Sri Lanka Tamil leaders call for war crimes probe

(December 20, 2011) Sri Lanka’s ethnic Tamil leaders called on Monday for an international war crimes inquiry into events during the final stages of the country's civil war, criticizing a commission report that cleared government forces of deliberately targeting civilians. Lawmakers in the Tamil National Alliance, the main political party representing the ethnic minority, said the report by the government-appointed Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission was a ``serious assault'' on the dignity of war victims who testified before it and damaged the chances of genuine reconciliation between the country's embittered ethnic groups. In a 400-page report released last week, the commission cleared the military of charges that it deliberately targeted civilians as it wiped out the Tamil Tiger leadership in 2009, ending decades of war. The commission accused the defeated Tamil Tigers of routinely violating international humanitarian law. Earlier this year, a panel appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said it found credible allegations of serious abuses by both sides and called for an international inquiry. The United States, meanwhile, expressed concerns that the report did not fully address all the allegations of serious human rights violations. The State Department called on the Sri Lanka to address those shortcomings, but stopped short itself of supporting an international inquiry.