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Message: <blockquote data-quote="lkdood" data-source="post: 7705351" data-attributes="member: 92282">Sri Lanka is "deeply unhappy" at a move by UN chief Ban Ki-moon to  name a panel to look into alleged war crimes committed during the final  months of the island's civil war, an official said Monday.Colombo  repeated a protest that President Mahinda Rajapakse made to Ban in  March, a senior government official who declined to be named told AFP."The  government is deeply unhappy with the appointment of this panel and  made it very clear to the secretary-general himself and other UN  representatives that this is unwarranted and uncalled for," the official  said.Ban was due to name the three-member panel later Monday to  advise him on the massive military campaign that finally crushed the  separatist Tamil Tiger rebels in May last year after decades of  fighting.Colombo has been dogged by war crime charges following  the final offensive. It has consistently rejected as fabrications  videos, pictures and satellite photos released by rights groups as  evidence of war crimes.Ban's move follows a visit to the island  last week by Lynn Pascoe, the UN under secretary-general for political  affairs.Pascoe told reporters on Thursday that the panel of  experts would advise the UN chief on issues of "international standards"  and "accountability" surrounding the end of the war.Rajapakse  warned Ban in March that the appointment of the panel would compel Sri  Lanka to take "necessary and appropriate action", although he did not  give further details.The Sri Lankan government last week held  official celebrations of the Tigers' defeat, with Rajapakse delivering a  speech insisting that his soldiers did not kill a single civilian."Our  troops carried a gun in one hand and a copy of the human rights charter  in the other," the president said. "Our guns were not fired at a single  civilian."Rights groups as well as the United States and the  European Union think otherwise and have said the allegations are  credible and worth investigating.The UN itself has said that at  least 7,000 ethnic Tamil civilians perished in the first four months of  last year, just before the government claimed final victory over the  Tigers.The military has also been accused of executing rebels as  they surrendered.The exact mandate of Ban's panel is not yet  clear, but diplomats said the team could be a precursor to a full-blown  war crimes investigation.US President Barack Obama sent two  senior advisers to Colombo last week to urge Sri Lanka to promote  post-war ethnic reconciliation by tackling claims of war crimes  committed by both sides in the fighting."The US has strong,  credible allegations of evidence of atrocities during the prosecution of  the war against the Tamil Tigers," a US source, who declined to be  named, said after the high-level visit.Colombo managed to stave  off censure at the UN Security Council last year thanks to the support  of Russia and China, close allies and key suppliers of military hardware  to Sri Lanka.Sri Lanka's major aid donor Japan has backed Ban's  panel and said it would be "useful" in reconciling Tamils and the ethnic  majority Sinhalese.Yasushi Akashi, special peace envoy to Sri  Lanka, ended a five-day visit Sunday urging Colombo to accept the UN  panel, but said he detected a "lack of flexibility and openness" in Sri  Lanka's attempts to promote reconciliation.<a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jFHUEdANToUXTivI_HMhu7tZCmuQ" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.google.com/hostednews/img/afp_logo.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a></blockquote>

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