Despite
Although UN spokesman Martin Nesirky emphasised the panel had a mostly consultative role and that "primary responsibility for investigating rests with the authorities of
The head of the UN panel, Marzuki Darusman, a former Indonesian attorney general, has in turn criticised
"Everybody loses out if we cannot go to
His remarks came after
The
“The
“The government of
The other two members of the UN panel are human rights expert Yasmin Sooka from
The panel will have support staff, to be based in
Ms. Sooka joined the Foundation for Human Rights in 2001 and serves as its Executive Director. She practised as a human rights lawyer during the apartheid era. In 1995, she was appointed as a Commissioner on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and was responsible for the final report.
Prof Steven Ratner is a Professor of Law at University of Michigan Law School and in 1998-99, was appointed by the UN Secretary-General to a three-person group of experts to consider options for bringing the Khmer Rouge to justice.
Apart from heading the UN panel on
According to the BBC, Mr. Darusman was part of an international team appointed to observe proceedings on a previous Sri Lankan commission on atrocities - but he and other members of the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) resigned saying that commission did not meet basic minimum standards.
In rejecting international investigations,
Peggy Hicks, global advocacy director with Human Rights Watch, warned it has "long been abundantly clear that the Sri Lankan government is unwilling to seriously investigate wartime abuses."
"Secretary-General Ban's new panel will only be of value if it can quickly produce a roadmap for an independent investigation that the secretary-general implements," she told AFP.
On Monday, monks and lay members of a Buddhist nationalist party protested outside the UN offices in
"The UN has no right, authority or mandate to appoint a committee. It's an interference with Sri Lankan affairs," party leader Rev. Omalpe Sobitha told the gathering. "The UN is acting as an agent of terrorism."
Ban Ki-moon's appointment of the panel was "an attempt to provide oxygen" to the defeated Tamil Tigers, Sri Lankan government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella has also said.
The International Crisis Group said last month the Sri Lankan government had killed thousands of its civilians by shelling "no-fire zones" in the last months of the war.
The ICG said the military encouraged hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians to move into government-declared "no-fire zones" and then subjected them to "repeated and increasingly intense artillery and mortar barrages."
"This continued through May despite the government and security forces knowing the size and location of the civilian population and scale of civilian casualties," the ICG reported.
The group said it had collected eyewitness statements as well as hundreds of photographs, videos, satellite images, electronic communications and documents from multiple sources to support the charges.
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