Sri Lanka promises dialogue after UN accuses its troops of war crimes

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka today promised to take note of a damning UN report on war crimes and ensure dialogue with all stakeholders to achieve "reconciliation", hours after the UN rights body accused its troops of "horrific abuses" during the last phase of the civil war with the LTTE.

"(Sri Lanka) takes note of the OHCHR Investigation... and will ensure that its contents as well as recommendations receive due attention of the authorities," the government said in a brief response to the nearly 300-page report by UN Human Rights High Commissioner Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein.

The government said it was open to talks and promised to ensure dialogue with all stakeholders "especially the victims of conflict" to achieve "reconciliation and durable peace".

Dealing a blow to Lanka's insistence on a purely domestic probe, the report indicted its troops of "horrific abuses" committed during the civil war that ended in 2009.

"A purely domestic court procedure will have no chance of overcoming widespread and justifiable suspicions fuelled by decades of violations, malpractice and broken promises," Zeid said presenting the report in Geneva.

Sri Lankan government has been resisting foreign probe and has promised a fair probe with truth and reconciliation commission on the lines of South Africa.

"The levels of mistrust in state authorities and institutions by broad segments of Sri Lankan society should not be underestimated," Zeid warned and called for creating "a hybrid special court, integrating international judges, prosecutors, lawyers and investigators."

"Our investigation has laid bare the horrific level of violations and abuses that occurred in Sri Lanka, including indiscriminate shelling, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, harrowing accounts of torture and sexual violence, recruitment of children and other grave crimes," the report said.