POLITICAL BULLETIN: June 16th

Sri Lanka armed forces commemorated the first anniversary of the victory over LTTE terrorists with a special parade at Galle Face Green, Colombo and a salutation ceremony opposite the War Heroes Memorial at Parliament Grounds, Sri Jayawardhanapura, Kotte.

A host of international figures, including a US war crimes investigator, landed in Sri Lanka for visits expected to focus on alleged atrocities committed during the country's civil war. As the separate US, Japanese and United Nations officials arrived in Colombo, the government furiously denied that any war crimes were committed during the final months of fighting last year.

The US embassy in Colombo said the two advisors had been sent by President Barack Obama to discuss issues including the military offensive that ended the decades-long war with separatist Tamil rebels in May 2009.

Samantha Power, special assistant to the president on multilateral affairs and human rights, and David Pressman, national security council director for war crimes and atrocities, will hold four days of meetings in Sri Lanka. The embassy said the visit followed last month's meeting in Washington between US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sri Lanka's External Affairs Minister G. L. Peiris. The US has been pressing for an independent war crimes investigation into the final phase of fighting that ended with the Tamil Tigers' defeat.

Sri Lanka this week is also hosting two other international envoys to discuss peace and reconciliation and alleged human rights abuses during the war.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon's top political adviser, Lynn Pascoe, and Japan's special envoy to Sri Lanka, Yasushi Akashi, were also due for talks with Sri Lankan officials.

Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse said those making war crimes allegations had failed to prove their claims. "I challenge them to produce evidence," he told to media. "There is no point in giving photographs and videos to the media. We have an established legal system. Use it."

Both Pascoe and Akashi are expected to push Sri Lanka to improve ethnic reconciliation a year after the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) guerrillas, who were fighting for a Tamil homeland.
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A panel to advise the United Nations on human rights issues arising from the civil war in Sri Lanka could be in place within days. The announcement came from the UN's head of political affairs, Lynn Pascoe, after a two-day visit. The Sri Lankan government is opposed to the panel, which would advise UN chief Ban Ki Moon on moves to address the grievances that fuelled the conflict.

Mr Pascoe praised government efforts to resettle Tamils displaced by war. The UN intends that the human rights panel will advise its chief Ban Ki Moon on issues and standards of accountability arising from the 37-year conflict with the Tamil Tigers, which ended last year.

There was an urgent need to take steps towards political reconciliation, Mr Pascoe said. "Bitterness and divisions that took decades to accumulate will not dissolve overnight in Sri Lanka," Mr Pascoe said. "But now is the time to make major efforts to begin healing these wounds. The end of the conflict must be followed by a political solution that addresses the issues and grievances that fuelled the war."
But Mr Pascoe had praise for the authorities on another difficult theme, the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of Tamils displaced by the war.
Fresh from a visit to northern regions where people are only now returning home, he said children were attending school and people had food and access to basic healthcare.