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.

The Northern Province's Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran said Sri Lanka does not have judges or prosecutors to deal with war crimes cases.

Speaking after the release of the UN's report calling for a hybrid mechanism with international judges, Mr Wigneswaran, a former supreme court judge himself, said there was no judge in Sri Lanka who would find fault with the military.

The chief minister welcomed the OHCHR report and said he was happy it called for international participation.

Mr Wigneswaran also welcomed the resolution passed in Tamil Nadu's assembly, which called for an international inquiry.

The hybrid mechanism recommended by the UN's human rights office will not be effective in delivering accountability, the International Centre for Prevention and Prosecution of Genocide said in a statement.

The London-based organisation welcomed the OHCHR's report, which detailed serious allegations of mass atrocities committed during the armed conflict in Sri Lanka, but said the premise for a hybrid mechanism is flawed.

Commending the "admirable thoroughness" of the report, the ICPPG said a mechanism ensuring accountability must now be instituted.

"The Sri Lankan Government’s proposal of a domestic tribunal or as an offer of compromise to the international community, a hybrid tribunal, will not secure the aims that the Human Rights Commissioner has stated," the statement said.

"The Report itself speaks about the pressures that Sri Lankan judges are subject to. Such pressures will continue if domestic judges are appointed to a hybrid tribunal. The experience of the hybrid tribunal in Cambodia is a case in point. In situations where the alleged perpetrators still enjoy power within the Sri Lankan society, the possibility of such pressure is indeed certain,

Speaking at the inauguration of the first Jaffna International Film Festival, Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran highlighted the deade-long ongoing discrimination against the Tamil people by the state.

See below for excerpts of his speech:

"The cinematic art could be used to bring communities together or to divide and destroy communities. Let us make up our minds to mend fences that have kept our communities apart from each other. While doing so let us be aware of the power of the cinematic art to subtly condition the minds of our people in such a way as to deviate them from their desired goals.

"The Tamil community has been discriminated against continuously since Independence. I was fortunate enough to have lived during my early childhood in many parts of this Country as a citizen of the Great British Empire which ruled us then before independence. My early education was in Kurunegala and Anuradhapura before I joined Royal Primary in Colombo. My father was also stationed in Kandy and Tangalle as a Government Officer. As an original Court Judge later I had functioned in different parts of this Country. The significant thing I have noticed is that the camaraderie, the good will and wellbeing, the brotherly and humane relationship that existed prior to independence in this country is lacking now. Tamil speaking people who used to live and own lands and do businesses in many parts of the South had been driven out from their residences by pogroms and riots,

The SLFP said it will protect those who dedicated their services to safeguard the sovereignty of the country, according to general secretary Duminda Dissanayake.