Pillay stays open - minded ahead of tomorrow’s visit

The United Nations human rights chief said on Friday she has an “open mind” and will not be “pre-judging anything” ahead of her first trip to Sri Lanka, which is under growing pressure from the international community to address alleged war crimes.

Navi Pillay, who arrives in Sri Lanka on August 25 (tomorrow) for a week, is the first senior U.N. official to visit the country since the end of a nearly-three-decade-long bloody conflict in 2009, despite Colombo extending an invitation to the body

more than two years ago.

I want to see for myself the reconstruction, rehabilitation effort,and progress made towards accountability

The Sri Lankan government, which defeated separatist Tamil Tiger rebels, has faced criticism for not doing enough to bring to justice those responsible for rights abuses and to foster reconciliation in the polarised nation.

The U.N. Human Rights Council urged the Indian Ocean island in a March resolution to carry out credible investigations into the deaths and disappearances of thousands of people. Many Western nations, including Britain and Canada, have also demanded an independent probe.

"I want to see for myself the reconstruction and rehabilitation effort, but also what progress is being made towards accountability and reconciliation," U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Pillay, a South African national of Indian Tamil origin, told Thomson Reuters Foundation in an email interview.

"I am not pre-judging any- thing. There are clearly plenty of issues to discuss, including some worrying ones, and some more positive developments. I am going with an open mind and I plan to give a balanced preliminary assessment of my own impressions at the end of my visit," she added.

As many as 40,000 civilians were killed in the last months of the conflict, as government troops advanced on the last stronghold of the rebels fighting for an independent homeland, a U.N. panel said in 2011.

It blamed both Sri Lankan troops and the Tamil Tigers for atrocities, but said the army was mostly responsible.

Colombo has rejected the allegations and resisted pressure to allow an independent commission to investigate its military, saying a wide range of recommendations made by its own body, the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), are being implemented. (Thomson Reuters

Foundation)