Britain’s concern is civilian lives and misery’

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband commentig on the latest situation in Sri Lanka during a statement to the House of Commons on Tuesday 19 May said, “Our (Britain) concern has never been whether it was right to defeat the LTTE. The issue has been the price in lives and the future in terms of reconciliation.

He added, “We may never know exact numbers but thousands of innocent civilians have died, hundreds of thousands made homeless and confined to camps, caught up in a system which continues to restrict access to the international humanitarian agencies. For many, many people, the misery continues.”

“Our primary concern remains the immediate humanitarian crisis and the long-term political and economic peace and stability of Sri Lanka.”

Miliband said that Britain continued to work with international partners to urge the Government of Sri Lanka to do all that it could to protect their citizens, minimise the risk of casualties and allow the UN and other international agencies access to the conflict area to oversee the possible surrender of the LTTE and the evacuation of the civilians.  We also called on the LTTE to lay down their weapons and release the civilians.  Tragically, these calls did not prevent the loss of many lives, Miliband said in his statement.
 
Adding to that he said, though the Sri Lankan government does not have the resources to cope, it has not yet offered international aid agencies unrestricted access to the camps.  He said this can create humanitarian crisis and fuel the resentment of the Internally Displaced People (IDPs).

Miliband further said that the lasting peace can only come when all communities in Sri Lanka believe that they are accepted and valued members of society. But he pointed that there are many entrenched attitudes and resentments that would make the reconciliation difficult.  

Meanwhile Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Tuesday that he had urged Sri Lanka’s president to ensure thousands of people displaced due to the conflict receive humanitarian aid.

Mr Brown said he had spoken to President Mahinda Rajapakse by telephone ‘in the last day’ and also called on him to involve Tamils in an inclusive political future for the country.

“I have offered humanitarian aid but asked him to ensure that displaced persons are given the humanitarian aid that they need urgently,” Mr Brown said at his monthly news conference.

“This is potentially a humanitarian problem of very high proportions, there are large numbers of displaced persons. I believe it is the duty of the Sri Lankan government to show that all the needs of all the people are being taken into account,” he added.

Mr Brown also said that he told President Rajapakse to begin a political process for involving the Tamil people and other communities in his country.

Statement:
 
I would like to inform the House about the latest situation in Sri Lanka.

On 19 May, the Sri Lankan President formally announced that on 18 May military forces had retaken all the territory once held by the LTTE and that they had captured or killed the senior leadership of that organisation. Many Sri Lankans of all communities, Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim, will be relieved that the long and brutal conflict may at last be over. Sri Lanka has before it an historic opportunity to resolve the underlying causes of the conflict and ensure a lasting peace. We must continue to work with Sri Lanka’s Government and all its communities to ensure that this opportunity is taken and that it leads to a sustainable end to the conflict.

Our concern has never been whether it was right to defeat the LTTE. The issue has been the price in lives and the future in terms of reconciliation. We may never know exact numbers but thousands of innocent civilians have died, hundreds of thousands made homeless and confined to camps, caught up in a system which continues to restrict access to the international humanitarian agencies. For many, many people, the misery continues.

Our primary concern remains the immediate humanitarian crisis and the long-term political and economic peace and stability of Sri Lanka. We have continued to work with international partners in the EU, UN, and G8 to urge the Government of Sri Lanka to do all that it could to protect their citizens, minimise the risk of casualties and allow the UN and other international agencies access to the conflict area to oversee the possible surrender of the LTTE and the evacuation of the civilians.  We also called on the LTTE to lay down their weapons and release the civilians.  Tragically, these calls did not prevent the loss of many lives.

I welcome the assurance given to me by Foreign Minister Bogollogama yesterday that the UN and NGOs will now be able to enter the former conflict zone to provide whatever support is still needed.  I would like to pay tribute to the courage of the staff of the ICRC and others who continued to try and deliver food, water and medical supplies into the conflict zone at enormous risk to themselves. Undoubtedly, their bravery in the face of great danger saved the death toll from being higher.

Although the territorial conflict seems to be over, the grave humanitarian crisis continues to unfold.  Some 250,000 civilians who have fled the fighting are either being processed by the Government of Sri Lanka to ensure that they are not escaping LTTE members, or are being held in camps.

The Government does not have the resources to cope, but it has not yet offered international aid agencies unrestricted access to the camps.  This risks exacerbating the humanitarian crisis and fuelling the resentment of the Internally Displaced People (IDPs).  We urge the Government of Sri Lanka to allow full and unhindered access to the camps where the IDPs remain in urgent need of shelter, food, water, and medicine. The Government of Sri Lanka has also already committed to resettle 80% of IDPs before the end of this year.  This will be a difficult task.

We and others in the international community stand ready to assist the Government of Sri Lanka to meet these humanitarian challenges. The Department for International Development has recently announced an additional £5 million of humanitarian funding for Sri Lanka, bringing our total contribution to the humanitarian relief effort to £12.5 million since September 2008. We will channel this funding through the UN and other humanitarian agencies.

We urge the Government of Sri Lanka to use the opportunity of the visits by the UN Secretary General’s Chief of Staff Vijay Nambiar and the UN Secretary General himself later this week, to recognise that the UN has a central role to play, both in the delivery of humanitarian aid and in encouraging the process of political reconciliation that must be an integral part of rebuilding Sri Lanka’s civil society.

Lasting peace can only come when all communities in Sri Lanka believe that they are accepted and valued members of society.  We recognise that the process of political reconciliation will not be easy.  There are many entrenched attitudes and resentments. Sri Lankan people from all communities, working on the basis of mutual respect and equality, need to agree the way forward.

On 18 May my Rt Hon Friend the Prime Minister urged President Rajapakse to be magnanimous in victory.  I repeated the message to the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister the same day, saying that whatever process emerged, it needed to be inclusive and based on equality. We welcome the President’s statement to the Sri Lankan Parliament on 19 May that he will embark on an inclusive political process involving all communities on the basis of equality and absence of fear.

I endorse the conclusions reached at the European Council on 18 May calling for alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law to be investigated through an independent inquiry and for those accountable to be brought to justice. This could play an important role in the post-conflict reconciliation process.

The continuing focus of this Government’s activity over the coming days and weeks, will be to work with international partners in encouraging the Sri Lankan Government to devote as much energy to winning the peace as it did to winning the war.