Sri Lanka Lashes Out at EU for Alleging War Crimes

Towards the close of today’s afternoon session at the U.N. Human Rights Council, Sri Lanka lashed out at Western States who called for an impartial investigation into its conflict. “We noted with a degree of amusement that the EU, UK, Ireland, and France were all cheering on the notion of an independent inquiry into allegations of human rights violations conducted by ‘all sides’ of the Sri Lanka conflict,” it said. “Sri Lanka is prepared to regard this more charitably if we start from human rights situations that precede the Sri Lanka conflict. Let France institutie an inquiry into the millions of deaths in French Indochina and in Algeria, including those subjected to electroshock during the battle of Algiers and into the disappearance of Ben Baraka and possible complicity in that. Let Great Britain and Ireland inquire into Bloody Sunday of 1972 where dead civilians were strewn on the streets and the only result has been the promotion of every single officer who was there on the day, and command officers being given honors by the queen. If these countreis set an example to Sri Lanka and submit their own conduct to so-called impartial or independent inquiries, Sri Lanka would be ready to regard their suggestion with less contempt than it does at the moment.”