Despite the horrific human rights violations the Sri Lankan government is committing against the Tamil civilians in its war to wipe out the LTTE, a visiting British Member of Parliament belonging to the British Conservative party claimed that President Mahinda Rajapakse’s regime needs support not criticism.
The Sri Lankan government needs help not condemnation as it grapples with the current military conflict, Liam Fox, told reporters and added that a special fund with the help of international partners must be set up to help the Sri Lankan government in handling the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the war ravaged areas in the Northern and Eastern provinces.
In 1997 as a minister of the then British government, Fox brokered a bi-partisan agreement with Sri Lanka's main political parties as means to end the Tamil minority conflict in the island. Fox's remarks came after his meeting with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse on Friday, March 13.
Tamil political analysts said that the pro-government stance taken by Fox, was disappointing when Sri Lankan government has unleashed a genocidal war on the Tamils, instead offering a political solution to the long dragging ethnic conflict.
Conservative Members of European Parliament (MEPs) also took a very pro-Sri Lanka stance during the EU parliament debate on Sri Lanka last week.
British Conservative MEP and Chairman of the 'Friends of Sri Lanka Group' Geoffrey van Orden told the European parliament that "the LTTE is now in a desperate end game and, typically in such situations, is turning to international apologists to get it off the hook.
He further rejected claims that Sri Lanka was killing innocent Tamil civilians stating: "We cannot support amendments to the resolution before us based on unattributable and often nonsensical allegations or selective quotation from one NGO report. And we have no good reason to dispute the Government's firm assertion that its troops have not fired on no-fire zones and nor will they".
"The greatest service all in this House can do is call on the LTTE to lay down its arms and to release the civil population from its grip.” Geoffrey van Orden added.
Another British Conservative MEP Charles Tannock, who is the Conservative Foreign Affairs Spokesman, told the European parliament: "we should be resolute in our support for President Rajapaksa and his efforts to end an insurgency that has brought untold human misery to Sri Lanka and severely retarded economic development on that beautiful island.”
Tannock further said that he wanted to see ‘the comprehensive defeat of the LTTE and a peaceful, just and multi-ethnic Sri Lanka established in its place’.
