Ban Ki Moon wants Sri Lanka to cooperate

Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, answering a question on Sri Lanka at the Daily noon briefing on 23 December 2014, said that the Secretary‑General has always encouraged the Government of Sri Lanka to comprehensively address the post-war agenda .

Question:  What I wanted to do was go back to the Sri Lanka one because they totally didn’t cooperate.  And now the President, Rajapaksa, has reiterated as part of his campaign for the snap election that he will not participate with outsiders.  So I wanted to know what… I don’t know.  What repercussions?  What, what do you believe about that?  And what do you believe about the way that the alleged war crimes are being used in the electoral presidential election currently under held… underway?

Spokesman:  That’s a lot of questions intertwined.  I think in terms of… generally, the Member States have a duty to cooperate.  On Sri Lanka, the Secretary‑General, as you know, has always encouraged the Government of Sri Lanka to comprehensively address the post-war agenda and the Secretary‑General has also echoed the calls made by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, for the Government of Sri Lanka to cooperate with the ongoing human rights investigation mandated by the Human Rights Council.

The 28th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council will be held from 02 March  to 27 March 2014 in Geneva and the report on Sri Lanka by the investigations team of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) will be taken up for discussion at the UN Human Rights Council on 25 March 2014. (UN)