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EU threatens to cut Lanka's trade benefits

UN chief to name panel on rights abuses

AFP, Colombo/ United Nations
The European Union threatened yesterday to withdraw by August trade concessions granted to Sri Lanka unless the island makes a written undertaking to improve its human rights record.
The EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, has insisted on "significant improvements on the effective implementation of the human rights conventions" for the island to continue enjoying the trade benefits.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is expected to name a group of experts Monday to advise him what to do about alleged human rights violations during the last month of the Sri Lankan civil war, a UN diplomat said Monday.
"It is an advisory panel of experts, not an investigative body," the diplomat told AFP
The three-member panel "will provide the secretary-general with advice on how to proceed on the question of accountability pertaining to Sri Lanka," the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the Colombo government had not yet been officially notified.
Sri Lankan authorities have faced numerous accusations of war crimes committed during a final military offensive against Tamil rebels in
the northeastern part of the island last year that ended the conflict.
Videos, photographs and satellite images presented by human rights groups as evidence of war crimes have been rejected as forgeries by the government in Colombo.
The GSP+ scheme gives 16 poor nations preferential access to the vast European market in return for following strict commitments on a variety of social and rights issues.
These benefits will be withdrawn on August 15 unless Sri Lanka makes a written commitment by July 1, a statement from an EU mission to the island said.
Sri Lanka's hawkish government has faced almost constant criticism in the past several years over the way it conducted a war against Tamil Tiger separatist rebels who were finally defeated in May2009.
Government forces have been accused of a host of rights violations including the indiscriminate killing of thousands of Tamil civilians, the murder of aid workers and the execution of surrendering rebels.
Sri Lanka criticised the EU’s warning to withdraw the trade benefits, with the foreign ministry in Colombo complaining that Europe was setting "unattainable targets".