Remove war crimes tag from Sri Lanka: Lord Naseby

In a House of Lords debate last Thursday on Sri Lanka initiated by Lord Naseby extracts from confidential reports by the British Defence Attache in Colombo put to bed exaggerated figures on the number of civilians killed in the last months of the war against the LTTE and the accusation that Sri Lanka deliberately killed Tamil civilians.

Lord Naseby had to struggle against officialdom to get the information on the reports sent to the Fo r e i g n and Commonwealth Office even after invoking the Freedom of Information law.

What he eventually managed to get from the FCO were heavily redacted reports sent by Lt. Col Anton Gash who was the British Defence Attache during the last months of the war.

Even though many pages had been deleted from the several reports sent by Lt. Col Gash they tell a different story from the ones made public by human rights activists and critics of Sri Lanka.

Lord Naseby who had worked in Sri Lanka several decades ago and often defended Sri Lanka in many previous debates, read out brief quotations from the Gash reports that go counter to information circulated by the Tamil diaspora and Tamil activists among others.

In one report the Defence Attache states: “It is not possible to distinguish civilians from LTTE cadres as few are in uniform”.

Then, from February 16 he reported that IDPs were being cared for in Trincomalee. Welfare appears to be overriding security considerations”.

Then again on 20 January the report says: “no cluster munitions were used”, and on 26 April, “civilians killed Feb 1- April 26—6432”.

Speaking at the debate Lord Naseby said: "I hope and pray that, as a result of this debate, the UK will recognise the truth that no one in the Sri Lankan Government ever wanted to kill Tamil civilians. Furthermore, the UK must now get the UN and the UNHCR in Geneva to accept a civilian casualty level of 7,000 to 8,000, not 40,000. On top of that, the UK must recognise that this was a war against terrorism, so the rules of engagement are based on international humanitarian law, not the European Convention on Human Rights. The West, and in particular the US and UK, must remove the threat of war crimes and foreign judges that overhangs and overshadows all Sri Lankans, especially their leaders. We in the UK should reflect on the sacrifices of thousands of young Sri Lankan soldiers who died to create peace in that country. Finally, I reflect that Sri Lanka came to our need in two world wars and had casualties, and it was one of just a handful of countries who supported the UK over the Falklands. Now is the time to offer the hand of friendship and act to lead the international community to recognise what the truth really was." Replying to the debate the Minister of State Foreign and Commonwealth Office Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon said that as stated by several members Sri Lanka has made progress in meeting some of the commitments agreed to in the UN Human Rights Council resolutions.

"The contributions across the Chamber reflected the fact that challenges remain, but the tone and content of all the contributions, without exception, also threw a very positive light— rightly so—on the positive steps have been taken recently in Sri Lanka."

"However, as my noble friend Lord Sheikh underlined in his thoughtful contribution, despite the progress we should not forget that there is more still to do. As I have already illustrated, we welcome the progress made by the Sri Lankan Government to address the legacy of conflict and to promote reconciliation across all Sri Lanka’s communities. I also underline that the UK Government are fully supportive of those efforts, but it is clear that the Sri Lankan Government need to do much more—a view echoed in the UN High Commissioner’s report."

(Please see wwwsundaytimes. lk for the text on the full debate)