Sri Lanka assured the visiting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein yesterday that it would adhere to its commitments on human rights and probe war crimes during the final phases of the civil conflict that ended seven years ago.
The assurance came during separate meetings between Zeid, President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on a four-day visit to the country.
“I have heard fears that the government may be wavering on its human rights commitments. I was therefore reassured this morning to hear both the president and the prime minister state their firm conviction in this regard,” Zeid told a news conference.
The concerns have been raised mainly by minority Tamils in northern Sri Lanka and the political parties representing them.
The UN passed a resolution in September last year to set up an independent judicial mechanism to investigate the allegations under international humanitarian law, while Sri Lanka has promised to have its own mechanism with local judges.
Zeid warned however that “it will have no effect if the victims feel that justice is not done.”
Former president Mahinda Rajapakse and his loyalists are campaigning against a war crimes probe by foreign judges as they say it will affect the soldiers who defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels to end the conflict in 2009.
Zeid said Sri Lanka had come a long way since this time last year, when former president Rajapakse was ousted after a decade in power.
But he said opinions differed about the extent of the progress, with police in some areas still resorting to “violence and excessive force” and new cases of torture continuing to emerge.
Zeid urged the country’s armed forces to face up to the “stain on their reputation” by addressing war crimes allegedly committed during the 37-year ethnic conflict that ended in 2009.
“Sri Lanka must confront and defeat the demons of its past. It must create institutions that work, and ensure accountability,” said Zeid.
“It must seize the great opportunity it currently has to provide all its people with truth, justice, security and prosperity.”
He is due to deliver two assessments to the Council in June and March 2017.
The UN report in September described horrific wartime atrocities committed by both the government-backed military and Tamil Tiger rebels during the conflict which claimed at least 100,000 lives.
At that time Zeid called for courts involving international judges to investigate the atrocities to help ensure accountability.
Yesterday the rights chief said he had made that recommendation because of decades of judicial failures, but that the process must be decided by Sri Lankans themselves.
“There is no invitation for international jurisdiction and all of this will have to be done step by step,” he said. “It is going to be a Sri Lankan process.”
Sri Lanka’s new government has opposed the inclusion of foreign judges, but has agreed to a domestic investigation into allegations that troops killed at least 40,000 ethnic Tamils.  
By contrast, the previous regime had resisted calls for any investigation, maintaining that not a single civilian had been killed by troops under its
command.