[United to End Genocide]

Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war ended in May 2009 when the Sri Lankan military defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). For more than 25 years, the LTTE had been fighting for a separate state for the nation’s minority Tamil population.

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[Human Rights Watch]

Your Excellency,

We write to urge your delegation to work with other member and observer states of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) to bring the issue of accountability for wartime abuses in Sri Lanka onto the agenda of the Council during its March 2012 session. Almost three years after the end of the military conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the government has not kept its commitments to the people of Sri Lanka, the UN Secretary-General, and the Human Rights Council to undertake credible measures to provide justice and accountability for the widespread and serious wartime abuses.

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[Huffington Post]

Dear Secretary-General,

I write to follow up my letter of 2 June 2011 on the subject of the United Nations Panel of Experts’ reporton accountability issues in Sri Lanka.

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[Human Rights Watch]

The Sri Lankan government in the past year failed to advance justice and accountability for the victims of the country’s 26-year-long civil conflict, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2012. While Sri Lanka’s war-ravaged north and east became more open, the government deepened repression of basic freedoms throughout the country.

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[AFP]

The United States called on Sri Lanka Wednesday to bring to justice anyone responsible for war crimes committed as the island crushed a decades-long insurgency. US diplomat Robert Blake said Colombo should carry out its own investigation into allegations contained in a United Nations report of atrocities during the 2009 offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels. “The international mechanism can become appropriate in case of states that are unable or unwilling to meet their obligations,” the assistant secretary of state for south and central Asia told reporters at the end of a two-day visit to Sri Lanka.

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[Human Rights Watch]

“It is time for concerned governments like Japan, India, and the US to ensure that President Mahinda Rajapakse’s government and the Tamil Tigers allow the victims of this conflict to live with justice and dignity. Both sides should agree to a humanitarian corridor and otherwise respect the laws of war.” Our latest research shows that up to two thousand civilians have been killed by the Sri Lankan army and the Tamil Tigers since early January in the most recent round of fighting. We got reports of many civilian deaths, which have occurred in areas that the Sri Lankan government has declared to be “safe zones”, where the Sri Lankan army has repeatedly and indiscriminately shelled. Hospitals have been frequently hit.

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