Hon Speaker, hon members, as far as we know there are no such investigations taking place and, thus our government is therefore not being requested to contribute towards such investigations.
What we do know as the government of South Africa is that the United Nations Secretary-General appointed, on 22 June 2010, a three-member United Nations Panel of Experts to advise him on accountability issues relating to alleged violations of international human rights and humanitarian law during the final stages of the Sri Lankan conflict.
The panel, which consists of Mr Marzuki Darusman, an Indonesian who is also chairperson of the panel, Ms Yasmin Sooka, a South African, and Mr Steven Ratner of the United States, officially commenced its work on 16 September 2010. The deadline date for submissions in this regard was set at 31 December 2010.
As of March this year, we are aware that a Sri Lankan government delegation met with the UN panel in New York. The UN panel was expected to issue its report to the United Nations Secretary-General, but decided to postpone the issuance of the report by two to three weeks.
Once again, may I state that we are not aware of any investigation of war crimes in Sri Lanka. We know and respect the work of the Advisory Panel as established by the UN and we thus await the panel's report. I thank you.