UK issues stern warning to Colombo

The British government has issued a stern warning to Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse that "the world is watching and waiting" for the island nation to make a "bold" leap towards peace. The warning comes barely 72 hours after Colombo scrapped the tattered 2002 ceasefire with Tamil rebels.

Calling for a new ceasefire, foreign office minister Kim Howells issued the warning to Colombo during a special parliamentary adjournment debate requested by MPs anxious about the deteriorating situation after fighting between government troops and LTTE militants escalated in recent weeks.

The British government's rap on Sri Lankan knuckles came just hours after UK MPs, members of the European Parliament and leading politicians across party lines met members of the British Tamil community to discuss the plight of their friends and relatives in the embattled north and east of Sri Lanka.

Cautioning Rajpakse against a too-hasty and ill-judged attempt to sideline Tamil representatives by failing to invite them onto the powerful All Party Representative Committee (APRC), which will recommend a devolution package a week from now, Howells said it was a "big mistake".

He added that the president's refusal to invite the Tamil National Alliance onto the APRC did not bode well for Rajapakse's promise to "take the necessary bold steps to put an end to dashed hopes and aspirations and lost opportunities".

The warning came even as Sri Lanka's former colonial master reminded the world of the crying need for Colombo to "address the grievances of the Tamil people" in the 60th anniversary-year of independence.

The minister insisted that the Sri Lankan government, which had ended the ceasefire, consequently bore "a heavy responsibility to deliver their commitment to produce a just political solution that satisfies the legitimate aspirations of all Sri Lankans. That must happen soon."

The strong UK statement came as MPs across party lines, including Liberal Democrat president Simon Hughes, Labour's David Kidney, Andrew Love and Paul Murphy and Conservatives Clifton Brown and Lee Stark, expressed grave concern about the deteriorating situation in Sri Lanka.

The minister said that the withdrawal of the Sri Lanka monitoring mission "can only add to deep concern about the human rights and humanitarian situation in Sri Lanka".

Pointing out that after a recent visit to Sri Lanka, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed "alarm at the weakness of the rule of law and the prevalence of impunity for those abusing human rights", Howells said the UNHCR had "criticized the absence of credible systems of public accountability for the vast majority of these deplorable incidents and the general lack of confidence in the ability of existing government institutions to safeguard against the most serious human rights abuses".

In what many described as one of the strongest nudges from the British parliament to Colombo urgently to pay heed to Tamil problems, the minister pointed out that "Tamils argue that the military pursuit of self-determination is generated by a sense of despair that their grievances will never be addressed in a united Sri Lanka."

MP Simon Hughes criticized Sri Lankan government forces for the "absolutely unacceptable" practice of being "actively involved in forcibly recruiting children", even as Paul Murphy of the governing Labour Party urged muscular international interventionism.

Earlier, on the very day Colombo formally abrogated the ceasefire agreement, the parliamentary meeting organised by the British Tamils Forum (BTF) and chaired by Goan-origin Labour MP Keith Vaz drew parallels between the Tamil plight and the Rwandan genocide, Darfur killings and Bosnian ethnic cleansing.

Gareth Thomas, parliamentary undersecretary of state at the Department for International Development, told the Tamils his government regretted Colombo's decision to walk away from the peace process and that London suspended aid payments to Sri Lanka last year because of growing concerns about human rights abuses by government forces.

BTF spokesman Suren Surendiran alleged that Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe is violating his people's human rights sans international assistance but the Rajapakse government was "abusing the Tamils fundamental human rights and killing innocent Tamil civilians with the aid and assistance from the international community."

Source: Times of India