British Minister of State for the Foreign Office, Hugo Swire says that there are real human rights concerns in Sri Lanka and that there has been very little progress in investigating allegations of war crimes during the war.
Speaking on the future role of the Commonwealth, ahead of the summer Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, he stated that the Commonwealth Charter, agreed in 2012, is historic: the first ever declaration of its common values in a single document. “But, frankly, implementation is patchy.”
“We have real concerns in Sri Lanka, the Commonwealth’s Chair in Office, where there has been very little progress in investigating the terrible atrocities in the civil war that ended five years ago,” he said in a statement.
The Conservative MP for East Devon further said that the British Prime Minister had shown great leadership in “securing an international inquiry” into Sri Lanka through the UN Human Rights Council.
