Human rights activists insisted that the United Nations presence in Sri Lanka to stop abuses became a necessity due to the inaction by authorities since the country’s peace process broke down last year.
The government however dismissed NGO allegations that the country was facing a human rights crisis that required a monitoring mission from the United Nations.
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other groups said a U.N. human rights field office could act as a neutral body to record and look into complaints of kidnappings, disappearances and other abuses in the civil war.
“The national mechanism doesn’t work,” Sunila Abeysekera, executive director of the Sri Lankan rights group INFORM, told a Geneva news conference.
Decrying a “culture of impunity” in Sri Lanka, where about 70,000 people have been killed since 1983, Ms. Abeysekera said it was impossible to report a human rights abuse to the
police or other authorities without fearing for one’s safety.
“We desperately need some outside mechanism that has the agreement of all parties,” she said, adding that the government and the LTTE would need to accept the presence of such an office for it to work well.
Charu Hogg, a Human Rights Watch researcher said it was now difficult to find information about abuses, especially in conflict-torn areas where access was impossible.
She estimated there were more than 550 extra-judicial executions in the north and east of Sri Lanka, and more than 350 disappearances, between January and June this year. “There is no report on how many people who disappeared are dead or alive. There is no clarity about the perpetrators,” said Hogg.
UN Human Rights High Commissioner Louise Arbour is due to visit Sri Lanka next month and activists will seek meetings with her on the idea of a U.N. presence similar to the field operation that exists in Nepal, Ms. Abeysekera said.
Responding to statements made by the panel Ms. Shirani Goonatilleke, Director Legal of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP) said it was unfortunate the government was only given seven minutes to respond to the panelists.
The Eight Man Team 