'SL won't succumb to pressure after UNHRC Resolution'

Sri Lanka,Indo-Pak/Pakistan,Politics

International, Politics, National, Indo-Pak/Pakistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka Read Latest News and Articles

Share With Your Friends

Colombo, March 30 (IANS) Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said that his country will not succumb to any pressure in response to a UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Resolution passed last week, which would allow the body to investigate incidents during the three-decades long civil war.

In a statement released by his office on Monday, President Rajapaksa said Sri Lanka will face the challenge without fear and that it will not succumb to pressure, reports Xinhua news agency.

Meanwhile he noted that Sri Lanka's national development strategies are in place including environment-friendly projects such as for providing electricity power to all households while boosting economy in the country.

The President said that therefore foreign and local forces who are against the country's progress are misleading the public.

"If you give in to those lies the damage could be irreversible," Rajapaksa added.

The UNHRC resolution calls for accountability over incidents related to Sri Lanka's 30-year civil conflict between the government forces and the Tamil Tiger rebels who were militarily defeated in May 2009, when Rajapaksa was the Defence Minister.

The resolution was passed at the UNHRC with 22 countries voting in favour, 11 countries against, and 14 abstaining.

It allows the UN "to collect, consolidate, analyse and preserve information and evidence, and to develop possible strategies for future accountability processes for gross violations of human rights or serious violations of international humanitarian law in Sri Lanka, to advocate for victims and survivors, and to support relevant judicial and other proceedings".

A budget of $2.8 million has been allocated to hire investigators to work on the collection of evidence.

--IANS

ksk/