CAMERON URGED TO EMULATE CANADIAN PM ON SRI LANKA BOYCOTT

British Prime Minister David Cameron is being urged to follow Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s example and threaten to boycott next year’s Commonwealth leaders’ summit in Sri Lanka.

The Canadian prime minister’s threat — designed to spur changes in Sri Lanka’s dismal human rights record — is being held up by the British House of Commons’ foreign affairs committee as an example for Cameron to emulate.

The committee made the recommendation in its report on the future of the 54-country Commonwealth.

Committee chairman Richard Ottaway tells The Canadian Press from London that a boycott could force the Sri Lankan government to properly investigate atrocities committed by its forces.

Harper wants Sri Lanka’s government to independently investigate war crimes allegations by its own forces against Tamil rebels and civilians in the dying days of the civil war in 2009.

A United Nations report this week offered scathing self-criticism of the world body’s inability to protect the estimated 40,000 Tamil civilians killed in the final months of Sri Lanka’s 27-year internal conflict. (The Canadian Press)

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GL SLAMS ‘COLONIAL’ RIGHTS GROUPS

Sri Lanka’s foreign minister Gamini Lakshman Peiris rejected “colonial” criticism Tuesday of a government-appointed civil war probe, after foreign rights groups snubbed an invitation to attend. New York-based Human Rights Watch, London-based Amnesty International and Brussels-based International Crisis Group last week accused the panel of a cover-up and refused an offer from Colombo to appear before it. Peiris said in a speech to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a leading think-tank based in London, that the rights groups had displayed a “most unattractive attitude.” “It smacks of an attitude that is almost colonial, patronising and condescending, the assumption being that other people must step in because Sri Lankans are unable to chart a course for their own future,” he said. Peiris, who is in London for talks with the British government, said the LLRC was based on similar reconciliation commissions in countries such as South Africa. He urged rights groups and

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TNA vows civil disobedience

Sri Lanka’s main Tamil party on Saturday vowed to launch a Gandhi-style civil disobedience campaign to press a long-standing demand for regional autonomy for their ethnic minority. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in its manifesto for April parliamentary elections renewed its demand for extensive regional autonomy – after Tamil Tiger rebels who fought in their name were crushed last year. “If the Sri Lankan state continues its present style of governance without due regard to the rights of the Tamil-speaking peoples, the TNA will launch a peaceful, non-violent campaign of civil disobedience on the Gandhian model,” the party said. The TNA was a puppet of the Tamil Tiger rebels who were crushed by security forces in May last year after 37 years of fighting. The United Nations has said up to 100,000 people were killed in the conflict. On Saturday the alliance said it would lobby neighbouring India and the international community to ensure the island’s Tamil community -- 12.5 percent

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