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Sri Lanka under fire for killing thousands
Sydney Morning Herald - May 18, 2010
Matt Wade – A year after Sri Lankan troops crushed Tamil Tiger rebels on the battlefield, the International Crisis Group has accused the military of killing tens of thousands of Tamil civilians in the closing stages of the conflict.
An investigative report by the Brussels-based group blames both the army and the rebels for atrocities but attributes most of the civilian deaths during the war's bloody conclusion to government bombardment of crowded "no-fire zones".
"All but a small portion of these deaths were due to government shelling," the report said.
Last May Sri Lankan troops routed Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) forces that had waged a violent 26-year struggle for a Tamil homeland.
As government troops surrounded the rebels, about 300,000 Tamil civilians were trapped amid heavy fighting on a narrow strip of coast in the country's north-east.
"Evidence gathered by Crisis Group provides reasonable grounds to believe that during these months the security forces intentionally and repeatedly shelled civilians, hospitals and humanitarian operations," the report said.
"It also provides reason to believe that senior government and military officials were aware of the massive civilian casualties due to the security forces' attacks, but failed to protect the civilian population as they were obliged to under the laws of war."
The report said the Tigers shot civilians trying to escape the fighting and deliberately put others in harm's way in a bid to win international help.
"Their calculation, ultimately an incorrect one, was that escalating civilian casualties would eventually get the attention of the international community to broker a cease-fire so the LTTE could regroup or perhaps enter negotiations," the report said.
An unofficial United Nations count put the civilian death toll during the final weeks of the war at 7000 but many say that is an underestimation.
Gordon Weiss, an Australian who recently stepped down as the UN's spokesperson in Sri Lanka, estimated that between 10,000 and 40,000 civilians died.
The report said a war crimes investigation was required.
"Future generations will demand to know what happened, and future peace in Sri Lanka re-requires some measure of justice," said the ICG's president, Louise Arbour.
However, the Sri Lankan Government has denied targeting civilians and claims the number killed in the final stages of the war is much lower.
It has resisted demands for any international investigation.
The ICG called on Australia, along with other Western governments, to push for an international investigation into war crimes in Sri Lanka and to impose sanctions on Sri Lankan officials and their families until the government co-operates.
The pro-government newspaper The Sunday Observer lashed out at the ICG ahead of yesterday's report.
It claimed that Gareth Evans, the former Australian foreign minister and a previous head of the ICG, along with its Ms Arbour are "famed for their frequent hostile observations on Sri Lanka", which raised "suspicion on the bonafides of the ICG and the credibility of the report".
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