COLOMBO, July 9 (Reuters) - Sri Lankan demonstrators marched to Russia's embassy on Friday to express gratitude for support against a U.N. war crimes panel, the subject of a fourth day of protests that have cracked open a rift with the world body.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday recalled the head of U.N. Sri Lanka for consultations and blasted President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government for failing to stop protesters from disrupting work at the world body’s office.
Ban also ordered closed the regional office of the U.N. Development Programme in Colombo. U.N. officials in Sri Lanka said it had already been downsized in preparation for a planned move to Bangkok. The main country office remains open.
The protests led by Construction Minister Wimal Weerawansa, a popular nationalist ally of Rajapaksa, began on Tuesday with demonstrators clashing with police who tried to escort trapped U.N. staff out until the government ordered them to stand down.
Weerawansa, now on the second day of a hunger strike until Ban dissolves the panel, also tried to resign from the cabinet.
"He didn’t want to embarrass the government, the president and the cabinet, so he decided to resign. The president did not accept it," Jayantha Samaraweera, a member of Weerawansa’s National Freedom Front party, told reporters.
Hunger strikes to draw attention to a cause are a common political tactic in Sri Lanka and south Asia, but rarely end with the strikers dying.
VICTORY OR DEATH
Weerawansa has been laying down in front of the U.N. offices in central Colombo, surrounded by supporters and Buddhist monks, a nationalist political force in Sri Lanka for years. He called Ban’s panel a move to label Rajapaksa and soldiers war criminals.
"We must defeat it otherwise we are not rice-eating people. That is why I am staging a fast unto death. This fight will end either in victory or death. Any solutions outside that are not necessary," Weerawansa said.
Ban has refused to dissolve the panel.
Earlier, around 300 demonstrators marched to the Russian embassy from the U.N. offices, flooding an embassy official who came out to meet them with flower bouquets. Some carried placards reading "Thank you Russia, we need your support again".
Russia and China both have criticised the three-member panel as unnecessary. It is tasked with advising Ban whether war crimes were committed at the end of Sri Lanka’s 25-year conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
"We should all get together to defeat the international conspiracies and foreign interference with our nation and should protect our war heroes, the president and defence secretary who bravely defeated the LTTE," marcher Madura Kularatne said.
Sri Lanka destroyed the LTTE in May 2009, but drew primarily Western criticism for the thousands of civilian deaths in the final months of the offensive. Both the government and LTTE were accused of putting civilians in harm’s way.
Rajapaksa in turn accuses the West of applying double standards to Sri Lanka’s fight to destroy a group on U.S. and EU terrorism lists. The government says Ban’s panel violates its sovereignty, because it has its own commission probing the war.
Sri Lanka is concerned the panel is a prelude to a full-blown investigation, pressed for by rights groups and some LTTE supporters living in Western countries as refugees.
UN OFFICE OPEN
The U.N. office remained open with essential staff working there, spokesman Mohan Samaranayake said in Colombo.
Ban deemed Sri Lanka’s failure to prevent "unruly protests" that interrupted normal operations at the U.N. office unacceptable, a spokesman in New York said on Thursday.
The government has given tacit approval to the protest, which it says is lawful because it is peaceful, while promising to ensure U.N. staff are able to move freely.
Foreign Minister G.L. Peiris on Friday told reporters the protest was carried out by a party in the ruling coalition and did not represent the government’s position.
"There are coalition parties and they have different opinions on certain issues," he said. "There is room for discussion and it is an essential and vibrant tool of a democracy."
Politically, the protest has wide appeal with Rajapaksa’s power base, the Sinhalese people who make up 75 percent of the country’s 21 million population.
Ban says the panel is merely a resource to help Sri Lanka reconcile after thousands of Tamil civilians died in the war’s final months. Sri Lanka’s government says the casualty figures are hugely inflated.
