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Fresh call for Sri Lanka war crimes probe

By Mary Watkins in Mumbai

Published: June 15 2011 17:14 | Last updated: June 15 2011 17:14

Sri Lanka's Killing Fields

A screen grab from the Channel 4 documentary on Sri Lanka, which appeared to show fresh evidence of human rights abuses

 

The UK has renewed calls for the Sri Lankan government to investigate allegations that war crimes were committed at the end of the country’s 25-year civil war after a television documentary appeared to show fresh evidence of human rights abuses.

Channel 4’s “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields” documentary, which aired in the UK on Tuesday night, revealed disturbing images apparently filmed on mobile phones and small cameras of civilian casualties, executions and evidence of sexual abuse carried out in the final months of the civil war.

The footage showed hospitals being repeatedly targeted by air strikes and in one scene bound and blindfolded prisoners being executed. The documentary claimed that both the Sri Lankan army as well as the opposition Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were guilty of serious war crimes.

Alistair Burt, British foreign office minister, described the footage as shocking and called on Sri Lanka to give the international community “a serious and full response” to the evidence.

“The recent UN Panel of Experts Report, this documentary and previously authenticated Channel 4 footage, constitutes convincing evidence of violations of international humanitarian and human rights laws,” Mr Burt said.

In April the Sri Lankan government warned of sweeping protests after a report by the United Nations outlined suspected war crimes – including the shelling of civilians in no-fire zones and the bombing of hospitals.

Mr Burt said that the UK had been calling for “an independent, thorough and credible investigation” into the war crimes allegations since the Sri Lankan civil war ended in May 2009.

The Sri Lankan government on Wednesday categorically denied the allegations made in the documentary that it had deliberately targeted its own civilians, and called in to question the authenticity of the material aired. It said that the TV footage could damage the reconciliation process.

“This is an exercise which is carried out by a small section of the international media at the behest of certain parties with vested interests and it caters only to the interests of separatist forces living outside Sri Lanka, the final objective of which is to push Sri Lanka back to war by way of lacerating the wounds that the country is attempting to heal,” it said in a statement.

Mr Burt said that the UK government expected to see progress on the matter by the end of the year, adding that if the Sri Lankan government did not respond the UK would support the international community in revisiting the options available to press the Sri Lankan government to meet its obligations.

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