UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed a three-member panel last June to look into alleged human rights abuses during the decades-long war. The Sri Lankan government resisted the move, calling it an infringement of its sovereignty and vowed not to issue visas for the UN team.
Human rights groups have repeatedly called for investigations of Sri Lankan troops and the now-defeated Tamil Tiger rebels during the war that ended in May 2009. Sri Lankan troops have been accused of shelling civilian areas and hospitals, and blocking food and medicine for people trapped as the Tamil Tigers mounted their last stand.
According to the UN, at least 7,000 civilians were killed in the last five months of fighting. An estimated 80,000-100,000 people died during the 26-year conflict.
Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa has invited UN
investigators to share evidence gathered with his own reconciliation commission, Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said Saturday.
“We resisted the panel saying we can’t allow a UN
investigation unilaterally. But in this case, the president has invited them not to undertake any investigation but to share the evidence,” Rambukwella said.
Ban praised the move saying he hoped the UN team will “have an accountability process and make progress as soon as possible,” he told a news conference.
Britain’s Channel 4 television last month aired video clips apparently showing the killing by government soldiers of Tamil prisoners, including a woman identified as a journalist with a rebel television station, prompting Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International to call for a U.N war crimes investigation.
The Tamil Tigers have also been accused of child recruitment and killing civilians who tried to flee areas in their control.
Meanwhile, the World Bank said Saturday it has opened another lending window for Sri Lanka thanks to the improved credit worthiness of the war-ravaged island.
The Washington-based bank’s Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala announced Friday that the island will be eligible to borrow from International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), an arm of the World Bank.
World Bank officials say being considered for IBRD funding is a vote of confidence in the country’s ability to repay.
An official with the bank in Colombo said Sri Lanka will continue to benefit from concessionary or “soft” loans from the bank’s International Development Assistance (IDA), but also have access to more credit through IBRD. “Sri Lanka is now considered a ‘blend’ country which can draw on IDA as well as IBRD funds,” a spokesman said.
Okonjo-Iweala, who was attending the Central Bank of Sri Lanka’s 60th anniversary celebrations, said they were willing to increase support to complement Sri Lanka’s plan to double per capita income to $4,000 in six years.
She said eligibility for IBRD borrowing was an important recognition of Sri Lanka’s “middle-income” country status.
Sri Lanka’s economy is set to grow by a strong nine percent in 2011, up from a projected eight percent this year and 3.5 percent in 2009 when government forces were locked in a final battle with Tamil Tiger rebels.
Since the end of the fighting last year, the economy’s growth has been steadily increasing.
The World Bank said Sri Lanka’s qualifying for IBRD loans meant it could expect a doubling of the current assistance which amounts to $200 million a year.
