Sri Lanka unveils action plan for implementation of report

The action plan assumes much significance in the light of the UN human rights council resolution adopted late March against Sri Lanka.

The US-sponsored and India-backed resolution urged the Colombo government to expeditiously implement the LLRC recommendations in order to achieve reconciliation with the island's Tamil minority.

"The government has dispelled all doubts about its sincerity in trying to implement the recommendations", Rambukwella told reporters.

The paper presented in the cabinet by president Mahinda Rajapaksa had said that 285 recommendations in the report were classified into four main groups; relating to national policy, pertaining to the final phase of the conflict, human rights and national security concerns and resettlement and development.

 

The action plan sets out some of the LLRC recommendations as ongoing in the process of implementation.

The time scales for implementation vary between 6 to 18 months while some of the other recommendations are shown as those requiring longer; between 1 to 3 years for implementation.

The recommendations on accountability for human rights abuses are to be implemented between 12 and 24 months.

Payment of compensation to the lands currently being used by the state in the national security perspective and land alienation in the former conflict zones are the recommendations that fall into the three-year time frame for implementation.

The LLRC was appointed by Rajapaksa in May 2010 to look back at the separatist conflict launched by the LTTE and fought over three decades.

It was mandated to recommend ways to prevent a repetition of such a conflict.

Sri Lanka faced criticism in the international fora for apparent dragging of feet in implementing the recommendations of its own reconciliation commission.