Rights resolution not global conspiracy: Sri Lankan opposition

Sri Lanka's main opposition party today rejected the government's claim that a US-sponsored resolution tabled at the UN rights body against the country over alleged rights abuses during the war with Tamil Tiger rebels was the result of an international conspiracy.
"This crisis Sri Lanka faces internationally is not, as the government would prefer the people to believe, an international conspiracy or petty jealousy against the Sri Lankan state for defeating terrorism," the United National Party (UNP) said in a statement.
The crisis the country is facing internationally is the Rajapaksa government's "paralysis on addressing grave crimes committed in the country", the statement said.

The UNP said it had advised the government to address the allegations raised internationally with the seriousness they deserve, but the regime had ignored such advice.
The UNP said the international focus has also centers on the south of the country when previously it was only the north which was being seen as the arena of violations.
A draft resolution, tabled at the UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva on March 3, has called for an international probe into the alleged war crimes.

The resolution, which is to be voted at the end of this month, will be the third in as many years on Sri Lanka's accountability and reconciliation with the Tamil minority.

Up to 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed at the end of the separatist war in 2009, rights groups and UN experts have said.
Sri Lanka has long resisted calls for an international investigation calling its own domestic processes were credible enough to deal with the allegations of civilian deaths.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka's envoy in Geneva Ravinatha Aryasinha has told the UNHRC sessions that the rights body had violated the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity by allowing the resolution be tabled.