COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s army led an orgy of indiscriminate killing at the climax of the island’s civil war, and has since tried to destroy evidence of its crimes, a new investigation published yesterday by foreign experts claimed.
A report released by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) in Australia claimed that soldiers committed the “vast majority” of crimes in a final government offensive against Tamil Tiger separatists in May 2009.
The probe comes ahead of a session at the UN Human Rights Council next month at which the US is due to move a third resolution pressing Sri Lanka to investigate the conduct of its troops or face further international censure.
Sri Lanka has resisted repeated calls for an international inquiry into allegations that up to 40,000 civilians were killed by government forces during the bloody finale to a conflict that dragged on for 37 years.
The PIAC’s International Crimes Evidence Project (ICEP) report entitled “Island of Impunity?” included material from independent international experts, UN staff members and new witness testimony.
“Certain alleged crimes committed during the final months of the war involved such flagrant and reckless disregard for the laws of war, which strongly suggests there was intent to commit those crimes,” the report said.
Early analysis suggested that the Sri Lankan government was exhuming and destroying evidence of mass civilian deaths, the report said.
The ICEP said it had obtained testimony from unidentified new witnesses that members of the Sri Lankan security forces had destroyed forensic evidence after the conflict.
“The allegations are that human remains from mass burial sites in the conflict zone were exhumed and were covertly destroyed,” the report said. “This highlights the urgent need for an internationally-mandated investigation.”
Sri Lanka’s military rejected the report as “old allegations” and denied there had been any digging up of graves to destroy evidence.
He said only one mass grave had been found in the former war zone and a judicial inquiry was underway.
“There is nothing new in the report. It is the same old allegations already in the public domain,” Sri Lanka military spokesman Brigadier Ruwan Wanigasooriya said.
He discounted charges of mass killings, torture and sexual violence, but said 17 soldiers had been prosecuted on charges of rape in the final stages of the fighting.AFP
