Sri Lanka: Bachelet calls for ICC investigation into conflict with Tamil separatists
Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, December 9, 2020. AP - Martial Trezzini
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On Sri Lanka, Michelle Bachelet is moving up a gear: the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights calls for the ICC, the International Criminal Court, to directly investigate the separatist conflict in Sri Lanka.
A conflict that ended in 2009 with a huge bloodbath.
Michelle Bachelet today accuses Colombo of not keeping its promises, made five years ago, to deliver justice for the thousands of civilians killed.
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In 2009, Colombo had crushed the
Tamil rebellion
in blood
: 40,000 civilians killed in the last months of the conflict according to human rights defenders, also hospitals bombed, rebels executed while they had surrendered.
For Michelle Bachelet, Sri Lanka's failure to establish accountability has "
entrenched impunity
" and "
exacerbated victims' mistrust of the system
".
Yet in 2015, Colombo pledged that justice be done, it was one of the campaign arguments of the future President Sirisena, whose record was ultimately very poor.
In 2019, his successor Rajapaksa had him, plainly promised that the soldiers would not be prosecuted.
Yet last week, he set up a commission to investigate the work of previous commissions, perhaps according to some NGOs because this report by Michelle Bachelet must be considered in less than a month at the UN.
For five years, the UN has regularly given Colombo more time to
investigate
, but this time the High Commissioner for Human Rights no longer seems to believe it: she asks that the International Criminal Court investigate directly and reminds that states ICC members can prosecute international crimes in their own courts.
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See also: United Kingdom: investigation opened against mercenaries suspected of war crimes in Sri Lanka
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