UN-Sri Lanka

18 April 2011 Question:  A couple of questions.  Number one, on this Sri Lankan report, this report is now available all over in Sri Lanka by the Sri Lankan newspapers, who are reporting it.  The Secretary-General had made a position that he will wait for the reply from the Sri Lankan Government on the report […]

by Rajasingham Jayadevan Why ‘The Island’ newspaper best source to leak? The report was published with typographical errors causing embarrassment for the UN panel and the UN media Inner City Press has highlighted these errors in its news. Some of them are so material, distorting the very meaning of the comments. In a country where […]

By Matthew Russell Lee UNITED NATIONS, April 18 — Three full days after portions of the Sri Lanka war crimes report was leaked, presumptively by the government of Mahinda Rajapaksa, to The Island newspaper, the UN still at its Monday noon briefing did not release the full report. Inner City Press asked acting Deputy Spokesman […]

In an interview with Radio Australia, Gordon Weiss, a former UN spokesperson who accused Sri Lankan Government earlier of killing 10,000 to 40,000 Tamil civilians by discriminate shelling during the final stages of war, said that the real impact of the UN-panel’s report “really in its absolute clarity that grave crimes were committed and that […]

R. Sampanthan, the parliamentary group leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), in his response to the leaked recommendations of the UN Panel, on Monday said that the TNA urged the Rajapaksa regime not to miss the opportunity to “constructively engage in a process which would result in all the Peoples of Sri Lanka being […]

Sri Lanka’s main Tamil political party on Monday hailed a leaked UN report which called for an international war crimes probe into the island’s political and military leadership. The moderate Tamil National Alliance (TNA) said the report, commissioned by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, amounted to “irrefutable confirmation” of atrocities during the final stages of […]

The former UN spokesman in Sri Lanka Gordon Weiss tells Channel 4 News that a leaked UN report into “credible allegations” of war crimes represent Sri Lanka’s “Srebrenica moment”. Weiss told Channel 4 News they were at the “hard edge of humanitarian work” and were prevented from reaching the area by the Sri Lankan government. […]

The report of the ‘Panel of Experts’ of the Secretary General is an attempt to intervene in internal affairs of Sri Lanka for various political interests states the JVP and emphasizes that the imperialist intervention against Sri Lanka should be defeated. In a communiqué issued by its Political Bureau the JVP further states the anti-social […]

Government should face UN and international community taking the Tamil people on its side. Choosing the line of triumphalism based on the victory against LTTE to counter UN censure on accountability will be a political error. It is time to leave the war victory to history and start addressing the political aspirations of the Tamil […]

The three-member UN panel rejected Sri Lanka’s two-pronged notion of accountability that focussed on the responsibility of past Governments and of the LTTE, saying that the approach “does not envisage a serious examination of the Government’s decisions and conduct in prosecuting the final stages of the war or the aftermath, nor of the violations of […]

Groundviews The Island newspaper published today sections of what appears to be a large excerpt from the report of the UN Panel of Experts looking into allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sri Lanka. Inner City Press followed up with a report suggesting that the text was authentic, and that the UN […]

Reacting to the contents of the UN expert panel’s report on Sri Lanka’s war-crimes, Professor Boyle, expert in International Law, and Professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, told TamilNet, “there is absolutely no way the GOSL [Government of Sri L anka] is going to implement any of them [panel’s recommendations], and the […]

“During the final stages of the war, the United Nations political organs and bodies failed to take actions that might have protected civilians,” said the United Nations Panel on Sri Lanka in its final report to Secretary General Ban-ki Moon. The report has also admitted that the UN system knowingly failed to release the casualty […]

Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa yesterday lashed out at the UN experts panel report on the conduct of the Sri Lanka government and armed forces during the last stages of the war against the LTTE in 2009, saying there was an agenda behind the report and if the United Nations cannot protect one of its member […]

By Matthew Russell Lee WASHINGTON –  When the UN gave a copy of its long delayed Panel of Experts’ report on war crimes in Sri Lanka to the government of Mahinda Rajapaksa while withholding it from the press and public, the next steps were foreseeable.First, the government criticized the report as “flawed” and “baseless” while […]

Allegations found credible by the UN Panel The Panel’s determination of credible allegations reveals a very different version of the final stages of the war than that maintained to this day by the Government of Sri Lanka. The Government says it pursued a “humanitarian rescue operation” with a policy of “zero civilian casualties”. In stark […]

Saturday 16 April 2011A leaked United Nations report indicates “credible allegations” of Sri Lanka war crimes. Video first broadcast by Channel 4 News, showing alleged Tamil executions, formed a key part of the evidence. A leaked version of the long-awaited report by the United Nations Secretary General (UNSG) panel reveals “credible allegations” of war crimes […]

By Matthew Russell Lee WASHINGTON DC, April 14 — On Sri Lanka, the Obama administration would like the Mahinda Rajapaksa government to “use” the Panel of Experts report on presumptive war crimes in the final stages of the conflict, State Department spokesman Mark Toner told Inner City Press on Thursday. Toner said the US has […]

A crackdown precedes a new report on the end of the civil war SRI LANKA’S government has got its retaliation in first. On April 12th a panel of experts delivered a report to the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, assessing whether war crimes were committed when the nation’s army bloodily won a long-running civil war against […]

By Charles Haviland BBC News, ColomboThe Sri Lankan government has rejected a report commissioned by the UN on alleged human rights violations at the end of the country’s war two years ago. The report, by a panel of rights experts, has just been submitted to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and to the government in Colombo. […]

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is studying an expert report into thousands of deaths during Sri Lanka’s 2009 military drive against Tamil rebels, as calls grow for an international probe. Ban has given himself just days to decide on recommendations made by a panel of experts which handed its report on […]

 Amnesty International Media Release (Washington, D.C.) A United Nations (U.N.) report on accountability for war crimes committed in the Sri Lankan armed conflict must be made public, Amnesty International said today as a panel of experts submits their findings to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. “Sri Lankans must be allowed to see the panel’s findings. […]

The Arab spring proves that Israel is not even the biggest issue in the Middle East – yet it gets all the attention If you want a glimpse of the anger and heartache caused by the Goldstone report into the Gaza conflict of 2008-9, you could do worse than take a trip to the National […]

By Shamindra Ferdinando In the run-up to the imminent release of a controversial UN report on alleged ‘war crimes’ committed during Eelam War IV, particularly in the final phase of ground battles on the Vanni front, a section of Sri Lanka’s undergraduates belonging to the JVP is seeking UN intervention to restore democracy in the […]