A devastating report into the final months of Sri Lanka's brutal civil war claims government forces carried out a politically-motivated massacre of surrendering Tamil Tiger fighters.
The investigation by a leading Sri Lankan human rights group accuses elements of the Sri Lankan army of touching "the most depraved depths of humanity".
But it also accuses the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
of torture, murder, and the forced conscription of children, and says the rebel group was probably responsible for most of the thousands of civilian casualties in the final days of the war.
The report was issued last night by the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) group, which has spent 21 years exposing abuses by both sides in the civil war.
Its investigators uncovered evidence that LTTE fighters gunned down civilians who they believed were trying to escape and that government troops threw grenades into bunkers where they knew civilians were sheltering and used a vehicle to run over injured civilians. There are also allegations that wounded civilians may have been bulldozed into mass graves along with the dead.
The most controversial claim, however, is that the government authorised a massacre of LTTE cadres after persuading them to surrender.
... More at link http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/11/sri-lanka-tamil-tigers-civil-war
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