Rights panel to advice UN on Sri Lanka

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon plans to setup a panel of experts to advise the world body on "accountability issues" relating to possible human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, Reuters reported quoting UN spokesperson Martin Nesirky.

In a telephone conversation with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Thursday, March 4, Ban informed he intended to "go ahead with the establishment of a panel of experts," Ban's spokesman Nesirky told Reuters.

"He also explained that such a panel would advise him, the secretary-general, on the way forward on accountability issues related to Sri Lanka," Nesirky said.

Rights groups and Western governments are pressing for some kind of accountability for thousands of civilian deaths in the last months of the island's 25-year war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which aimed to create a separate homeland for the island's Tamils.

Human rights groups have accused Sri Lanka of war crimes during the conflict's final phase and they have demanded an independent probe of the allegations, as has U.N. special rapporteur for extrajudicial executions Philip Alston.

Alston publicly urged Ban to appoint an international panel to investigate presumptive war crimes in Sri Lanka. These include the urging of LTTE leaders to emerge with white flags, after which they were executed. Ban's chief of staff, the Indian diplomat Vijay Nambiar, was a go between conveying the Rajapaksas' message that emerging with a white flag held high would ensure safety.

However, it is not clear if Ban's expert panel would go as far as human rights groups would like, reported Reuters. The concern arises due to Ban's past actions, or the lack of it,  in relation to Sri Lanka and the UN's failure to follow through even on what few commitments it made about Sri Lanka.

Following what even the UN called the "bloodbath on the beach," Ban visited Sri Lanka in May 2009 and issued a statement about reconciliation with the Tamils and accountability for war crimes. But in the months that followed he took no action.

Inner City Press reporting on Ban's inaction over Sri Lanka's activities during the war said "it is important to note that what Ban is belatedly doing about 30,000 deaths in the first half of 2009 is less and later than what he did for 160 deaths in Guinea in September."

Professor Francis Boyle, an expert in International Law, earlier noted that the UN Secretary General has the power to order and publish not only investigations into the violations of member countries in the conduct of war, but also the "entire role played by the United Nations Organization and its Officials," during the wars.

"The previous UN Secretary General Kofi Annan so ordered two separate investigations concerning the roles played by the United Nations during the genocides in Rwanda and Srebrenica, respectively," Boyle noted.

Observers have asserted, however, that ban on media and eviction of international NGOs from battle zones, while the slaughter was in progress, and for months after the conclusion of the battles, have provided enough space for the Sri Lanka Government to destroy material evidence from battle zones that can establish Sri Lanka's culpability in such crimes.

Spokesperson for the US-based pressure group, Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) said, "United Nations has a moral obligation to be more proactive in conducting investigations into war-crimes allegedly committed by member countries that are not signatories to the Rome statute. Non-signatory countries enjoy some level of protection, and options to obtain justice in International Criminal Court (ICC) for victims who suffered egregious rights violations by non-signatory member countries are limited, and available only if the Security Council initiates the investigation, or an "active" prosecutor exercises his proprio motu powers under Article 15 of Rome Statute. However, prosecutor Moreno Ocampo has, in a recent interview at the CNN, expressed reservations on using his own powers to investigate Sri Lanka.

"Non-signatory status does not create a positive right to commit jus cogens norms violations," TAG spokesperson added.