16. The Panel’s programme of work was organized in two phases. In the first phase, the Panel gathered a variety of information regarding the armed conflict in Sri Lanka from individuals and institutions with expertise or experience related to its mandate. Some of this information came in written form, consisting of both public documents – e.g., governmental, United Nations or reports of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) – and material conveyed confidentially to the Panel. Other information was gathered through numerous meetings of the Panel and its secretariat. The Panel met with officials of the United Nations and international organizations as well as representatives of Governments and NGOs and individuals directly affected by the events of the final stages of the war. In the second phase of its work, the Panel drafted this report. The report was written in a manner that makes it suitable for publication.
17. In terms of outreach to the broader public, the Panel made a general invitation for written submissions from interested organizations and individuals. On 21 October 2010, the Panel’s Chief of Staff wrote to the Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to advise him of this decision, enclosing a copy of the notice and noting that it would be posted on the United Nations website. The English notice was posted on 27 October 2010, and Sinhala and Tamil versions were subsequently posted. The initial deadline of 15 December 2010 set for these submissions was subsequently extended to 31 December 2010. As of 31 December 2010, the Panel had received over 4,000 submissions from more than 2,300 senders.
18. A significant number of the submissions contained allegations relating to particular kinds of violations or to particular time periods during the final stages, and individual complaints of specific violations of human rights or humanitarian law. Documentary information, comprised of lists of incidents or victims, photographs and videos, was also received. A limited number of unbiased analytical submissions provided analyses of general information, trends or specific aspects of the situation. General information, including media reports, web links and historical accounts, forwarded to the Panel from publicly available sources, also accounted for a portion of submissions. Lastly, appeals urging the Panel to act or to make specific recommendations, but containing neither fact-based information nor analysis, accounted for a large number of submissions received.
19. Submissions could not be individually verified by the Panel and, therefore, were not used as a direct source to meet the Panel’s threshold of credibility for the allegations (see chapter III.A). In some cases, however, submissions helped to corroborate other sources of information. The large number of submissions received, including about incidents predating the Panel’s temporal mandate, underscores the urgent need to address the past, not only in terms of the final stages of the war, but also, more broadly.
D. Interaction with the Government of Sri Lanka
20. Since its inception, the Panel wished to engage with the Government of Sri Lanka to discuss the implementation of its mandate and to learn more about the Government’s perspectives on how it is addressing the accountability issues. Indeed, the Secretary-General stated to both the Panel and the Government his hope that the Panel could serve as a resource for the Government. The Panel consistently maintained the position that, in particular, it would be valuable to engage with the LLRC, as the Government has referred to it publicly as a home grown accountability mechanism. At the same time, the Panel considered that other domestic institutions have an important role vis-à-vis accountability and sought to engage with these as well, through the Government. The Panel’s efforts to engage with the
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