GENEVA – UN human rights chief Navi Pillay supports growing calls for an inquiry in Sri Lanka’s war zone that remains closed to most outsiders and aid, her spokesman said yesterday.
Rupert Colville told reporters in Geneva that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights agreed with the EU and activist groups that international scrutiny was needed of the conflict that has pushed the Indian Ocean island into a humanitarian crisis.
“We agree that something of that sort is now essential. There has to be accountability for what has gone on in Sri Lanka, there has to be clarity, there cannot be impunity,” he said.
A draft statement prepared for EU foreign ministers to consider on Monday said the 27-nation bloc was appalled by reports that large numbers of civilians, including children, have been killed in the stepped-up warfare. “The fighting must stop now,’’ said the document, which called for alleged violations by both sides to be investigated in an independent inquiry. It calls on Tamil Tiger militants to lay down their arms and urges the government to refrain from an unnecessarily deadly final assault.
Sri Lanka’s government has so far brushed off calls from the UN Security Council and US president Barack Obama to slow its offensive and the Tigers have refused to surrender and free tens of thousands of people they are holding as human shields.
Britain, France and other EU states are pushing for the UN Human Rights Council to convene a special session on Sri Lanka’s violence.
At least 16 of the UN body’s 47 member states must support the proposal for such an emergency meeting to take place.
Diplomats in Brussels said some EU states are questioning whether an inquiry would alleviate the immediate humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka, where aid groups are largely unable to access the besieged northeast strip.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has been forced to temporarily suspend evacuations and aid deliveries to people trapped in the war zone, and the World Food Programme has not been able to get a major shipment delivered there since April 1st.
The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), headed by former Irish president Mary Robinson, yesterday accused the Sri Lankan government of ignoring its obligations in the recent military offensive meant to end the countrys long-running civil war.
“The government is engaged in a deliberate strategy of denial and cover-up,” the ICJ said. “Major donors to Sri Lanka, such as the US, the EU, India, Japan and China, have a particular responsibility to take steps to resolve this crisis which poses a threat to regional stability,” the Geneva-based group said. – (Reuters)