The United States and other governments must move without further delay toward an independent international investigation into mass atrocities during Sri Lanka’s armed conflict, and desist from lending credibility to Sri Lanka’s sham domestic investigation, Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) said in a statement Monday.
Pointing out that leading international human rights organisations have comprehensively discredited Sri Lanka’s government-appointed Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Committee (LLRC), TAG said comments by US officials on expectations of the LLRC’s report merely contributed to Colombo’s “duplicitous effort to deflect international scrutiny [of mass atrocities].”
See the full statement here.
In a report on the LLRC published last week Amnesty International said it was inherently “flawed at every level: in mandate, composition and practice.”
Amnesty’s report echoes similar criticisms by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the International Crisis Group (ICG). In 2010, all three organisations cited in detail the LLRC’s flaws when they refused Sri Lanka’s invitation to appear before it.
However, ahead of US Assistant Secretary Robert Blake’s visit to Sri Lanka this week, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said of the LLRC’s report: "Our first goal is to ensure that it is a good, strong, credible report that can take Sri Lanka forward."
Echoing TAG’s criticisms, Human Rights Watch said in August:
“The [Sri Lankan] government is not just unwilling to uncover the truth, it appears afraid of the truth.
“It’s hard to understand why governments would believe the [Sri Lanka] has any intention of prosecuting the war crimes from the last months of the conflict.”
