Daily Mirror's cartoon Friday May 27, 2011

Sri Lanka on Thursday withdrew the on-arrival free visa facility for Indian tourists.

Sri Lanka's announcement of the appointment of yet another commission to investigate human rights abuses should come as no surprise. Following the release of report by the UN expert panel, calls for an international, independent inquiry into the final stages of the conflict are gaining momentum on a global level.

This new commission, like its predecessors, including the infamously impotent Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) is a farce. Its announcement is a insolent retort at the UN report and all those advocating accountability, as well as another of Sri Lanka's habitual ploys to buy time for international attention to fade.

The United Nations has signed a ‘routine’ agreement with Sri Lanka so that resources can be accessed when needed for peacekeeping.

This is despite 20% of a Sri Lankan peacekeeping force in Haiti being sent back in 2007 after UN investigations confirmed reports of sexual exploitation of children, and there having been no prosecutions against the soldiers once repatriated.

Sri Lanka on Monday began compulsory military-led training for thousands of university entrants, despite a Supreme Court stay, and protests by opposition-backed student unions that called it the government’s latest move to militarise the country.

At the conclusion of the visit to Delhi this week by Sri Lanka’s External Affairs Minister G. L. Peiris, the two governments issued a joint statement which set out a range of bilateral policy.

However, no sooner had Peiris returned to Colombo, Sri Lankan officials were backpedaling from any commitments he may have given.

“The British government’s delay in seeking international justice for victims of genocide must be a matter of continuing shame for our country.

“We as British citizens demand that the British government lives up to its international obligations, that it recognizes formally that genocide has occurred in Sri Lanka and it moves the UN Security Council, the Human Rights Council and General Assembly for an international investigation.

"Today, two years on, our nation once again stands united to remember. Not just amongst us here in London, but we stand united with Eelam Tamils in every major city, throughout the world, and with every mind of every Tamil who continues to live oppressed in our homeland. We will never forget those horrors that passed.

"So on this day every year, we recall that at our nation’s bleakest moment, we came together. In the face of unimaginable destruction, we stood united.

"The UN Panel of experts has reported that there is credible evidence to institute an inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the conduct of the war in Sri Lanka. However, the UN continues with its inaction by calling on the very same murderous Sri Lankan regime to investigate its own murder.

India on Tuesday urged Sri Lanka to probe human rights abuses, implicitly endorsing the UN expert panel’s report, which made allegations of war crimes committed in the last stages of the war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers.

In a break with tradition, and despite refraining from joining international endorsements of the UN report, India "urged the expeditious implementation of measures by the government of Sri Lanka, including... investigations into allegations of human rights violations," a statement said.