SRI Lanka's government has started counting the dead, wounded and missing in its quarter-century civil war amid international pressure to conduct a credible investigation into war crimes allegations.
It comes two years after a local war commission recommended a census to determine the number of civilian deaths in the civil war that ended in 2009.
Tens of thousands are said to have perished in just the last few months of the fighting.
Government census official A J Satharasinghe said some 15,000 workers will go house-to-house asking about war victims for the count to be completed on December 20.
Sri Lanka is under pressure over its delay to implement the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, which includes a local inquiry into allegations of war abuse.
Countries including the US and Britain have warned that Sri Lanka could face an international war crimes investigation if it fails to conduct its own inquiry.
The UN Human Rights Council has passed two successive resolutions calling for an inquiry, and human rights chief Navi Pillay is expected to submit her findings from a visit to Sri Lanka at the council's session next March.
Sri Lankan troops in May 2009 defeated Tamil Tiger rebels who had fought since 1983 to create an independent state for the country's ethnic minority Tamils.
The government expelled international aid workers and UN staff from the war zone in the last stages of the fighting and blocked independent journalists, making it impossible for outsiders to know the extent of civilian deaths.
According to a UN report, as many as 40,000 Tamil civilians may have died in the last few months of the fighting, which the government disputes.
Sri Lanka's government insisted that not a single civilian was killed, until 2011 when it acknowledged some deaths.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Sri Lanka starts counting civil war dead
Dengan url
http://koplakbolang.blogspot.com/2013/11/sri-lanka-starts-counting-civil-war-dead.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Sri Lanka starts counting civil war dead
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Sri Lanka starts counting civil war dead
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar