IANS

Colombo

The Sri Lankan government yesterday said it has no faith in an international investigation into the alleged human rights abuses said to have occurred during the war in the country.

President Mahinda Rajapakse’s special envoy on human rights and government minister Mahinda Samarasinghe said that Sri Lanka feels an international investigation will lack credibility and will not be independent.

Samarasinghe was speaking to reporters after meeting some of the island’s leading Buddhist monks and briefing them on the latest developments in the country.

The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last month passed a resolution, calling for an international investigation in Sri Lanka over allegations that human rights abuses were committed during the war between Tamil Tiger rebels and the army.

UN Human Rights Council members also called on Sri Lanka to reduce the number of troops in the former war zones in the north in order to restore normalcy, five years after the war ended.

However, Samarasinghe said the decision to maintain troops on the ground in the north was justified following a clash between three former rebels and the army in the northern Vavuniya town.

A most wanted rebel member identified as Gobi and two others were killed following a confrontation with the army on Thursday.

The army said that an exchange of gun-fire had taken place when soldiers confronted Gobi and two other former rebels who were armed. All three were eventually killed. Samarasinghe said that even the UN Human Rights Council had been told there was a need to maintain troops in the North as there were reports the rebels was attempting to regroup, and the clash involving Gobi has now proven the government stand was
correct.

Last month, the United States had said Sri Lanka’s rights record was deteriorated even after the end of the 37-year-long Tamil separatist war in 2009, a charge made by international rights
organisations too.

“We agree with the resolution’s request for the Office of the High Commissioner to investigate alleged serious violations and abuses of human rights and related crimes by both parties to the conflict and to monitor the human rights situation in Sri Lanka, which has continued to deteriorate,” the White House had said in a
statement.

The resolution in March asked UN rights chief Navi Pillay to probe actions of both government forces and Tamil rebels during a seven year period leading up to the end of Sri Lanka’s separatist war.

About 40,000 ethnic Tamil civilians were said to have been killed by government forces in the final months of fighting, a charge Colombo denies.

Sri Lanka has also said it needs more time to ensure reconciliation between the ethnic Tamil minority and the majority Sinhalese community.

The resolution is expected to have little short-term impact on Mahinda Rajapakse’s regime and analysts say it may even boost his popularity among a nationalistic
electorate.

UN rights chief Pillay had told the UNHRC that it was crucial to recall the “magnitude and gravity” of the violations allegedly committed by both the government and the rebels, notorious for their suicide
bombings.

The 1972-2009 conflict claimed 100,000 lives, according to UN estimates.