COLOMBO (AFP) — A panel of top legal luminaries told Sri Lanka's government on Tuesday to clean up its human rights record, saying an escalating war against Tamil rebels had brought with it grave abuses.
The International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP), comprising experts from several countries, the European Union and United Nations, said the government did not appear interested in taking action.
"The IIGEP has... found an absence of will on the part of the Government of Sri Lanka in the present inquiry to investigate cases with vigour, where the conduct of its own forces has been called into question," the panel said.
Their report also detailed reasons for the panel's decision to pull out of Sri Lanka last month.
"The government is faced with an insurgency in which the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) conduct their hostilities through ruthless methods, not sparing the civilian population," it noted.
"Sections of popular opinion suggest that human rights and respect for the rule of law should take second place to measures necessary to repel these hostilities," the panel said. "The IIGEP rejects this opinion."
Sri Lanka's Attorney General C. R. de Silva, however, hit back at the panel as "flawed" and a source of "unnecessary inconvenience to the government."
The IIGEP is made up of experts from the countries of Australia, Britain, Canada, India, Japan, France, The Netherlands and the United States.
The panel's report said military operations and respect for civil liberties were not incompatible.
"It should be emphasised that respect for human rights and the conduct of military operations in strict accordance with international humanitarian law are powerful weapons in the struggle against dissident forces and terrorism," the IIGEP report said.
The group asked the Sri Lankan government to ensure that senior military officers were held responsible for the actions of lower ranks, set up a witness protection mechanism and end a culture of impunity for perpetrators.
The IIGEP was set up last year to supervise a presidential commission of inquiry into 16 cases of major human rights violations.
It quit last month, saying there was no cooperation from the authorities and the effort was virtually a sham to deflect international criticism.
Among the cases being probed was the August 2006 massacre of 17 local aid staff working with a French charity in the island's northeast. The evidence in this case has pointed to the involvement of security forces and a state cover-up.
Colombo pulled out of a tattered 2002 truce with the Tamil Tiger rebels in January in the belief that it could crush the guerrillas and regain areas under rebel control.
In a separate statement, Amnesty International said it feared for the health and safety of a Tamil journalist who worked for a liberal website and who has been detained by authorities without charge for more than a month.
The London-based human rights watchdog said Jayaprakash Sittampalam Tissainayagam "suffers from an eye condition that... may result in blindness" and it was not clear if he was being treated.
Emergency laws allow authorities in Sri Lanka to hold any suspect for 90 days without filing charges. Amnesty said this was incompatible with international human rights law.
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