Lanka slams UN over war crimes probe

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COLOMBO, June 23 (AFP): Sri Lanka accused the UN Wednesday of a 'hidden agenda' behind its plans to investigate alleged human rights abuses by soldiers in the final months of the island's savage civil war.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's appointment of a panel to advise on any violations of international human rights was "an attempt to provide oxygen" to the defeated Tamil Tigers, government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said.
Sri Lankan troops finally wiped out the separatist guerrillas in May last year after decades of ethnic bloodshed, and the government has denied repeated allegations that thousands of civilians were killed in the fighting.
"The United Nations and its secretary-general have revealed their hidden agenda in no uncertain terms," Rambukwella said in remarks published on the government website.
Rambukwella did not elaborate on the UN's 'hidden agenda', but in the past Colombo has portrayed detractors of the war as Tiger sympathisers.
In another statement Wednesday, Rambukwella said the UN was attempting to pre-judge Sri Lanka's own system of probing the final stages of the fighting through a 'lessons learnt' commission appointed by President Mahinda Rajapakse.