Lanka says new govt averted much adverse UN report

Sri Lanka on Friday said the new government has averted economic sanctions and a much adverse report by the UN rights body over war crimes allegations on its troops during the last phase of the decades-long civil war against the LTTE.

President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told reporters in a joint press briefing here that no Sri Lankan would be brought before the International Criminal Court in the Hague following the recommendation of a hybrid court by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Sirisena said a lot would have been worse for Sri Lanka at the UNHRC if not for the change of government on January 8 when former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa was defeated in the polls.

The government of Rajapaksa - who led the war against the LTTE - had resisted international pressure to investigate the alleged war crimes.

“Our government was able to win a lot of international goodwill through our genuine steps taken,” said Sirisena, who promised to co-operate with the UN and to promote reconciliation with the minority Tamils.

The UNHRC had also postponed the planned publication of its report in March after the change of government.

“There were fears that Sri Lanka will be subject to international crime court action. What they have now proposed <g data-gr-id="23">is</g> a hybrid court the details of which are not yet known,” Wickremesinghe said.

He said the international community was behind Sri Lanka’s proposal to establish a credible domestic process to investigate the allegations on the war and so the government will go ahead with that process.

Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera said Sri Lanka needs to look at the report in a sense of satisfaction as the country will no longer face economic sanctions.

“Our soldiers may have faced problems in a much adverse report where our exports also would have suffered if sanctions were imposed,” he said.