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Sri Lanka faulted on war crimes inquiry

Navi Pillay said opposition leaders are still being killed.

GENEVA — The United Nations’ top human rights official faulted Sri Lanka on Wednesday for failing to investigate reports of widespread killings and other atrocities toward the end of its bloody quarter-century civil war.

In her report to the UN ­Human Rights Council, High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay also said opposition leaders are still being killed or abducted and the government has made no arrests in cases of disappearances.

In May 2009, the government, dominated by the ethnic Sinhalese majority, defeated Tamil Tiger rebels who were demanding an independent Tamil nation after decades of perceived discrimination.

The report questioned the government’s commitment to follow through on the recommendations of its own war commission report and urges Sri Lanka to permit international experts to investigate allegations of serious human rights violations.

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‘‘Unfortunately, however, the government has made commitments to only some of the commission’s recommendations, and has not adequately engaged civil society to support this process,’’ the report said.

Sri Lanka’s government disputed many of the findings. In response, Sri Lanka said it has taken steps to investigate more than 50 instances of civilian killings, and all reported cases of alleged disappearances from the end of the war.

Associated Press