The chairman of the Missing Persons Commission, Maxwell Paranagama says if the army used cluster bombs before 2010 it was not illegal.
He noted that the Cluster Munitions Convention (CMC) banning the use of such weapons was not in force at the time of the conflict and only became operational on 1st August 2010.
“Therefore, if there had been a need for the Sri Lankan Army to use cluster munitions because of military necessity, it was not illegal at the time,” he said.
He noted that there has been a very great deal of publicity preceding the Geneva session touching upon the use of cluster
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had recently called for an independent and impartial investigation to be carried out into claims cluster bombs were used during the war.
“The Paranagama Commission in dealing with its Second Mandate Report fully examined the available evidence and came to the conclusion that there was no credible evidence to suggest that the Sri Lankan Army used weapons of this kind. These, in military terms, are known as area weapons,” Paranagama said in a statement on Monday (July 4).
The Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) is an international treaty was adopted on 30 May 2008 in Dublin, Ireland and signed on 3-4 December 2008 in Oslo, Norway, the Convention on Cluster Munitions entered into force on 01 August 2010. As of 16 June 2016, a total of 119 states have joined the Convention, as 100 States parties and 19 Signatories.
