Verdict on Sri Lanka should be warning to others

(Dawn Editorial Thursday, 15 Jul, 2010 Pakistan)Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s move to set up a three-member panel has come more than a year after the war had ended and reports of the army’s atrocities against civilians had started filtering out. The war was conducted by the army but had the full backing of the president who believed that Tamil Eelam was an intractable problem which could not be resolved through political means. The war had dragged on for 27 years and the final assault is believed to have been brutal with 7,000 civilians having been killed in the last few months of the fighting. Besides the Sri Lankan government is known to have resorted to ham-fisted measures vis-à-vis the media and the opposition. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/editorial/sri-lankas-war-crimes-570