Panel discussion in London criticizes successive Lankan governments

Sri Lanka governments, from the last Mahinda Rajapaksa administration to today's Sirisena administration, came under attack for failing to address the issue of war crimes and accountability at a panel discussion last Friday here in London. Titled 'Legal tools in the fight against impunity: The case of Sri Lanka' it was organised by the Centre on Conflict, Rights and Justice. Yasmin Sooka, one of the members of former UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon's panel of experts, claimed that, civil society may resort to international jurisdiction to tackle Human Rights violations in Sri Lanka given the failures by Sri Lanka to establish a hybrid court through UNHRC intervention to hear cases of war crimes and violations of international laws as part of the promised transitional justice process. Referring to her efforts to document human rights violations in the 2008/2009 period, she mentioned her attempts to file action on particular individuals such as Jagath Jayasuriya, Shavendra Silva and Gotabaya Rajapaksa. She was also critical of the diplomatic vetting procedures in the UK, and questioned why no action is being taken against the current Defence Attaché at London’s SLHC. Despite the fact that several analysts have debunked Ban Ki Moon's expert panel report on 40,000 civilians killed in the last stages of the anti-LTTE war, Sooka kept repeating the figure which has remained unproven. Lord Naseby recently named the figure as less than 8,000. She also claimed that hundreds of thousands died in the course of the war.