Together Against Genocide (TAG) released a report last week, detailing the danger faced by Tamil witnesses of mass atrocities committed by Sri Lankan troops during the final stages of the armed conflict.

The report, released at the Geneva Press Club on Wednesday, stated “that Sri Lanka is not a safe place for witnesses or victims seeking justice”.

“If prosecutions are conducted in Sri Lanka, the vast majority of witnesses who contributed to the OISL will not be able to provide evidence,” it added. “The victims who participated in the OISL process will be dis-enfranchised; and any further ‘consultation process’ that requires Tamil victims to come forward and self-identify themselves to GoSL as seeking justice will place those victims at further risk of persecution.”

The OISL report, which detailed the crimes committed during the final stages of the armed conflict, had also said there was an “absence of any reliable system for victim and witness protection, particularly in a context where the threat of reprisals is very high”.

“A consultation process that requires Tamil victims to come forward and self-identify themselves to the Sri Lankan government as seeking an international mechanisms for justice will place those victims at further risk of persecution,” said TAG.

The National Freedom Front's Wimal Weerawansa has requested the speaker of Sri Lanka's parliament for a debate on the recommendations of the OHCHR report, which includes the call for a hybrid justice mechanism.

In a letter the former minister said the government had already agreed with the UN Human Rights Council to form a branch of the International Criminal Court in the country, under the name of a hybrid court.

The Tamil National People’s Front has stressed the need for a criminal judicial process following the findings of the OISL report.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, the party’s leader Gajen Ponnambalam welcomed the report’s finding that a domestic investigation mechanism would not suffice.

Mr Ponnambalam said that while the report stresses that it was a human rights investigation and not a criminal one, the stance of Tamil war victims was still that a criminal inquiry must lead to prosecutions for war criminals.

Updated 1100 GMT

Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena on Friday claimed that his government was able to stop the UN’s human rights office from publishing names of members of the security forces thought to be responsible for mass atrocities, whilst prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe blamed the former government for agreeing to a domestic investigation.

Speaking to the press in Colombo President Sirisena said the OHCHR Investigation in Sri Lankaintended to identify key people as perpetrators of human rights violations and barred them from travelling abroad and impose other sanctions, JDS reported. He said that 'international powers would have insisted on hard strictures and conditions on Sri Lanka in the Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, if not for the change of government in Presidential Election of January 8 this year.'

"Our stand is to have a domestic inquiry,” he reiterated. “We can't avoid this situation. If we try to do that, we can't face the United Nations or the international community. Our stand is to have a domestic mechanism."

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, echoed Mr Sirisena's calls, saying, "What I emphasise is that, there will be no 'international inquiry'.”

“Nobody knows what a hybrid court is although they talk through the local media,” he said. “We do not accept this... We haven’t sold our sovereignty or integrity.”

Mr Wickremesinghe also blamed former president Mahinda Rajapaksa for agreeing to carry out a domestic inquiry into reports of human rights violations in a meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon in 2009.

“During the meeting I was privy to the agreement between UN Secretary General and President Rajapaksa; I was surprised to see that,” said Mr Wickremesinghe. “But I could not say anything since it has already been adopted”.

The UN Secretary Generals’s Special Advisers on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng and on Responsibility to Protect, Jennifer Welsh expressed outrage at serious accounts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, stressed that the Sri Lankan government has the primary responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

The United States Tamil Political Action Council (USTPAC) called on the United Nations Human Rights Council to accept all the recommendations laid out in the OISL report on mass atrocities in Sri Lanka.

“It is critical that the report’s recommendations be fully implemented,” said Dr Karunyan Arulanantham, president of USTPAC. “Tamils and other deeply affected communities will only find such an internationalized court acceptable; a purely domestic mechanism for accountability will never have legitimacy in the eyes of the affected communities, and never allow for reconciliation.” 

“It is now incumbent upon the Human Rights Council to accept this report and reflect its findings and recommendations within a new resolution,” he added.

A senior US official called for Sri Lanka to implement a "credible domestic" mechanism with "substantial involvement" from the international community.

US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs Nisha Biswal told PTI that the Sri Lankan government had demonstrated "a very strong intent" in addressing rights concerns.