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Message: <blockquote data-quote="lkdood" data-source="post: 12306434" data-attributes="member: 92282"><img src="http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRgOHwfQFp0t0pDptF8Fo5S_hzv69h-8o2EFOMfFwRSZazq8AbYkg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />Ethnic Tamil lawmakers in Sri Lanka asked the U.N. Human Rights  Council on Thursday to press the government to investigate alleged  wartime abuses and share power with the ethnic minority to prevent the  country from sliding back into violence.Sri Lanka's civil war  ended in 2009 when government troops crushed separatist Tamil Tiger  rebels. Both sides have been accused of committing war crimes during the  final stages of the conflict.The United States is planning to  bring a resolution before the U.N. rights council, currently meeting in  Geneva, urging Sri Lanka's government to investigate those allegations  and seek reconciliation.The ethnic Sinhalese-dominated government  has arranged protests across the country against the resolution, which  it calls interference in Sri Lanka's affairs.On Thursday, more  than 10,000 people marched in the capital to denounce the proposed  resolution. Smaller groups met with U.N., British, Norwegian and German  officials at embassies to urge them not to support it.However, a  group of ethnic Tamil lawmakers said they support the resolution.  Rajavarothayam Sampanthan, leader of the Tamil National Alliance, said  the government has not shown a genuine interest in sharing power, a  long-standing demand of ethnic minority Tamils, despite promises made to  the U.N. and other nations.Sampanthan accused the military of  continuing to run ethnic Tamil-majority areas since the end of the war,  and of bringing ethnic Sinhalese settlers into the former war zones to  alter the demographics."As the opportunities for postwar peace  and reconciliation in Sri Lanka gradually slip away, the members of the  UNHRC must act urgently to prevent an ominous slide towards a recurrence  of the tragedies of the past," Sampanthan said in a statement Thursday.A  U.N. panel has concluded that tens of thousands of civilians may have  been killed in the final months of the civil war and that there are  credible allegations against both government soldiers and Tamil Tiger  rebels of serious human rights abuses, some of which could amount to war  crimes.The government's own reconciliation commission ruled that  the military did not target civilians deliberately but recommended that  isolated cases of civilian killings be investigated.Cabinet  Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe told the U.N. rights council last month  that the government already has taken steps for reconciliation and any  external pressure would only impede the process. He called for Sri Lanka  to be given time and space to continue with its program.But Sampanthan said the government has shown a "chronic unwillingness" to honor its own commitments."Sri Lanka's failure to make good on its own assurances requires that the council act now," he said.<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0c/Associated_Press_logo_2012.svg/30px-Associated_Press_logo_2012.svg.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></blockquote>

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