{"id":28607,"date":"2014-03-08T00:03:52","date_gmt":"2014-03-08T05:03:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=28607"},"modified":"2014-03-08T00:03:52","modified_gmt":"2014-03-08T05:03:52","slug":"britain-and-france-voice-support-to-call-for-international-inquiry-into-allegations-of-war-crimes-and-end-to-impunity-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=28607","title":{"rendered":"Britain and France Voice Support to Call for International Inquiry into Allegations of War Crimes and end to Impunity in Sri Lanka."},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/p>\n

Dharisha Bastians
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

The United Kingdom and France, two new members of the UN Human Rights Council this year, have lent their voices to the call for an international inquiry into allegations of war crimes during the war in Sri Lanka and an end to impunity in the island.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The UK delegation said in a statement to the UN Human Rights Council\u2019s 25th Session yesterday that it supported High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay\u2019s call for the Council to act on the findings of her report on Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe UK supports your call for the Council to act on the findings of your report and to set up an independent, international investigation into alleged human rights violations and abuses on both sides,\u201d the UK statement said.<\/p>\n

The delegation said that without such an investigation, lasting reconciliation would be difficult to achieve.<\/p>\n

France meanwhile said the battle against impunity was indispensable to national reconciliation in Sri Lanka. The French representatives at the HRC demanded that the Sri Lankan Government shed light on the investigation into what it called the \u201cheinous murders\u201d of the workers of the French aid agency, Action Contre La Faim that had occurred over seven years ago.<\/p>\n

France urged the Government in Sri Lanka to implement the recommendations of the LLRC and end repression in the country.<\/p>\n

Membership in the 47 member Human Rights Council ensures voting rights and works on a rotational basis. In an unusual twist, all five permanent members of the UN Security Council \u2013 US, UK, France, Russia and China \u2013 are members of the UNHRC this year.<\/p>\n

Govt. protests Petrie report link in Pillay\u2019s annual report<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Government has strongly protested the inclusion of an internal review document referring to UN failures to protect civilians in the last days of the war in Sri Lanka in High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay\u2019s annual report presented yesterday to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.<\/p>\n

The Sri Lankan delegation told the UNHRC 25th Session yesterday that the inclusion the \u201cmisplaced reference\u201d to the internal review panel report was to be construed as another attempt to politicise the situation of Sri Lanka in the Council.<\/p>\n

The Sri Lankan delegation said it was regrettable that there was misplaced attention paid to the IRP report, which was neither endorsed by the intergovernmental process nor based on credible sources and information.<\/p>\n

The Secretary General\u2019s Internal Review Panel, more commonly known as the Petrie report, was released in November 2012 and pointed to \u201cinstitutional failure\u201d on the part of UN officials in Colombo and New York to prevent the alleged killing of civilians in the last theatres of battle.<\/p>\n

The investigative panel, led by former UN official Charles Petrie, criticised what it called \u201ca sustained and institutionalised reluctance\u201d by staff members in Sri Lanka at the time \u201cto stand up for the rights of the people they were mandated to assist\u201d.<\/p>\n

Failures highlighted in the report are being studied by top UN officials to determine how the organisation can change the way it works to be more effective in conflict situations in the future, with a focus on safeguarding civilians lives. <\/p>\n


\nCOURTESY:DailyFT<\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Dharisha Bastians The United Kingdom and France, two new members of the UN Human Rights Council this year, have lent their voices to the call for an international inquiry into allegations of war crimes during the war in Sri Lanka and an end to impunity in the island.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28607"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28607"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28608,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28607\/revisions\/28608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}