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A former Sri Lankan defense chief who is a front-runner in next month's presidential election said Tuesday that if he wins, he won't recognize an agreement the government made with the U.N. human rights council to investigate alleged war crimes during the nation's civil war.
If Gotabaya Rajapaksa wins the Nov. 16 election and follows through with his comments, it would be a severe setback to Sri Lanka's post-war reconciliation process.
"We will always work with the United Nations, but I can't recognize what they have signed" with past Sri Lankan governments, Rajapaksa said at a news conference.
"We have already rejected that, as a party we have rejected that agreement and in public we have rejected that. ... On this issue, our policies and the present government policies are far apart."
Rajapaksa was the top defense official during the civil war, which ended in 2009, serving under his brother, then-President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Under their watch, Sri Lankan forces were accused of targeting hospitals and killing civilians and rebels who surrendered to the military at the end of the war.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa is accused by opponents of being behind men in mysterious vehicles whisking away rebel suspects, journalists and activists. Many people taken away in the so-called "white van abductions" were never seen again.
In 2015, current President Maithripala Sirisena's government agreed with the U.N. rights body to probe human rights in Sri Lanka as well as possible war crimes allegations.
According to conservative U.N. estimates, some 100,000 people were killed in the 26-year civil war. But a later U.N. report said that some 40,000 civilians may have been killed in the final months of the fighting alone.