Sri Lankan ministers react angrily to UN report

Apr 26, 2011, 9:42 GMT

Colombo – Sri Lankan ministers on Tuesday responded angrily to a United Nations report which said there were credible reports of war crimes committed by both the government and Tamil rebels during the final stages of the civil war two years ago.

The reactions came as the UN made the report public on Monday and called for 'genuine investigations into the allegations.'

Minister of Human Resources D E W Gunasekara said in a statement that the UN report consisted of allegations which could not be proved and information provided by defeated pro-Tamil rebel groups.

'The report should be disregarded and is a setback to the reconciliation process,' said the minister who represents the Communist Party.

Minister of Foreign Employment Dilan Perera said that the UN report was not acceptable and contained false allegations.

Deputy Minister of Economic Development Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena said the government hoped to continue an international campaign to prevent the UN recommendations being implemented.

'The military did not deliberately target civilians during the final phase of the military operations,' he said.

'This report gives strength to the campaign carried out by the Tamil Diaspora,' he said.

A UN statement said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was carefully reviewing the report's conclusions and recommendations. These include 'a number of allegations of serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law' by both sides. It added that some of them 'would amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.'

The Sri Lankan government had urged the UN not to make the report public, but the UN said the report was being released as a 'matter of transparency and in the broader public interest.'

The government is yet to officially react to the UN decision to publish the report, but government politicians and the state-run media have been openly campaigning against it.

During the final stages of the 26-year civil war over 300,000 civilians were confined to a narrow area in the north-eastern part of Sri Lanka where the rebels were fighting.

As the military cornered the Tamil rebels, civilians started fleeing into military controlled areas.

The fighting ended in May 2009 after the entire rebel leadership, including its head Velupillai Prabhakaran, was killed.

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