The British Foreign office announced in Parliament on Thursday that they were left “disappointed” by Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Commission report.

The statement, which came on the same day that Canada demanded “decisive action”, was released by Minister Alistair Burt, who commented,

“The British Government is, on the whole, disappointed by the report’s findings and recommendations on accountability. Like many others, we feel that these leave many gaps and unanswered questions.

We welcome the acknowledgement that “considerable civilian casualties” occurred during the final stages of the conflict and the recommendation that specific incidents require further investigation. But we note that many credible allegations of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law, including from the UN Panel of Experts report, are either not addressed or only partially answered."

The Minister went on to say,

“We believe that video footage, authenticated by UN Special Rapporteurs, should inform substantive, not just technical, investigations into apparent grave abuses."

Whilst the Minister welcomed some of the recommendations made in the report, he called for their “vigorous” implementation and noted the “success or failure” of the LLRC hinged on this.

He carried on to reiterate that Britain

“continue(d) to believe it is important that an independent, credible and thorough mechanism is put in place to investigate all allegations of grave abuses.”

See our editorial: No more excuses, it is time to act (18 Dec 2011)

Speaking on the issue of Sri Lanka’s expanding armed forces, Britain also noted,

“the Sri Lankan government’s recent assurance that it will ensure the withdrawal of security forces from all aspects of community life and restrict their role exclusively to security matters."

See our earlier post: Army opens yet another holiday resort in Jaffna (11 Jan 2012)