Sri Lanka: president Mahinda Rajapaksa hits out at human rights critics

Sri Lanka's president hits out at critics who question his nation's human rights record, saying its institutions are dealing with complaints of abuses committed during or after its bloody 27-year civil war.
Speaking to reporters ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo, Mahinda Rajapaksa said that the country has a legal system and it should be respected.
"If anyone who wants to complain about human rights violations in Sri Lanka, whether its torture, whether it is rape... we have a system," he said.
"You all must respect the system of a country, the culture of a country."
As the Friday opening of the CHOGM approaches, global focus remains trained on Sri Lanka's civil war and alleged atrocities committed by both rebels and soldiers who, despite a sustained international outcry, have been spared from investigations and prosecutions since the war ended in 2009.
Sri Lanka, seeing the summit as a coming-out party after a long and costly civil war with the Tamil Tiger rebels, has tried to sidestep the controversy while busily building roads,
expanding its harbour, polishing monuments and gutting deprived areas.
The leaders of Canada and India are boycotting the summit.
Others have had to justify their plans to attend by promising to bring Sri Lanka's government to task.
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