COLOMBO, Aug. 12 (Xinhua) -- The Sri Lankan government rejected a call by U.S. Senators for an independent probe on alleged human rights abuses during the last stages of Sri Lanka's conflict with the Tamil Tiger rebels.
"We reject the call as we have already started our own panel to probe the conflict and to learn from it", Anura Yapa, the Minister of Environment, told reporters here Thursday.
A group of U.S. senators in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged an independent probe saying the Sri Lankan panel "lacked the needed credibility."
Yapa said that Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission ( LLRC) which began its sessions here Wednesday would recommend ways to prevent conflicts between the communities
The LLRC terms of reference cover the period between February 2002 and May 2009 - the phase between the Norwegian backed peace initiative and the end of the war with the Tiger rebels.
Bernard Goonetilleke, who headed the government's peace secretariat during the peace process before the Tigers pulled out of it in 2004 said while testifying before the LLRC on Wednesday that the ceasefire implementation was rendered untenable by rebel intransigence.
The eight-member panel headed by the former Attorney General CR de Silva is to extend its public sittings out of the capital into outer regions in the coming months, LLRC sources said.
