Sri Lanka suspects troop, police hand in abductions
Source: Reuters
(Updates with U.S. report on Sri Lanka rights, details) By Simon Gardner COLOMBO, March 7 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's government said on Wednesday it suspects some state security service personnel have been involved in abductions and murders that have mushroomed amid renewed civil war. The admission comes as President Mahinda Rajapakse's government faces pressure to halt rights abuses blamed on elements of the military as well as Tamil Tiger rebels and renegades -- and days before an expected roasting by the Human Rights Council in Geneva. The police has arrested more than 450 people since September in connection with a host of crimes including aiding and abetting the Tamil Tigers and abductions and killings -- 20 of those serving in the police and army. "Out of the arrests of the defence personnel, some may be involved in abductions and killings and disappearances. It is (our suspicion)," Defence Spokesman and government minister Keheliya Rambukwella told reporters. "In relation to charges, these are things that cannot be done within 24 hours. It will take some time. Sri Lanka's Human Rights Commission says more than 100 abductions and disappearances have been reported so far this year from the capital Colombo, eastern district of Batticaloa and the besieged northern Jaffna peninsula alone. That in turn comes on top of 1,000 cases reported during 2006 as the island's civil war between the state and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), in which around 68,000 people have been killed since 1983, resumed and a 2002 truce broke down. "The government's respect for the human rights of its citizens declined due in part to the breakdown of the (ceasefire agreement)," the United States said in its report on human rights practices in 2006 published overnight. RIGHTS MONITORS NEEDED Human rights groups are lobbying for an international human rights monitoring mission to be sent to Sri Lanka, arguing that witnesses were often reluctant to speak up because there are no safeguards like a witness protection scheme. "Amnesty International believes nothing could be more effective in reducing the incidents of human rights violations than a genuine commitment by the security forces and the LTTE to respect human rights and stop abuses," said Yolanda Foster, Amnesty International's researcher on Sri Lanka. "The test of the sincerity of such a commitment would be a public commitment to agree without delay to the establishment and deployment of an effective international human rights monitoring mechanism." UN envoy Allan Rock says he has credible evidence that elements within the security forces have helped to abduct children as soldiers for a former band of Tamil Tiger rebels who broke away from the mainstream group in 2004 and are now called the Karuna faction. The government angrily rejects Rock's allegations.
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