Commonwealth meeting Canada seeks Sri Lanka boycott at

September 14, 201112:00AM

CANADIAN Prime Minister Stephen Harper has set the scene for a strained Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth next month, vowing to push for a boycott of a 2013 summit in Sri Lanka unless it improves its human rights record.

Mr Harper backed an independent investigation into alleged war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan army in the final phase of the 26-year civil war with the Tamil Tiger guerillas. The Sri Lankan government inched closer to a possible inquiry yesterday after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon referred a damning report on alleged human rights abuses and war crimes to the Human Rights Council.

The report, released in April, said the Sri Lankan government was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians in the final offensive against Tamil Tiger fighters in 2009 after government troops shelled a declared no-fire zone.

Mr Ban had previously said he couldn’t order an inquiry into the killings, but would welcome a mandate from the Human Rights Council, the UN Security Council or the General Assembly to launch a probe.

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International pressure is growing for the island nation’s government to face an inquiry, with the US and other Western nations supporting the push.

The three-member panel commissioned by the UN, which gathered evidence over 10 months, said that "most civilian casualties in the final phases of the war were caused by government shelling".

It alleged hospitals and Red Cross ships were shelled, prisoners shot in the head and women raped. It found the Tamil Tigers used civilians as human shields and killed those who tried to flee areas under their control.

The Sri Lankan government has consistently denied the allegations, accusing the UN of bias and lobbying allies such as China to block any moves to censure it.

This month it hailed its decision to lift 40-year-old emergency laws as an important step towards national normalisation.

But the US-based Human Rights Watch branded the move a "bait and switch" because other laws allowed the government to detain people without trial.

Mr Harper said he was not satisfied Sri Lanka had done enough to prove its commitment to human rights, democratic values and political reconciliation.

"I have expressed concerns about the holding of the next commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka," Mr Harper said. "I intend to make clear to my fellow leaders of the commonwealth that if we do not see progress in Sri Lanka in human rights I will not as Prime Minister be attending that Commonwealth summit. And I hope others will take a similar position."

Tamil lobby groups are planning a series of events in Australia to be held in parallel to the October 28 Perth CHOGM summit.

They are seeking advice on whether Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa or any member of his delegation could be arrested under Australian law on war crimes charges.

"Mr Rajapaksa must think very carefully about who he brings," Suren Surendiran of the Global Tamil Forum told The Australian

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