{"id":97628,"date":"2020-01-11T15:59:45","date_gmt":"2020-01-11T22:59:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=97628"},"modified":"2020-01-11T15:59:45","modified_gmt":"2020-01-11T22:59:45","slug":"lord-nasebys-effort-to-put-the-records-right-on-the-tamil-tiger-war-has-been-unrelenting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/01\/11\/lord-nasebys-effort-to-put-the-records-right-on-the-tamil-tiger-war-has-been-unrelenting\/","title":{"rendered":"Lord Naseby\u2019s effort to put the records right on the Tamil Tiger war has been unrelenting"},"content":{"rendered":"

07\/01\/20 Lord Naseby in the Queens Speech debate in the UK House of Lords<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

My Lords, for 23\nyears, I was a Member of Parliament for the marginal seat of Northampton South.\nWhat a joy it is to see the majority in that marginal seat move from 1,000 to\n4,400\u2014it quadrupled. The reason for that was not just what was done on the\nground but a reflection of the British people\u2019s faith in the determination and\nleadership of our Prime Minister. I pay particular tribute to him for what he\nhas done for our country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also 23 years\nthat I have been in your Lordships\u2019 House, on the Back Benches. In that time, I\nhave taken an interest in south Asia and a specific interest in a country that\nI first worked in when I had nothing to do with politics, which was then called\nCeylon. It is a great friend of this country. Thousands of its people were\nkilled over the two world wars. It was one of the few countries to speak up in\nour favour over the Falklands. It faced a huge problem of a quasi 30-year war\nagainst the Tamil Tigers, which became a real war on 1 January 2009, covered by\nthe international humanitarian law conditions, and lasted until 18\nMay. I have in my possession the heavily redacted reports from Colonel Gash\ndescribing what happened on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A year after that, the\nUN decided to set up a three-man mission to investigate. It did not take\nevidence on the ground in Sri Lanka but asked for submissions to be made. Those\nsubmissions have never been made public and are covered by a 30-year rule, so nobody\nknows what they really were. However, the UN slowly took a greater interest in\nwhat was happening in Sri Lanka and the net result was that, in March 2012, it\nset up a body under the UNHCR that is chaired today by the United Kingdom. Its\nrole is to promote reconciliation and accountability in Sri Lanka\u2014I make no\nargument about that. However, this has to happen in the context of the\nsovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It started in March\n2012 and here we are, eight years further on. Has Sri Lanka co-operated? Yes.\nSome 90% of the land that was used by the military during the war has been\ngiven back to the private sector. De-mining has nearly ended, with a big thank\nyou to all involved. Around 300,000 people have been rehoused since the war.\nInfrastructure has been restored, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have one further\npoint. There are complaints about torture. I have seen the ICRC three times and\nasked it whether it has seen torture in Sri Lanka. Every time, the answer has\nbeen clear: no. It is fake news. Today, there is a shadow. That is the claim that\nthe UN started with\u2014of 40,000 killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have spent 10 years\nlooking at the reports by Gash and the Tamil university teachers, at the census\nand at all the coverage I could find. The net result is about 6,000 people\nkilled, of which a quarter are Tamil Tigers. Despite all this, we now find that\nthe UNHCR has decided that it wants to try to get war crimes pinned on the Sri\nLankan army. Yet the reports of Colonel Gash made it clear that that army\nbehaved admirably and looked after the civilians. If it had wanted to knock\nthem off, then over 295,000 would not have been safely brought across the\nlines, would they? I believe that the time has come for the March review, when\nit takes place, to be the wind-up time for that phase of life in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We now have two new\nleaders: one here in the UK full of drive, determination and commitment; there\nis an almost identical philosophy in the newly elected Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a\nman of proven leadership and ability, with an agenda to keep the peace and have\nan inclusive policy for minorities, et cetera. I see huge opportunities for\ntrade. My noble friend Lord Sheikh raised some of them and I concur. There is a\nhuge opportunity, but only if the UNHCR project is wound up. I say to this\nHouse and to my noble friend on the Front Bench that this is the year for the\nUK to have faith in Sri Lanka and its newly elected executive President.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the\nsame Queens Speech debate, Lord <\/strong>Mohamed Sheikh: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I have spoken on\nseveral occasions, and led a debate in your Lordships\u2019 House, on the importance\nof the Commonwealth. I shall speak particularly on one Commonwealth country:\nSri Lanka. Britain has vibrant Sri Lankan communities which have made enormous\ncontributions to this country. Sri Lanka\u2019s location at the heart of the Indian Ocean\nmeans it is uniquely positioned to serve as a regional centre for trade and\nservices. The World Bank has recently classified Sri Lanka as an upper\nmiddle-income country. FTAs are in place with India, Pakistan and Singapore.\nComprehensive trade agreements are also being negotiated with China, Thailand\nand Bangladesh. It is worth noting that businesses based in Sri Lanka can\nmarket their products and services to 3.5 billion people on preferential terms.\nThrough the Port City Colombo project, Sri Lanka is creating a new\ninternational financial centre that will function under its own jurisdiction.\nWill the Government be providing expertise or facilitating the adoption of an\nEnglish legal framework for this region? I would like to see us investing more\nin Sri Lanka and expanding our trade with that country.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

07\/01\/20 Lord Naseby in the Queens Speech debate in the UK House of Lords My Lords, for 23 years, I was a Member of Parliament for the marginal seat of Northampton South. What a joy it is to see the majority in that marginal seat move from 1,000 to 4,400\u2014it quadrupled. The reason for that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97628\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}