GENEVA (AP) — Sri Lanka’s foreign minister says his country is launching a truth and reconciliation commission after its decades-long civil war.
Mangala Samaraweera says the goal is to address injustices that occurred during the conflict that ended in 2009, leaving at least 80,000 dead, according to U.N. estimates.
The ministry says the International Red Cross will help develop an office of missing persons, and a judicial mechanism is to be established to address the question of impunity.
Sri Lanka is a central focus of the U.N.’s Human Rights Council that began Monday in Geneva. On Wednesday, the office of the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights is publishing an investigative report on human rights abuses and war crimes there. The United States is sponsoring a resolution to help improve accountability there.