| 25 April, 2011 | ||
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Governments that provided weapons to the Sri Lankan military during the last stages of the war should also be investigated, says a former UN spokesman.
Gordon Weiss told BBC Sinhala service, Sandeshaya that there were high civilian casualties when the Sri Lankan military moved in to overtake the Tamil Tigers in May 2009.
UK, USA, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Israel are some of the countries that provided military assistance to Sri Lanka.
On the eve of the release of a report by an advisory panel to the UN Secretary General (UNSG) on accountability issues with respect to the conflict in Sri Lanka, Mr Weiss says that many countries were aware of the mounting civilian casualties in Sri Lanka.
'40,000 civilians killed'
The report due be made public on Monday, has made highly serious accusations against the Sri Lanka military, as well as the Tamil Tigers.
 |  If foreign governments knew what was going on this latter stage of the war and continued to supply arms, then I think it is a matter worthy of investigations in those countries |
"If foreign governments knew what was going on this latter stage of the war and continued to supply arms, then I think it is a matter worthy of investigations in those countries," said Gordon Weiss.
The report leaked by The Island newspaper says it estimates that up to 40,000 civilians were killed in the final phase of the conflict.
"Two years after the end of the war, there is still no reliable figure for civilian deaths, but multiple sources of information indicate that a range of up to 40,000 civilian deaths cannot be ruled out at this stage" it said.
The former UN spokesman said the Indian government which wanted to "see the Tamil Tigers destroyed" was "fully aware" of the real situation in the battle zone.
"I believe that Indians were aware of the civilian casualties that were happening, because they had pretty good intelligence inside the siege zone," he told BBC Sandeshaya.
