“Govt will never hand Mahinda Rajapaksa over”: Rajitha

• Spokesman says Govt. is strongly opposed to foreign probe
• Committed to conduct domestic inquiry to international standards

By Dharisha Bastians

The Government yesterday strongly ruled out handing former President Mahinda Rajapaksa or any other wartime officials over to international bodies probing allegations of war crimes during the last phase of the conflict in the North.

“It has always been the Government’s position that it is opposed to a foreign investigation into allegations of human rights abuses during the war,” Government Spokesman and Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne told reporters at the weekly Cabinet meeting yesterday.

Senaratne said the Government was ready to conduct a domestic probe based on international standards.

“If persons raising white flags in surrender were assassinated, or there were other killings extra-judicially outside the fighting, we certainly cannot take responsibility for such murderers,” the Minister explained.

 “Those matters would have to be probed,” he said.

Those were abuses could have taken place outside the conventional borders of the armed conflict, Senaratne clarified.

The Government Spokesman charged that it was the previous Rajapaksa administration that had committed Sri Lanka to a domestic probe about allegations of major rights violations during the last stages of war, during a visit by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to the island in 2009.

“It was the Rajapaksa regime that tied Sri Lanka up internationally,” Senaratne claimed.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday declined to comment on allegations of a leaked UN document outlining plans to set up a purely domestic inquiry into human rights violations in Sri Lanka - with technical support from the UN. 

According to the Channel 4 report, the document has been prepared in concurrence with the Sri Lankan Government. According to the alleged leaked document, the Northern Provincial Council would be eligible to receive $ 500,000 by way of funding from the UN, as an implementing partner in the process.

Addressing the media at the weekly MFA briefing, MFA Spokesperson Mahishini Colonne said that the Government was not engaging with the UN in the way the Channel 4 report indicates.

"I don’t believe there is any agreement of the nature that the Channel 4 portrays," Colonne said. 

The spokesperson said that the Government of Sri Lanka since President Sirisena was appointed had maintained it would take certain steps to strengthen human rights, the rule of law and good governance. 

Colonne said that on questions of accountability the 100 days work programme, under point 93 states that since Sri Lanka was not a party to the ICC Rome Statute, the matter of justice and accountability rest with the country concerned - with Sri Lankans."And whether we are engaged with the UN, discussing about funding through the peace building fund, yes we are.  In fact, they have already had discussion with the Ministry of Resettlement, in assisting  those persons who are being  resettled in the northern province in their own lands; extending welfare measures that are necessary for immediate resettlement," she said. 

Colonne said that nothing in the nature of funding for accountability or transitional justice mechanisms were under discussion with the UN, as alleged in the Channel 4 report.