Sri Lanka for more than a
year has defied Western pressure over accountability for potential war crimes
and human rights violations in the last stages of its quarter-century war with
the separatist Tamil Tigers, which it won in May 2009.
Foreign Minister G.L. Peiris
said the government would not issue visas to the UN panel, which the world body
says is merely there to advise Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on methods of
accountability, and is not an investigative body.
"We will not issue visas
to the panel. We don't think we need them," Peiris told reporters.
Sri Lanka has its own
commission looking into the last seven years of the war, and insists that
despite a three-decade history of ineffectual local investigations into rights
violations, this one will uncover any wrongdoing.
Rights groups took advantage
of the victory anniversary to renew a push for a war crimes probe, saying there
was evidence — which they did not make public — that both the government and
Tamil Tigers were responsible for thousands of civilian deaths.
They hope that the UN panel
will provide a road map to a full international inquiry. Sri Lanka denies it
ever targeted civilians and says the accusations have been maliciously manipulated or fabricated by
Tiger supporters.
Peiris also said the Cabinet
had reviewed the EU's offer to extend access to the Generalized System of
Preferences Plus trade scheme, due to be withdrawn on Aug. 15 unless the Indian
Ocean island nation made a written pledge to certain rights reforms.
"We were not prepared to
obtain these concessions at any cost. That's not the attitude of a
self-respecting government," Peiris told reporters.
That will cost Sri Lanka
about 100 million euros ($123 million) annually, with its biggest trade partner
for garments, one of its top foreign exchange earners, and other products.
Among the EU demands were
lifting of wartime emergency laws that grant the government wide arrest powers
and implementation of a constitutional amendment that would make the police and
judiciary independent from presidential influence, Peiris said.
"These are matters in
which the judgment must be made by an elected government. These are not matters
in which any foreign government can take decisions," he added.
