US, Sri Lanka Discuss Measures to Address Abuse Allegations
Sri Lanka’s foreign minister told visiting American diplomats on Tuesday about steps the island nation is taking to address allegations of human rights violations during its brutal, quarter century-long civil war.
Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera met with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Biswal and Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Tom Malinowski, who are visiting Sri Lanka on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Sri Lanka has faced criticism for failing to properly investigate alleged rights abuses amounting to war crimes during the final phase of the war that ended in 2009 when government forces defeated Tamil Tiger rebels, who had been fighting to carve out a separate state for ethnic minority Tamils.
A United Nations report has said up to 40,000 civilians may have been killed in the last month of the war. Rights groups and some governments have urged that an international investigation be undertaken, but Sri Lanka has resisted and instead says it would address the concerns through a domestic mechanism.
The U.S. has been in the forefront in demanding probes into the abuse allegations and the ties between the countries were strained over former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s reluctance to investigate the thousands of reported civilian deaths in the final months of the war.
But bilateral relations have improved since President Maithripala Sirisena was elected in January. To promote national reconciliation, Sirisena has started releasing private lands occupied by the military during the civil war in the northern region where civil raged.
The government has also started investigations into the killing of journalists and civilians by para-military groups, and some military officers have already been arrested in relation to this.
During the discussion with Biswal and Malinowski, Samarweera said he “outlined measures being taken to address concerns regarding alleged human rights violations including through independent domestic mechanisms.”
The U.S. sponsored a resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Council last year calling for an investigation into war crimes allegations, and a report from the probe was scheduled to be released in March, but that has been postponed until September.
A visit to Sri Lanka by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in May, the first such trip by a U.S. secretary of state in a decade, also has helped warm ties between the countries.
On Tuesday, Biswal said that since Kerry’s visit Sri Lanka made a “tremendous momentum of progress” toward good governance, combating corruption and promoting reconciliation and added that U.S. was ready to work closely with the new government.
Biswal is also scheduled to meet Sirisena and new prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe during the visit.
(AP / Pix by Reuters)
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Why is it always a person of Indian origin or an Indian is appointed to look into human rights violations in Sri Lanka?.Is it because the Indians know all about human rights violations which they have been guilty of for years. And are they going to look at all the human rights violations that the Barbarian Prabhakaran carried out during the war. Why are all the allegations pointed towards the Sri Lankan forces and nothing is mentioned about the violations by the LTTE. Who is going to be responsible for all the atrocities by the LTTE Barbarians for decades. I hope the current regime will have the balls to ask all these questions from these idiots who are in SRi Lanka probing in to our countries affairs. Unfortunately some of our political leaders will even sell the country for their personal gain and that is the sad situation in Sri Lanka now a days. If we do not watch out the LTTE will be in full force before too long and their is no MR to save us any more and I doubt MY3 or Ranil can do it because they are too afraid of what the west will have to say.
Why don’t USA fix their issues where the blacks are being shot by the police at every chance they get. Also it will be nice if the human rights council can do something about the abuse of children in India befeore they interfere with our internal affairs.
S fernando just proved exactly how ignorant he actually is regarding what went on the last few decades.