[Channel 4 News]

Last year Channel 4 broadcast Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, a critically-acclaimed and RTS Award winning forensic investigation into the events of the last few weeks of the decades-long war between the government of Sri Lanka and the rebel forces of the Tamil Tigers (LTTE), presented by Jon Snow. It featured devastating video evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity captured on mobile phones by both victims and perpetrators - some of the most horrific footage Channel 4 has ever broadcast.

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[AFP]

Sri Lanka on Thursday vowed to hold mass protests against US-backed moves at the United Nations to press for an independent probe into alleged war crimes during the island’s civil war.

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[Human Rights Watch]

As nations such as Canada and Britain weigh in on accountability for war crimes in Sri Lanka, it’s time for Australia to add its voice. After all, promoting human rights is a crucial part of foreign policy, as Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd is keen to say.

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[BBC]

About 200 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees have told the BBC that they are enduring miserable conditions in the West African state of Togo.

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[AFP]

India on Tuesday encouraged neighbouring Sri Lanka to implement findings of a probe into the island’s bloody civil war as a way to improve ethnic relations after decades of bloodshed.

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[US Foreign Affairs News]

Congressman Howard Berman, Ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, made the following statement on the recent release of Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission Report.

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[International Crisis Group]

The International Crisis Group welcomes the public release of the report of Sri Lanka’s “Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission” (LLRC), presented to the Sri Lankan parliament on 16 December 2011. The report acknowledges important events and grievances that have contributed to decades of political violence and civil war in Sri Lanka and makes sensible recommendations on governance, land issues and the need for a political solution. But it fails in a crucial task – providing the thorough and independent investigation of alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law that the UN and other partners of Sri Lanka have been asking for. It is now incumbent on the international community, through the UN Human Rights Council, to establish an independent international investigation in 2012. Without such an investigation, accountability for the crimes committed at the end of the civil war is highly unlikely; without accountability, and a full understanding of the nature of the violations which took place on all sides, the seeds of future conflict will grow.

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[Amnesty USA]

I’ve been waiting for months for the final report from Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (often referred to as the “LLRC”).  The commission had been appointed by President Rajapaksa in May 2010 to examine events during the last seven years of the war between the government and the Tamil Tigers (the war ended in May 2009 with the government’s victory over the Tigers).

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[Global Post]

The Sri Lankan government’s efforts to erase from history the final months of its 25-year-long war against Tamil separatists hit a snag this week, as humanitarian organizations blasted the report of an internal probe into alleged human rights violations and possible war crimes as a whitewash.

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[Amnesty UK]

The final report of Sri Lanka’s Lesson Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), released publicly today, acknowledges serious human rights problems in Sri Lanka but falls short of fully addressing the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the final phases of the conflict between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Amnesty International said today.

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