Inquiry Accuses Sri Lanka Forces of Wartime Abuses

6 February 2014

Sri Lankan security forces carried out arbitrary killings, torture and rape in the final months of the country’s quarter-century civil war and tried to destroy evidence of mass civilian deaths, according to the results of an independent investigation released Wednesday. The Australia-based Public Interest Advocacy Center’s report also accuses Sri Lankan forces of broad human rights violations in 2008 and 2009 as they smashed a sustained Tamil rebellion for an independent homeland. “Although violations were committed by both sides, the evidentiary material indicates that members of the Sri Lankan security forces perpetrated the vast majority of alleged crimes during the investigation period,” the report said. —AP