Release of the shorter documentary coincides with the long anticipated publication of the worldwide war crimes investigation into the massacres, ordered by the United Nations Human Rights Council 18 months ago in Geneva.

Successive governments have promised to look into crimes committed by both sides during the 26-year conflict between government forces and separatist “Tamil Tiger” rebels.

On Wednesday, I will release the report of the comprehensive investigation that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) was mandated to conduct in March 2014, including my recommendations.

Within the new reconciliation commission, leaders from the island’s main religions would form a “Compassionate Council” to help victims “discover the truth, understand what happened and help remedy any sense of injustice”.

“A TNA delegation, as such, might be sent after reading the High Commissioner’s report and the Lankan government’s response to it. The task of Sumanthiran and his team of lawyers will be to examine the High Commissioner’s report and the Lankan government’s reply, and chalk out a line on which the TNA leadership will base its final decision”, Senathirajah said.

“Its findings are of the most serious nature”, Zeid said.

A copy of the report has already been delivered to Sri Lanka, where a new administration is in power after elections last month.

The presentation of the report was deferred until September by the UNHRC as a goodwill gesture towards the government of Maithripala Sirisena who succeeded Mahinda Rajapaksa as the President of Sri Lanka in January 2015.

“But this council owes it to Sri Lankans and for its own credibility to ensure an accountability process that produces results and decisively moves beyond the failures of the past to bring in institutional needs to guarantee no recurrence”, Zeid said. “We realise how important this is to prevent impunity not only for violations of human rights but for corruption and other crimes”, he said.