Ban Ki-Moon in Sri Lanka

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon toured the Sri Lankan war zone today.

In a Sri Lankan military helicopter, Ban flew over the ravaged northeastern coast where the final battles were fought. Buses were overturned, rooftops were blown off and bunkers were dug into the red earth. Debris was strewn across vast stretches of empty villages, which looked like a tornado had hit.

"As I was flying over the war zone, I thought the fighting must have been very severe and inhumane for the people trapped," Ban later said. "Quite a number of people lost their lives during the course of military fighting."

Afterward, Ban meet with Rajapaksa at his presidential home in the spiritual capital of Kandy. The hilly town is the site of a 1998 Tamil Tiger bombing at the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic. Thirty people were killed in the bombing at the historic temple, which is said to contain a tooth allegedly snatched from Buddha's funeral pyre.

Both sides in Sri Lanka's conflict have been accused of war crimes, especially during the past few months, when government troops cornered the Tamil Tigers on a narrow ribbon of land on the northeastern coast. Aid agencies say that the Tigers used terrified civilians, including children, as human shields, and that the government indiscriminately shelled hospitals and areas where civilians huddled in trenches. The government denies that claim.

"I'll convey the concerns and aspirations and expectations of the international community to Sri Lankan leadership," Ban said at the airport on his arrival. "Wherever there are serious violations of human rights as well as international humanitarian law, proper investigation should be instituted."

The UN Human Rights Council will be meeting in Geneva on Tuesday (Based on information from Amnesty International, I originally posted that they would be meeting on Monday). Amnesty International has recommendations for dealing with the humanitarian crisis and for investigating and monitoring human rights abuses.

The Human Rights Council should note that the human rights issues in Sri Lanka go beyond the current humanitarian crisis. They stem from a breakdown in the rule of law and a pervasive climate of impunity which has seen human rights violations by the security forces go unpunished for decades. I should also mention that the Tamil Tigers have over the years been responsible for gross human rights abuses, including deliberate and indiscriminate killings of civilians, torture of prisoners, and the forced recruitment and use of child soldiers.