Sri Lanka’s government has taken “a policy decision” to “reject outright” the international probe into the island’s wartime mass atrocities authorised by the UN Human Rights Council in a resolution passed on March 27, the Sunday Times reports.
The paper also quoted sources at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), which the HRC resolution mandated to conduct the probe, as saying the international investigative mechanism would be in place within three to four weeks.
At a meeting of party leaders last Sunday, three days after the UN vote, the ruling coalition made “a policy decision that the government would in no way allow an OHCHR international investigation in Sri Lanka under any circumstances,” the paper said.
When the UNHRC resolution came up for discussion at the meeting, President Mahinda Rajapaksa, “asserted that the government would not heed any international inquiry,” the paper said.
“He noted that even in the event Sri Lanka had agreed [to cooperate], the UNHRC decision after such an inquiry was foregone.”The paper also quoted Sri Lanka’s External Affairs Minister, Prof. G.L. Peiris, as saying “the OHCHR could conduct its investigations outside” the country.
Once its investigative mechanism is in place, the OHCHR will make a formal request to the Sri Lankan government for co-operation, the Sunday Times said, quoting the source in Geneva.
However, “that the Government will reject the move outright is clear from the policy decision made by UPFA leaders, the paper said.
Meanwhile, the paper said, “the Government’s tough stance notwithstanding, diplomats from a few countries that abstained at the UNHRC vote are mounting pressure to initiate a ‘credible’ domestic investigation” as a way to avoid the international investigation.
The countries included India, Japan and South Africa, it said.