Justice Minister of war crimes government appointed as UN human rights official

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 May 2010, 17:01 GMT]
Ivan Simonovic, Justice Minister of Crotia, who served a government of human rights violations and ethnic cleansing and whose ministry failed to cooperate satisfactorily with UN war crimes investigations, has been appointed as top human rights official to liaise with the Geneva office of Navi Pillai and the UN headquarters. He was selected among more than a hundred applicants in a secret process, after becoming one of the four in the shortlist prepared by Navi Pillai, reports Foreign Policy, Thursday. A couple of months ago Ban Ki-moon decided to make Palitha Kohonna, the war crimes accused ambassador of Colombo and Vijay Nambiar, the UN chief of staff, accused of shady deals during the Vanni War as panel members to advice him on the war crimes in Sri Lanka.

The US, some European governments and human rights advocates have expressed dissatisfaction on the procedure of the shortlist and the appointment of Simonovic. But Ban and Pillai refused reconsideration.

Simonovic served the government of massive human rights violations and ethnic cleansing of ethnic Serbs during 1991-1995.

Just last month Amnesty International criticized the ministry of Simonovic for failing to hold Croatian security forces accountable for war crimes.

Most of the prosecutions for war crimes were against the Croatian Serbs while crimes committed by the Croatian security services were not addressed.

Looking at the conduct of the UN, and Colombo’s twist of presenting the LTTE cadres as war criminals, Eezham Tamil circles wonder what would be the fate of war crimes investigations on Sri Lanka.

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Ban reaches into Croatian strongman's inner circle for rights champion