Sri Lanka lifts ban on UN war crime panel visit

Sri Lanka said on Sunday it would allow the United Nations to send a representative to a locally appointed war crimes panel, reversing an earlier ban on international involvement, but analysts said the move would  do little to add credibility to the commission.

The island nation had rejected a three-member UN panel by Ban Ki-moon to look into possible war crimes in the 25-year war and ruled out visas for members of the panel if they  wanted to visit Sri Lanka for any investigations.

But a statement by the foreign ministry said the government would now welcome UN involvement in the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), a local panel appointed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa to probe the end of the war and which has been criticised by human rights groups as lacking independence.

In the event of the panel of the secretary-general wishing to present representations to the commission, the  ministry of external affairs will make the arrangements that  are necessary to enable the panel to do so, the ministry said in a statement.

This position has already been conveyed through  diplomatic channels, to the United Nations in New York, the ministry added, without giving any details.

Analysts described the government statement as a small, and ineffectual, concession to demands by Western governments and human rights groups for an international probe into the  military's May 2009 crushing defeat of the Tamil Tiger separatists after a quarter-century of civil war.

Sri Lanka's failure to set up an independent probe into  the alleged war crimes has already cost the island nation $150  million worth trade concession from the European Union  annually. Economists also said it is hampering foreign investment.

There is no point of UN panel coming here, if the it is  only allowed to meet only the LLRC and not allowed to meet the  civil society and people affected by the war and to travel  around the country,; said a political analyst asking not to be  named fearing repercussions.

The submissions the LLRC have got is mostly on reconciliation for the future and not what happened in the  last day of the war. The UN panel is meant to see what happened in the last day of the war.

Human rights groups, Tamil pressure groups overseas and some Western governments accuse the government of responsibility for what they say are thousands of civilian deaths or other atrocities that could constitute war crimes.

Allegations of war crimes by the Sri Lankan military against Tamil rebels resurfaced after President Rajapaksa's recent visit to Britain, where a university cancelled his  speech after protests by Tamil groups.

US diplomatic cables, released by the Wikileaks website, also put the alleged human rights abuses in the spotlight, revealing that the United States believes there is little prospect Sri Lanka will hold anyone accountable for the bloody end of the war because of the top government figures involved.

Sri Lankan Tamils, who have been mostly affected in the war, have complained of disappearances, abductions, and abuses by the military before the LLRC, but the government is yet to start an official probe to investigate these  complaints.

Economists have attributed the government's failure for the probe for slowing foreign direct investment, which has fallen 12% in the first nine months of 2010 year-on-year, despite the end of the war.