Former president Mahinda Rajapaksa says there are several areas of concern in the text of the consensus resolution tabled at the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday.

Mr Rajapaksa said in a statement, the first paragraph encouraged the government to implement the recommendations of the OISL report, which called for a hybrid accountability mechanism and demilitarisation of the Tamil provinces.

“The most contentious recommendations in that report have been included as operational paragraphs in the UNHRC draft resolution as the following indicates: "Operational Paragraph 4 welcomes the willingness of the government of Sri Lanka to allow the mechanisms set up ‘to deal with the past’, to obtain financial and material assistance from ‘international partners.’ This would amount to personnel in important judicial and non-judicial bodies in Sri Lanka being paid by foreign powers," the statement said.

"Paragraph 6 ‘takes note with appreciation’ the government’s proposal to set up a judicial mechanism to investigate violations of human rights and humanitarian law, and ‘affirms’ the importance of the participation of foreign prosecutors, judges, investigators and lawyers in this process, and is contrary to the claim now being made by the government that any mechanism set up will be purely domestic."

The former president also criticised operative paragraph 8, which called for the removal of servicemen suspected of having committed crimes.

“This in reality amounts to a purge of the armed forces,” he said.