Lanka itself will probe war abuses, including by forces

 May 19,2012
From Lalit K Jha Washington, May 19 (PTI) Sri Lanka today said it will conduct its own investigation into allegations of war abuses including those by its armed forces, rejecting calls for setting up an international tribunal. "The Sri Lankan Attorney general has started the inquiry into the alleged war abuses and human rights violations that occurred during the last few months of end of the civil war," Foreign Minister G M Peiris, told reporters at a news conference held here at the end of his four-day US trip. "The investigations would include alleged violations by the security forces too," he said. Peiris made these comments after meeting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, where he presented a detailed reconciliation plan to the US administration. During the meeting, Clinton strongly urged "accountability", in probing the war crimes allegations "to strengthen reconciliation, public confidence inside and outside Sri Lanka, and, frankly, to speed the healing of the country," according to the State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland. The meeting comes in the wake of strained ties between Washington and Colombo over the American sponsorship of a UN human rights resolution calling on Sri Lanka to conduct an independent probe into civilian deaths in the final phase of the country's civil war that ended in 2009. Nuland said that Colombo had presented a "serious and comprehensive" plans for recommendations of a probe into human rights abuses that now needed to be made public and put into practice. MORE