Sri Lanka's Tamil leaders call for UN help on 4,000 missing

Sri Lanka's ethnic Tamil leaders on Sunday asked the top human rights official of the United Nations to ‎help determine the fate of more than 4,000 civilians reported missing in the country's long civil war ‎amid the government's assertion that most of them are probably dead.  ‎UN High Commissioner for ‎Human Rights,  Zeid Raad al-Hussein, met the chief minister of Sri Lanka's Northern Province, the ‎arena of the civil war, which ended in 2009.   Zeid arrived in Sri Lanka on Saturday on a four-day visit ‎aimed at reviewing the measures taken by the island nation to investigate alleged atrocities committed ‎during the long civil war that left tens of thousands dead.   ‎
Both the Sri Lankan government and the defeated Tamil Tiger rebels are accused of serious human ‎rights violations. According to U.N. estimates, up to 100,000 people were killed in the 26-year war, but ‎many more are feared to have died, including up to 40,000 civilians in the final months of the fighting.‎
The U.N. Human Rights Council last year adopted a consensus resolution in which Sri Lanka agreed to ‎an investigation with foreign participation.‎
Zeid said he discussed several issues with Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran and ‎other provincial officials, including the missing people, detentions without trial and military-occupied ‎private land. He said he would take the issues up with the central government.  ``The discussions very ‎much focused on the challenges faced by the province, but also the plans and achievements in that ‎regard, and the people who aspire to see more information in terms of those detained and those missing ‎and the issue of release of lands,'' Zeid said.  He said the discussions would continue during his visit.‎
Wigneswaran said he gave Zeid a list of the more than 4,000 people reported missing, with dates and ‎places where they were seen last.  Many civilians have not been heard from since they were picked up ‎by police or military personnel at their homes or abducted by pro-government militia during the war. ‎Relatives say there are many whom they personally handed over to the military at the end of the ‎fighting, after the military requested the surrender of anyone who had even the smallest link to the ‎now-defeated Tamil Tiger rebels, promising their early release.‎
‎7 Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was elected last year, has said most of those ‎reported missing are probably dead. He said that the new government found no secret detention centers ‎being run by the state, as suspected by families of the missing, and that there are only 292 people in ‎government detention.  Wigneswaran said Zeid opposed the suggestion of negotiating an amnesty for ‎Tamil rebel suspects detained for years without trial. Zeid said releasing innocents through a quick and ‎proper legal process would be the best course of action.‎  (Source: AP/Reuters)