Sri Lanka President's war probe commission is a game of 'smoke and mirrors', right group says

Sri Lanka President's appointment of a commission to probe the crimes committed during the war is another attempt to deflect an international inquiry on the violations, the Human Rights watch said Friday.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said the announcement of a commission on "Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation" came after a months-long campaign by the Sri Lankan government to prevent the United Nations from establishing a panel of experts to advise him on accountability in Sri Lanka.

The rights watchdog that is often critical of the Sri Lankan government urged the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to take steps to ensure accountability through an independent international investigation into the alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa Thursday said that he will appoint a committee to probe any right abuses committed during the decade-long war with the Tamil Tigers and to compensate the victims and their families who suffered during the conflict that killed nearly 100,00 people.
The Commission in assessing the 'Lessons Learnt' from the recent conflict phase will search for any violations of internationally accepted norms of conduct in such conflict situations, and the circumstances that may have led to such actions, and identify any persons or groups responsible for such acts, the government announced.
Brad Adams, Asia director at HRW said "Every time the international community raises the issue of accountability, Sri Lanka establishes a commission that takes a long time to achieve nothing."
"Ban should put an end to this game of smoke and mirrors and begin a process that would ensure justice for all the victims of Sri Lanka's war," he said.
The Sri Lankan government has strongly opposed any move to subject its security forces who completely vanquished the deadly terrorist group LTTE last May to any international inquiries.
The former Army Commander General (Retd.) Sarath Fonseka who led the war against the rebels said last week that he would subject himself to any investigation if there were any crimes committed by the security forces.
"We, the security forces have an obligation to look into those things and punish the offenders," he said.
He said he was not aware of any injustices committed during the final phase of the war but wanted the allegations to be investigated and he will support any international investigation.