[BBC]

The UN special investigator into extrajudicial killings in Sri Lanka says video footage showing soldiers apparently executing civilians is evidence of serious rights abuses. Christof Heyns presented the video footage to the UN Human Rights Council. He said that after careful analysis, he had concluded that it was authentic. The government has angrily denied his claims. It says that the video is a forgery and that the UN should let Sri Lanka hold its own inquiry.

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[Reuters]

A U.N. envoy said on Tuesday the international community as well as Sri Lanka should further investigate horrific footage apparently showing summary executions of naked men and women during Sri Lanka’s civil war. He stopped short of saying there could be an international war crimes case, but his comments raised pressure on Colombo to submit to an international inquiry into charges that war crimes were committed at the end of its 25-year war with guerrillas of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

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[ HRW ]

The United Nations Human Rights Council on May 27 passed a deeply flawed resolution on Sri Lanka that ignores calls for an international investigation into alleged abuses during recent fighting and other pressing human rights concerns, Human Rights Watch said today. The council held a special session on May 26 and 27, 2009, on the human rights situation in Sri Lanka, a week after the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) by government forces. “The Human Rights Council did not even express its concern for the hundreds of thousands of people facing indefinite detention in government camps,” said Juliette de Rivero, Geneva advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “The council ignored urgent needs and wasted an important chance to promote human rights.”

[Inner City Press]

[Inner City Press]

While the International Committee of the Red Cross went public Wednesday in Geneva with the fact that the Sri Lankan government is running interment camps to which Red Cross workers do not have access, in New York the UN’s Deputy Spokesperson Marie Okabe said that “since the Secretary General’s visit to Sri Lanka, an interim measure has been agreed” in which aid agency vehicles including trucks are allowed into all Manik Farm zones, only not in convoys and not with agency flags. Video here, from Minute 2:30. Inner City Press asked Mr. Okabe to square to the two statements, if there are camps that the UN has access to that the Red Cross does not.

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[The Times]

Sri Lanka is to clash with Western powers at the United Nations Human Rights Council today in an effort to ward off any investigation into alleged war crimes committed during its military offensive against the Tamil Tigers. The country has marshalled a team of powerful allies led by China, Russia and India to fight off a European-backed resolution at today’s special session on Sri Lanka calling for an inquiry into abuses on both sides of the conflict. Observers at yesterday’s preliminary meeting in Geneva, which was described as acrimonious, said that the 47-member Council was divided over the European resolution, with 18 countries for and 18 against. The other nine are undecided.

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[Reuters]

About 20,000 Tamils from across Europe are expected to protest in Geneva on Friday at Sri Lanka’s military offensive against Tamil rebels, the United Nations said on Thursday. Police in the Swiss city, which is home to the U.N. European headquarters and to many Tamil immigrants, said 200 buses from across Europe were expected to bring protesters in. Demonstrators were expected to wind through Geneva in the afternoon and then rally in the public square in front of the U.N.’s Palais des Nations complex, where Tamils held smaller protests in past weeks as fighting intensified in Sri Lanka.

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[Guardian.co.uk]

His life had taken him from the northern tip of Sri Lanka to a pebble-dashed semi in north-west London and finally to a cold square in Geneva. But it is for his death that the 26-year-old Tamil, Murugathasan Varnakulasingham, is likely to be remembered. A little after eight o’clock last Thursday night, the computing graduate and part-time Sainsbury’s shelf-stacker doused himself in petrol in Geneva and set light to his body outside the United Nations complex in the Place des Nations. Police officers rushed to try to save Murugathasan, who stood “burning like a torch”, but he was too badly injured.

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[ UN News Centre ]

The United Nations refugee agency has called on the Government of Sri Lanka to ensure security for civilians in the eastern part of the strife-torn nation, citing a significant increase in the number of killings, abductions and injuries in areas of return, including 24 civilian deaths recorded in November alone in the Batticaloa district. “We’re also worried about the negative impact these security incidents may have on the sustainability of the return process,” Ron Redmond, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told reporters in Geneva.

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[ Reuters ]

Senior military officers from 50 countries gathered in Geneva Monday to put international humanitarian law into simple language that can be understood in theatres of war worldwide. Top brass from the United States, Britain, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Burundi were among those participating in the workshop held in Swiss army barracks near the centre of Geneva. Kellenberger said the ICRC is engaging in confidential dialogue with military leaders around the world, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Chad, and Sri Lanka, as part of its mandate to encourage compliance with international humanitarian law. It also meets non-state armed groups when security permits.

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