THE TIMES OF INDIA AP | Sep 14, 2011, 02.25PM IST
COLOMBO, SRI LANKA: A top U.S. official has urged Sri Lanka to address allegations of war crimes in a report on its civil war due to be released this year.
The call from U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Robert O. Blake comes just days after U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sent a expert report to the U.N. Human Rights Council that concluded that tens of thousands of people were killed in the last five months of the war, primarily by government troops.
Blake said on Wednesday that the U.N. decision underlines the need for accountability for those who violated international humanitarian law.
The U.S. has repeatedly warned Sri Lanka to investigate the allegations stemming from the final months of the 26-year war with Tamil Tigerrebels. The government has denounced the U.N. report.
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14-Sep-2011
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Sri Lankan activists won’t mess up a Hazare opportunity: View from Sri Lanka
14-Sep-2011 Guest Column by Dr Kumar David
Yes that’s right, the implication in the title of this column is intended; radical political activists in India have not capitalised on nor made use of the opportunities for mobilisation that the Anna Hazare phenomenon presented. On the contrary they have missed the bus, gasping without direction and unable to direct and influence the passions and emotions that corruption scandals have stoked all over the country. Grassroots activists, political campaigners and advocates of good causes in Lanka would have been smarter than their Indian counterparts, at least if one uses the marginalisation of the latter during the Hazara phenomenon as a criterion. Full Story>>>
