US urges Sri Lanka to allow inspections
The United States asked the Sri Lankan government to open to foreign inspection areas of the country where government forces are alleged to have shelled displaced Tamils early this year in the final weeks of a 25-year secessionist rebellion.
Speaking of a new State Department report on the finale of the war, spokesman Ian Kelly said it illustrates “some real concerns, obviously,” about Sri Lanka’s actions as the war wound down.
He also said the United States asked the Sri Lankans privately as well as publicly to investigate, as he said they should under international law.
Mr Kelly said the United States wants answers “about how this military operation was conducted".
"And we also, of course, are calling on the government of Sri Lanka to allow more access to international organisations”.
Hundreds of thousands of minority Tamil civilians were forced into the camps after fleeing the final months of the war with the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels, which ended in May.
The report, posted yesterday on the State Department’s website, accused both the Sinhalese-dominated government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam of actions that could be described as war crimes.
The United States considers the Tigers a terrorist organisation.
The accusations involve attacks on civilians, violations of cease-fires, use of children as combatants and attacks on hospitals.
Specific incidents alleged in the report involve shelling into areas where displaced Tamils had fled on the assurance of the government that they would not be attacked. Instead, it said, attacks were mounted on the civilians and even makeshift hospitals.
The Tigers finally ended their rebellion in May. The government-run camps remain, however, and even though 4,300 or more Tamils left government-run camps, thousands more remain.
The Sri Lankan government issued an angry rebuttal to the US report, contending that the period it covered was “when the Security Forces of Sri Lanka were engaged in a humanitarian mission” in the battle area.
“The allegations against the Government of Sri Lanka in the document ... appear to be unsubstantiated and devoid of corroborative evidence,” the Foreign Ministry said in the statement posted on its web site.
“There is a track record of vested interests endeavouring to bring the government of Sri Lanka into disrepute, through fabricated allegations and concocted stories.”
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