COLOMBO:The office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has handed over to the Sri Lankan government, its report on war crimes and other infringements of international humanitarian law in Sri Lanka between 2001 and 2009.
While some sources said that the report was handed over on September 11, others said that it would have been shared three to six days earlier to enable the Lankan government to prepare its defence before the commencement of the UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva on September 4.Sources said that the report will be made public on Sunday ahead of the session. The published report is expected to have taken into account the Lankan government’s response to the “draft” submitted to it earlier.
The High Commissioner for Human Rights will make a general statement on the agenda of the September session in which he will touch on the report on Lanka.
Between September 14 and 30, the US and Lanka will be working on a “collaborative resolution” to be presented to the UNHRC on September 30.
In this resolution, the Lankan government is expected to agree to conduct a credible domestic investigation into charges of war crimes and other infringements of international humanitarian law, and accept UN monitoring of the process. The details will be thrashed out during negotiations to be held between now and September 30.
The UN’s report was completed in February this year. But it was not presented at the March session because the US (which was spearheading the attack on Lanka) agreed to give the new Lankan government time until September to take meaningful steps towards ethnic reconciliation.
The report has refrained from naming individuals but had only mentioned institutions and command structures in apportioning blame for violations of humanitarian law.