The large numbers of people reported killed, abducted and disappeared in Sri Lanka's protracted civil war underscores the need for greater protection of human rights in the country, the top UN rights official said.
Meanwhile, Tamil Tiger rebels destroyed an army patrol craft and the military sank a rebel boat in a battle off northern Sri Lanka on Saturday, a defense official said. Three rebels died and three soldiers were missing, the official said.
International rights activists have accused the government and the Tamil Tiger rebels of brazen human rights violations in the more than two-decade-long war, and have called for a UN monitoring mission to be sent to the country.
Speaking to reporters on Saturday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour implied she would support such a mission, saying if her office were to send a team here, it would only be to promote human rights and help "establish a more credible and clearly independent voice."
"One of the major human rights shortcomings in Sri Lanka is rooted in the absence of reliable and authoritative information on the credible allegations of human rights abuses," she said at the end of a five-day mission to the country.
"In the context of the armed conflict and of the emergency measures taken against terrorism, the weakness of the rule of law and prevalence of impunity is alarming," she said.
Sri Lankan Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe, who attended a news conference with Arbour, dismissed any type of monitoring mission.
Instead, Samarasinghe said the government was willing to work with Arbour's office and others in sharing technical expertise and training local staff to face human rights challenges.
Arbour said the government told her of its initiatives to address allegations of human rights abuses, but "there has yet to be an adequate and credible public accounting for the vast majority of these incidents."
The civil war has killed an estimated 70,000 people since it began in 1983. A ceasefire was reached in 2002 to pave the way for a peace deal between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels fighting for a homeland for the Tamil minority, but it fell apart nearly two years ago.
The renewed fighting has killed an estimated 5,000 people. New York-based Human Rights Watch said in August that more than 1,100 abductions or "disappearances" were reported between January of last year and June of this year, many of them blamed on the government and its armed allies.
In Saturday's attack, rebel boats ambushed two army patrol craft off the Jaffna Peninsula in northern Sri Lanka, considered the heartland of the Tamils and a major flashpoint in the war.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
RIGHTS FEARS: A protester said Beijing would use the embassy to catch and send Hong Kongers to China, while a lawmaker said Chinese agents had threatened Britons Hundreds of demonstrators on Saturday protested at a site earmarked for Beijing’s controversial new embassy in London over human rights and security concerns. The new embassy — if approved by the British government — would be the “biggest Chinese embassy in Europe,” one lawmaker said earlier. Protester Iona Boswell, a 40-year-old social worker, said there was “no need for a mega embassy here” and that she believed it would be used to facilitate the “harassment of dissidents.” China has for several years been trying to relocate its embassy, currently in the British capital’s upmarket Marylebone district, to the sprawling historic site in the
The administration of US President Donald Trump has appointed to serve as the top public diplomacy official a former speech writer for Trump with a history of doubts over US foreign policy toward Taiwan and inflammatory comments on women and minorities, at one point saying that "competent white men must be in charge." Darren Beattie has been named the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a senior US Department of State official said, a role that determines the tone of the US' public messaging in the world. Beattie requires US Senate confirmation to serve on a permanent basis. "Thanks to
‘IMPOSSIBLE’: The authors of the study, which was published in an environment journal, said that the findings appeared grim, but that honesty is necessary for change Holding long-term global warming to 2°C — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a new analysis published by leading scientists. Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming. An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate