‘War crimes investigation is not a choice or policy but a duty’

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 April 2011, 05:33 GMT]
While the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon says it is not possible for him to institute an international inquiry into Sri Lanka’s war crimes as recommended by the advisory panel, unless Sri Lanka or any intergovernmental forum calls for it, the UN Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay on Tuesday urged for further international investigation. “As the report itself says, addressing violations of international humanitarian or human rights law is not a matter of choice or policy; it is a duty under domestic and international law,” she said adding that “The way this conflict was conducted, under the guise of fighting terrorism, challenged the very foundations of the rules of war and cost the lives of tens of thousands of civilians.”

“The eyewitness accounts and credible information contained in this report demand a full, impartial, independent and transparent investigation,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a news release from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva.

“Unless there is a sea-change in the Government’s response, which has so far been one of total denial and blanket impunity, a full-fledged international inquiry will clearly be needed,” she further said.

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