Sri Lanka must be held accountable: Indian Fin Min Chidambaram
Friday, 22 November 2013 02:58
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Joining calls for an investigation into the final phase of the war in Sri Lanka, Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram yesterday said Colombo must investigate and punish those responsible for the abuses, according to a report by the Press Trust of India.
“I think the Sri Lankan Government owes a responsibility and a duty to its own people and the people all over the world to investigate the allegations of human rights violations and punish those who are responsible,” he told more than 1,000 delegates at the 2nd South Asian Diaspora Convention 2013, which opened in Singapore yesterday.
“That’s an aspiration or a desire that recognises no national boundaries. It is a human rights issue,” he said, responding to a delegate’s question on why investment should be allowed into Sri Lanka when the minority Tamil community was suffering.
Chidambaram said, the Sri Lankan Government “is indeed accountable, they must be held accountable, and they must bring to book those perpetrators to justice”.
“Having said that, it does not mean that Sri Lanka should not grow economically, or that investors should not invest in Sri Lanka. Nobody invests for charity. They invest because they think it is profitable opportunity.
“I don’t think that Sri Lanka’s present failure to yet account for what happened at the end of civil war should prevent investment from going into Sri Lanka,” he added.
