
President Maithripala Sirisena came to power in January promising reconciliation between majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils and accountability for atrocities in the conflict, in which 100,000 people died before the Tamil Tigers were crushed.
Colombo, which is planning a series of measures to achieve reconciliation including the creation of a truth commission, had been hoping to win the UN's backing for a domestic probe.
Sri Lanka's main Tamil party welcomed the UN report and urged Colombo to implement it.
In a statement, the Tamil National Alliance admitted there had been "unspeakable crimes committed in our name", but said the party was keen to support reconciliation.
A prospective court charged with investigating alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka should be led by an international chief prosecutor and contain mostly foreign judges, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said yesterday.
Sri Lanka's new unity government has promised drastic reforms to achieve accountability but had still been hoping to win backing for a strictly domestic probe.
While the UN envoy said it was vital international judges and lawyers play a role in a Sri Lankan war crimes tribunal, HRW went further in calling for the court to effectively be controlled by non-Sri Lankans.
The tribunal "should contain a majority of international judges and have an international chief prosecutor to best insulate the court from improper political and other interference," the New York-based rights group said in a statement.
There should also be independent Sri Lankan investigators, prosecutors, defence lawyers and witness protection specialists, HRW further said.
Zeid's demand for a so-called "hybrid court" was part of a long-awaited report that documented massive rights violations on both sides during Colombo's 37-year guerrilla war against ethnic Tamil independence fighters which ended in 2009.Sri Lanka's civil war ended when government troops defeated Tamil separatist rebels in 2009, but the UN report covered the period from 2002 to 2011.
The United Nations yesterday detailed horrific abuses committed in Sri Lanka's civil war, including the disappearance of tens of thousands of people, and said the country needed international help to probe war crimes and enable reconciliation.
"A purely domestic court procedure will simply not succeed in overcoming the widespread and justifiable suspicions fuelled by decades of violations, malpractice and broken promises," UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein told reporters in Geneva.
The country, he said, needed international assistance to address "horrific" abuses during and following Sri Lanka's 26-year civil war, revealed in a long-awaited report.
The UN report identified patterns of grave violations "strongly indicating that war crimes and crimes against humanity" had been committed by both sides.
Among other abuses, it found that tens of thousands of Sri Lankans remained missing after decades of conflict, suggesting enforced disappearances were part of a systematic policy.
The government, which is planning various measures to ensure reconciliation including the creation of a truth commission, had been hoping to win UN backing for a domestic probe.
But while acknowledging the positive steps taken by the new government, Wednesday's report concluded that Sri Lanka's justice system "is not yet ready or equipped" to conduct a credible investigation.
Zeid said the change in tone from the new government provided hope that "truly fundamental change" was possible.
But he warned that "years of denials and cover-ups, ... stalled investigations and reprisals against the family members of victims" had taken their toll.
Sandya Eknaligoda, who testified to the UN panel about her husband's disappearance during the conflict, told AFP in Geneva that all domestic efforts to end impunity had "failed".
"The aim of my struggle all along has been about two things: to find the truth and bring the perpetrators to justice," she said, adding that it was "very important" the international community be involved in future war-related trials.
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