Vaiko demands independent probe

CHENNAI (Reuters): A leader of India’s regional Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party, Vaiko, on Saturday (2 February) pressed his demand for an independent international investigation on the war crimes committed by Sri Lankan military on Tamils.

Various social activist and political leaders got together to announce that they would protest in front of the Sri Lankan high commission on 4 March. While talking to the reporters in a southern Chennai city, Vaiko said that the Indian government should severe all economic ties Sri Lanka.

“Our demand is very clear. There should an independent international investigation about the genocide of Tamils committed by the racist Sri Lanka Government. There should be an economic embargo as a resolution adopted in Tamil Nadu assembly. The Indian government should severe all the commercial and economic agreements and there should be an economic embargo by the international community,” said Vaiko.

The reason for their protest is because of the new storm that raged over alleged war crimes by the Sri Lankan army in the face of new evidences of them executing the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) chief Prabhakaran’s young son Balachandran in cold blood in 2009.

Tens of thousands of civilians were killed in 2009 in the final months the war, a UN panel said, as Government troops advanced on the ever-shrinking northern tip of the island controlled by Tamil rebels fighting for an independent homeland. The Government has said Balachandran and many rebel leaders were killed in crossfire.

India is a major partner in Sri Lanka’s reconciliation process for its war battered Tamil populace who have bore the brunt of the long war which spanned more than 30 years.

A UN report last year cited an earlier estimate of 40,000 civilians killed in crossfire between Government and rebel forces after they were trapped on a sliver of coastline, and cited credible information that over 70,000 remained ‘unaccounted for’.

The UN report reinvigorated calls from human rights groups and expatriate ethnic Tamils for an international investigation into suspected war crimes towards the end of the conflict with the LTTE.

Sri Lanka’s Government has repeatedly rejected allegations that it committed war crimes and also rejected suggestions in the report that it had intimidated UN officials. The war ended with the LTTE’s defeat in May 2009.