US sees strong intent in new Sri Lankan Government to address rights issues

Monday, 21 September 2015 00:05 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

nisha_2006302f Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Nisha Desai Biswal

Washington: The new Government of Sri Lanka has “a very strong intent” in addressing rights concerns, a top United States official said, calling for a credible domestic probe with “substantial involvement” from international community to address justice and accountability.

“We have seen (in the new government), what we would say a very strong intent,” Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal, who visited the island late last month, told PTI.

“We have seen that the Government in the past nine months in office has done more to try to build trust and move the country towards a more inclusive society, than perhaps been done in the last nine years and beyond,” said Biswal, the Obama Administration’s point person for South and Central Asia.

“That is an encouraging sign. It is a long road ahead for the country, for the Government, for the (new Sri Lankan) President (Maithripala Sirisena) and for the people,” she said in response to a question. Biswal said much needs to be done to heal the wounds that are still open on both sides from a very brutal and a very divisive conflict between the troops and the LTTE. Rights groups claim troops killed 40,000 civilians in the final months of the nearly three-decades-long civil war that ended in 2009. The LTTE is also accused of war crimes.

“That would take time and would take very persistent effort on all sides towards reconciliation and no one should be saying one about the process. It is a difficult process, it is a long process. There will inevitably be setbacks.

“It is fundamentally in the interest of the Sri Lankan people to secure the peace and prosperity of all of these citizens, and I think what motivates us is that hope and that desire to support a peaceful and prosperous Sri Lanka that brings opportunity for all its citizens,” Biswal said. During her visit to Lanka late last month, she said the US will move a pro-Sri Lanka resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in its September session, in what was seen as a U-turn in America’s stance.

Interestingly, it was a US-moved resolution that called for the first time called for an international probe into alleged war crimes and was adopted last year in the 47-member UNHRC. The US was at the forefront in adopting a total of three resolutions at the UN human rights session on Sri Lanka.

Biswal yesterday said that from the very beginning, the US has said it would support a credible domestic effort to address those long-standing issues of justice and accountability in Sri Lanka. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights report on the investigation into Sri Lanka’s allege human rights violations called for a “hybrid special court” with international judges and investigators to conduct the domestic tribunal.

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