Naseby’s call doesn’t reflect UK’s stand – HC
Posted on December 5th, 2017
by Shamindra Ferdinando
December 5, 2017, 10:34 pm
The British High Commission has declared that Lord Naseby’s recent statement in the House of Lords pertaining to accountability issues in Sri Lanka doesn’t reflect UK’s stand.
The British HC said so in response to The Island query whether the BHC had discussions with the Foreign Ministry here or the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) as regards Lord Naseby’s call for reviewing Geneva Resolution 30/1. The following is the text of the BHC statement: “Lord Naseby was not speaking for the British Government when speaking recently in a debate in the House of Lords. As a Member of Parliament he is entitled to express his own views.”
“A point that has not been in dispute in all that has been written and said since Lord Naseby spoke is that many thousands of civilians died during the conflict. We continue to encourage the Sri Lankan Government to implement the commitments it gave and which are set out in UNHRC resolution 30/1 and reaffirmed in UNHRC resolution 34/1, including the undertaking to establish a truth-seeking commission. Resolution 30/1 emphasises the importance of a comprehensive approach to dealing with the past, incorporating the full range of judicial and non-judicial measures, including truth-seeking. The resolution affirms that the commitments given, if implemented fully and credibly, will help to achieve reconciliation. Achieving reconciliation is in the clear interests of every community in Sri Lanka.”
Lord Naseby urged UK to take up Sri Lanka’s issue with Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). The Conservative member called for amending the Resolution on the basis that 40,000 hadn’t been killed in the Vanni offensive and of the 7,000-8,000 killed, one fourth were LTTE cadres. Naseby also declared that the then government hadn’t deliberately targeted civilians
December 5th, 2017 at 3:06 pm
The British High Commission should understand the question here. Lord Naseby was not talking about the UK’s stand. But he is talking about the realistic figure of people killed during the Vanni offensive.
A typical British Bluffing.
December 5th, 2017 at 7:56 pm
Our thanks to Lord Naseby for speaking the truth.
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Divide & Rule peoples recipe for Yahap :
Cause Confusion through false promises >> Crash & Sell through Foreign Agent RW
December 6th, 2017 at 3:50 am
British politicians are the worst. They will never let its ancient colonies to develop and be idependent and sovereign. They will want to keep the former colonies as their subject nations. This stupid Yahapalanaya has not understood it as they have a real slave mentality. We should stop further reconciliation until the Sinhala and Muslim are resettled in the North and East. For that we should retain the Military Camps and the lands that had been acquired for defense purposes.
December 6th, 2017 at 5:14 am
Does the BHC imply that lord Nesby is lying?or the British government is lying,its got to be the latter as lord nesby got his facts and figures from the British government itself.
December 6th, 2017 at 8:01 am
We need a Truth seeking Commission of Inquiry on the period of Western Colonial occupation of Sri Lanka commencing from the landing of the Portuguese in Colombo in year 1505 until the inglorious exit of the last colonial rulers i.e. the British, from our land in 1948.
Sri Lanka cannot move forward seeking a new destiny until we come to terms with our past – the past that shackled this country for nearly 450 years. No period in the country’s 2500 year history has had such a tumultuous and adverse impact on Lanka’s society and its people as the period of time under foreign western domination. It is a dark chapter.
The colonial history of Sri Lanka is a thorny issue. The sense of historical injustice is deep – seated in the psyche of our people. The seeds of separation of our people on grounds of either ethnicity or religion were first planted in colonial controlled territory. The facts are there in black and white written by their own foreign historians.
Local historian Paul E. Peiris observes:
” They ( the Portuguese) found in Ceylon a contented race, and a fairly prosperous country …..
Their bequest to the Dutch was a colony of half -castes, a failing agriculture, a depopulated country, and a miserable and ill – conditioned people… They had in Ceylon an opportunity almost unique in the experience of European nations in the East, but their moral fibre had proved unequal to the occasion…”
The purpose of researching history is not to stir hatred. It is to bring to surface hard facts to prevent history being distorted or manipulated and historical wrongs and injustices denied to serve ulterior purposes.
If those who destroyed the time honoured Buddhist citadel and shrine at Kelaniya in 1575 and the unique Buddhist – Hindu Temple at Devundara in 1587 followed by the mass destruction of over four hundred temples and four seats of Buddhist learning, had got hold of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa, one can imagine what the religious and cultural status of this country would have been?
A Public Commission of Inquiry to investigate all aspects of the western colonial period with a Report to set the record straight is a sine qua non. Does Sri Lanka have claims for compensation in international law from our former colonial rulers? This is an area that must be explored by the best legal minds in this country if necessary with foreign legal input.
The campaigns for Human Rights which have their origin in western countries is increasingly been seen as a strategy adopted by former colonial countries to distract world attention from their own accountability for centuries of plunder, war crimes, mass murder, religious and ethnic cleansing, forcible conversion, and theft of cultural artifacts and the like in poor third world countries, and instead to point an accusing finger at leaders of newly independent countries struggling to find their feet and feed their people.
Coming to terms with our past and crimes committed against our people by members of the White Race(s) i.e. Portuguese, Dutch and English, is a test of maturity. Sri Lanka though small in geographical size has shown the rest of the world right through our history that we are bigger than our boots. So should it be. We can awaken the rest of Asia with exemplary steps not necessarily confined to the economic sphere. We can be a source of light in areas that many Asian leaders without backbone and sepoy mindset fear to enter.