[ BBC ]

Sri Lanka has dismissed calls for an independent inquiry into claims of human rights abuses by the military, saying its own courts will investigate. Foreign minister Rohita Bogollagama said the claims were being used to boost accusations of genocide against the country’s Tamil minority. Aid agencies and the United Nations have called for an inquiry. The exact number of civilians killed in the final weeks of the long-running war has not been established, but one report put it as high as 20,000.

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[Human Rights Watch]

The Sri Lankan government should immediately cease its indiscriminate artillery attacks on civilians in the northern Vanni region and its policy of detaining displaced persons in internment camps, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Since early January 2009, civilian casualties have skyrocketed in the fighting between the Sri Lankan armed forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

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[IPS]

Far from heeding charges of human rights abuses and stifling dissent, the government has, this week, added blatant disregard for judicial fiat to its list of sins. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court (SC) terminated proceedings in a controversial oil hedging case, saying the government was no longer implementing court orders on the issue. Sources said the court of Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva backed off from taking on the executive after a series of high-profile judgments it passed against President Mahinda Rajapakse’s administration were simply ignored.

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[OHCHR]

GENEVA — The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said Thursday she was deeply concerned by reports of the rapidly deteriorating conditions facing a quarter of a million civilians trapped in the conflict zone in northern Sri Lanka, and of alleged human rights abuses and a significant number of civilian casualties, as well as the huge displacement. Pillay also expressed concern at the highly restricted access to the Vanni region for aid agencies and impartial outside observers, including journalists and human rights monitors.

“The perilous situation of civilians after many months of fighting, multiple displacements and heavy rains and flooding is extremely worrying,” Pillay said. “The lack of access for independent monitors, humanitarian workers and the media only adds to concerns that the situation may be even worse than we realize,” she added.

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