The Second Deputy Chief Minister of Penang in Malaysia reiterated calls for an international probe into the killing of tens of thousands of Tamil civilians during the final stages of Sri Lanka’s armed conflict.
"It is not justifiable to have own probe against those who were responsible (for the massacres)” said P Ramasamy, as he arrived in Coimbatore on Sunday. “It should be conducted by an International agency," he told reporters.
His comments came ahead of Sri Lanka being discussed at the opening of the 30th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday.
Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera outlined a domestic mechanism to investigate the atrocities.
Meanwhile, opening the session, the UN Human Rights Chief Prince Zeid Hussein said the council “has been deeply engaged with the need for accountability, as a necessary step towards reconciliation in that country” and it “owes it to Sri Lankans – and to its own credibility – to ensure an accountability process that produces results, decisively moves beyond the failures of the past, and brings the deep institutional changes needed to guarantee non-recurrence”.
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