Mr. Samaraweera made it clear that “like other government agencies,” the OMP would be able to secure technical and financial assistance from abroad. Says it will not be a law-enforcement agency and it won't make judgments on disputes. “Many other such bodies around the world use foreign experts and it would be self-defeating not to benefit from their expertise,” he said, expressing the hope that obtaining foreign technical assistance would, in the long run, help to build the capacity of locals in areas such as forensics. The funding would be completely transparent and audited by the Auditor-General. “The bill explicitly prevents any conflict of interest,” he said, referring to Mr. Rajapaksa’s contention that the members would essentially be representatives of Western-funded NGOs or those who had worked with Western-sponsored international war crimes tribunals.

Source: The Hindu August 01, 2016 13:18 UTC