Lanka is firm on delivering justice to civil war victims

Sri Lanka today said its resolve to deliver justice to the victims of the country's three-decade long civil war remains firm and the government is working towards making the reconciliation process with Tamils a success.
"Our resolve to bring justice to the victims of human rights violations remains firm," Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera said in his address at the UN Human Rights Council's session in Geneva.
"This may be a journey strewn with both success as well as some setbacks. In the face of roadblocks and other obstacles in the day to day world of realpolitik, there may have to be detours from time to time, but the destination and our resolve to walk the distance will remain unchanged. Our resolve to see the transitional justice process through, has not diminished," he said.

Samaraweera is expected to call for more time to implement the action defined in the UNHRC resolution of 2015 which was co-sponsored by Sri Lanka along with the US.
Samaraweera said formulating a new constitution remains imperative for non-recurrence of the armed separatist conflict.
He said the current unity government in Colombo was committed to making the reconciliation process a success.

Highlighting actions taken by the government to achieve reconciliation, Samaraweera said, "We expect the draft legislation on the Truth-Seeking Commission to be presented to the Cabinet of Ministers within the next two months."
Sri Lanka faced three consecutive adverse UNHRC resolutions since 2012 and the last one in 2014 prescribed an international investigations into human rights abuses blamed on both the LTTE and the government troops.

Since the change of the government in January 2015, the rights body has shown leniency in allowing the new government more time to get its reconciliation house in order.
According to the UN figures, up to 40,000 civilians were killed by the security forces during Mahinda Rajapaksa's regime that brought an end to nearly three-decades long civil war in Sri Lanka with the defeat of LTTE in 2009.