Secretary to the President has said in Washington that the role of the Indian Peacekeeping Force should be probed in Sri Lanka war crimes.
President’s Secretary Lalith Weeratunga has pointed out that if an international investigation into war crimes allegedly committed in Lanka is to be fair, it has to be comprehensive. It should cover events since 1980, when terrorism raised its head in the island nation. He emphasized that such a probe should cover the period when the Indian Peace Keeping Force was operating in the island, drawing heavy flak from the Tamils for the atrocities it allegedly committed.
Mr. Weeratunga told a news agency in Washington that if there is an international investigation, the whole period has to be investigated – from the 1980s onward – which includes the two-year tenure of the Indian peacekeeping force. The IPKF was operating in Lanka from July 1987 to March 1990 to force the LTTE to accept the India-Sri Lanka Accord. Broken Palmyrah and The Satanic Force, both books written by Tamils, alleged Indian atrocities. Weeratunga is in Washington lobbying against the US proposal to bring a resolution at the UNHRC in March, calling for an international probe into charges of war crimes against Lankan troops. The Lankan official said that there would be “huge chaos” in Lanka, if its armed forces, which liberated the country from terrorism, were put to a judicial test. He warned that it was really going to reduce the morale of the army.
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