US for open inquiry of Lanka war crimes charge

Last Updated: Friday, August 26, 2011, 20:35

Tags: Sri Lanka, emergency, , President Rajapaksa

US for open inquiry of Lanka war crimes charge

Washington: The US has described Sri Lanka's move to lift the long-imposed emergency in the country as a "positive" development, but demanded that Colombo initiate a transparent and accountable process of investigation into allegations of war crimes.

Sri Lanka announced yesterday, that it was lifting the state of emergency imposed nearly 30 years ago to confront the threat from the Tamil Tigers.

"We do welcome the news that Sri Lankan President (Mahinda) Rajapaksa has proposed to the parliament that the emergency laws be withdrawn, and we do see this as a positive step for the Sri Lankan people," State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters at her daily news conference

"We call on Sri Lanka to have a transparent, open, and accountable process," said the State Department spokesperson. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is dispatching Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake to Sri Lanka next week.

Nuland said the announcement by Rajapaksa sets up a good visit for Blake, who will be talking to a broad cross-section of Sri Lankans, both to the government and to human rights groups and NGOs.

"He'll meet with government officials, civil society representatives, university students, political leaders in Colombo, and he's also going to Jaffna," she said.

"We continue to urge the Government of Sri Lanka to meet its international humanitarian law and international human rights law obligations, and, we continue to say that if they cannot do this nationally, then the international community will have to step in. So Bob Blake will be talking about all these issues on his visit," Nuland said.

PTI

First Published: Friday, August 26, 2011, 15:53

Comments

Shiva - Canada
the failure to conduct an independent international war crimes and human rights abuses in sri lanka proves that the international community`s failure to deliver justice and accountability. these same leaders were crying against the ltte`s actions and banned it despite it was initially supported and trained by indian forces under visionary leaders mrs. indra gandhi and mgr as they felt that the sinhala leaders deny tamils` rights, equality and no rule of law. the ruthless ltte too committed crimes but it was defending tamils` rights, mitigating state terrorism and attacks by the sinhala apartheid army. but after the defeat of the ltte with the collaboration of current indian regime under italian sonia gandhi, the international community has shown their apartheid mindset to the tamils who are at the receiving end since the war ended in may 2009. hundreds of thousands on innocent tamils have been raped, tortured, murdered and simply disappeared. the rajapakse regime continues defy international law (r2p) and deny unrestricted access to media, journalists, ngos, human rights groups and diplomats to tamils areas to report independently. there is a culture of impunity and no history of any investigations or justice delivered to hundreds of thousands of crimes committed against tamils. shame on the international community!