The Sri Lankan newspaper The Island has released leaked sections of a United Nations report due to be published next week, which speaks to the credibility of allegations that the Sri Lankan government committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in its brutal assault on Tamil rebels that brought the decades-long civil war to an end in 2009.
Insofar as this report comes with the imprimatur of the UN, it is indeed a welcome addition to the already vast archive of material documenting the Sri Lankan government’s atrocities. The Report states quite unequivocally that the government’s claims of innocence were lies:
The Government says it pursued a “humanitarian rescue operation” with a policy of “zero civilian casualties”. In stark contrast, the Panel found credible allegations, which if proven, indicate that a wide range of serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law were committed both by the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE, some of which would amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
