UN war crimes panel chief criticises Lanka ban
June 26, 2010 12:54 am
The head of a UN panel probing alleged war crimes during
Marzuki Darusman, a former Indonesian attorney general, was named Tuesday to
lead a team advising UN chief Ban Ki-moon on possible war crimes committed in
“Everybody loses out if we cannot go to
His remarks came after
The
“The UN secretary-general as chief administrative officer of the UN should
apparently have asked the opinion of the Security Council or the General
Assembly on this matter,”
“But this has not happened,” the ministry said in a June 24 statement. “What
also makes us cautious is the fact that this decision was taken without regard
to the position of a sovereign state and a member of the UN --
The UN panel was set up after international pressure for an independent probe into allegations that Tamil civilians were killed by government troops and that surrendering rebels were executed in cold blood.
Ban has asked his three-member panel to complete its work in four months.
Naming the panel on Tuesday, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky emphasised it had a
mostly consultative role and that “primary responsibility for investigating
rests with the authorities of
However, many diplomats see the move as a precursor to a full-blown war crimes investigation.
The UN itself has said that at least 7,000 Tamil civilians perished in the first four months of 2009 before the government secured final victory over the Tigers that May.
AFP