LTTE SHOULD IMMEDIATELY PUT
DOWN THEIR ARMS AND COME FOR NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE SRI LANKA GOVERNMENT-Lord
Naseby
By Walter Jayawardhana
Lord Naseby , senior member of the House of Lords said in London that
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) should immediately lay down
arms and start negotiations with the government without causing further
bloodshed.
He made this statement to this correspondent after visiting a photo
exhibition organized by the Sri Lankans Against Terrorism with the help
of the Presidential Media Unit and the Sri Lanka High Commission in
London.
He said, “My message to them is there is nothing to fight; seeking
peace is the most wanted thing for all the people in Sri Lanka at the
moment.. So, lay down your arms and go to peace negotiations with the
Sri Lanka government.”
He said he was glad and impressed about the photo exhibition and wanted
to thank the London High Commissioner, Nihal Jayasinghe of Sri Lanka
for putting together an exhibition of “true photos” and he
hoped and wished the British public would visit it and have a true picture
of what is happening in this country as a result of terrorism.
He said exhibitions of this nature would help erase the wrong picture
created in the minds of some people that it was the Tamils who were
being harassed when in reality it is the other way about. The truth
is everybody opposed to the LTTE is harassed, he said.
Commenting about another exhibition separately to the Tamil Net on
19th July 2008 Lord Naseby said, in contrast, the British Tamil Forum
organized photo exhibition could be called “Tamil Eelam propaganda”
“too dated.”
Speaking earlier at the inaugural ceremony of the exhibition Lord Naseby
said he knows in and out of Sri Lanka so well that even some Sri Lankans
have not gone to places where he had traveled. He said he first went
to the country in 1953.
He said the exhibition opened at Center One Hall on Chadwick Hall depicting
the atrocities of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was “timely”
and “moving.”
Lord Naseby said in the past there had been some discrimination regarding
language and economic opportunities in Sri Lanka but now all those wrongs
have been put to right and there be no need to fight.
Lord Naseby said in the United Kingdom as well as in other parts of
the world LTTE is banned. Therefore, he said, there should’nt be
funds collected for them openly or by underhand methods. No rallies
also should be held for them since they are illegal, he added.
He said by liberating the Eastern Province where all three communities
live in equal ratios and where the problems could have become very complex
the Sri Lanka government has devolved power to a provincial council
that runs well.
Lord Naseby said when he makes the next trip to Sri Lanka he hoped
everything could come to normalcy and the same level of development
equal to that of the Eastern Province would have started in the now
war ravaged North.
More than 230 photos and video films depicting atrocities carried out
by the LTTE including political killings as well as killing of civilians,
damage to properties, suicide attacks, and recruitment of child soldiers
were exhibited at the exhibition.
Two more photo exhibitions followed by this are scheduled in Hague
on 27 and 28 October and in Paris on 30 and 31.
London's Sri Lanka's High Commissioner, Nihal Jayasinhe speaking at
the ceremony said, the island nation's development process has been
turned back by twenty years due to terrorism. When Singapore became
independent they wanted to emulate Colombo. But today, one should see
how far Singapore has gone, he said.
|
